At M.R. Rangaswami's Software 2006 last week, I participated (merely as a facilitator) in a breakout session that included a number of companies currently outsourcing their software product development. Motorola, Microsoft, Openwave, Mirapoint, and Zinnov were the companies represented.
What's interesting today vs. just a few years ago is that it's not an issue of whether to outsource product development or not. It's a matter of with whom and where, and for what. There is a tremendous amount of competition for this work today -- several offshore product development outsourcers were not only present at Software 2006, but actually sponsors. This event can certainly be the kind of place where the outsourcers have a feeding frenzy. Software companies of all shapes and sizes, disciplines and focus are all in attendance.
So are there then any software companies today that are actually wondering whether they should outsource? I can't imagine it. In fact, if you take a look at the enterprise, virtually every Fortune 1000 company in America is looking at the same thing. These folks write a lot of their own software, and it's a significant cost to corporate America.
The battle for outsourced software development has begun. There are many, many players. The big guys have taken notice, and they're in the game too. It will be interesting to see which companies emerge as the leaders and winners. One thing to take notice of: Those that focus soley on software product development, as opposed to the others that outsource anything you might want to do (from business process to IT to Marketing to...) should have a leg up. Building software requires some highly refined processes and a significant amount of discipline. Focus should determine the winners.
Comments