Outsourcing App Dev Requires Strong Partnership with Providers
Companies shouldn’t shy away from outsourcing app dev, but be sure providers 'sit on the same side of the table.'
I’ve written before that application development outsourcing has been on the downturn, largely because of the recession and painful economy. For several years, application development was the most popular form of outsourcing, according to market research and analytics firm Computer Economics. But when Computer Economics surveyed companies late last year, hiring service providers to develop new systems and applications was losing favor.
Back when I wrote that blog, I said it was a bad idea for companies to but the brakes on new IT initiatives. Luckily, some service providers are evolving to make it more palatable to do so. How? Rather than make and charge for one-time deals, or even multi-year deals, in which the provider designs and builds an IT system or new application and moves on, some providers are becoming full-fledged partners with their clients. They make money on new systems they’ve designed for their clients when those clients make money from those new systems.
One such provider doing this is Symphony Services. Founded in 2002, the Palo Alto, Calif., company is a full-service product engineering firm that does everything from software development and embedded systems development to consulting. A few weeks ago, I spoke with Jerry Smith, CTO for Symphony Services.
Smith believes application and software development outsourcing will gain momentum, largely because fewer and fewer companies have the IT staff on hand to initiate and manage those projects and because more and more companies need software development skills that exceed the capabilities of their current IT ranks.
“This is emerging,” Smith said during an interview we had over the phone earlier this month. “On the enterprise information services side, we see less skilled software engineers trying to do software, and the result is that the software isn’t commercial grade. The quality of the product isn’t good, it isn’t scaling. There are questions about whether the company can move the application to the cloud, about whether even more capabilities can now be added to it.” (As an aside, Smith says this change is also forcing new responsiblities on the executive IT management team – he says the CIO is dead, and what companies need are CITOs: the combination of a CIO and a CTO that understands the information/data supply chain and has the strong technology background needed to build strong systems).
Symphony Services will work with an organization to help them come up with the ideas and designs for new applications and systems, and then leverage its 4,000-strong software development team spread across India, China, Europe and the United States to build and implement the applications and systems.
Partnering with a application development outsourcer enables a company to focus not on software, but on its core strengths. That’s why Russound, a maker of audio accessories, engaged Symphony Services. “They never thought of themselves as a software company. They are a hardware company,” Smith told me.
When looking at applications and systems development outsourcers, companies need to be sure and consider innovation—and how it’s fostered and rewarded—both within their organizations and by the prospective providers. Another key question: how does the service provider ensure and measure availability and reliability of services.
Previous Post: The Outsourcing Market Is Looking UpbeatNext Post: What Google vs. China Says About Security and Offshore Outsourcing
Most Discussed Posts
Cloud computing has emerged as one of the most significant game changers to hit the technology landscape in the past 20 years. With this massive expansion of the cloud, the perception of the IT organization is shifting from a utility player to a change agent. This eBook breaks down five ways progressive organizations are using cloud-based IT Management solutions to help drive innovation and become more strategic, including: adding visibility and analytics, speeding up time-to-value, lowering costs, improving prioritization, and providing a blueprint for future cloud deployments.
Read the white paper to see how IBM helped Citigroup deliver new services and enhancements to their 200 million customers faster.
There are 3 ways to modernize legacy applications: rewrite completely, acquire packaged solutions or migrate existing code. This paper explains why it's best to migrate and how IBM® Rational® software can help.
Accommodating specific lines of business can result in a hybrid ecosystem of applications and servers. The resulting complexity of this architecture makes for an environment that is costly to maintain and difficult to change when addressing new challenges.
This whitepaper will help you to define a mobile device passcode policy. Security managers must attempt to reconcile two opposing goals. They must: 1) create a passcode policy that is strong enough to protect the device if it is lost or stolen, while: 2) not annoying users with needless length or complexity.
This whitepaper, authored by The Radicati Group, looks at the key reasons organizations should consider moving to a cloud-based archiving solution. Email archiving solutions enable organizations to store, monitor, and collect electronic data exchanged by their users to comply with internal policies and regulations.
ATERNITY will showcase a 30-minute demo on how Fortune 500 companies are leveraging its award-winning FPI Platform to deliver a user-centric approach to Proactive IT Management.
For businesses to move forward and tap into the ever-expanding universe of Internet users and network-enabled devices, it's critical to learn how to make the transition to IPv6. Learn the critical steps your organization must take to make a seamless transition-and keep your business world connected.
Learn how IT teams can protect against spear phishing tactics. Harry Sverdlove, chief technology officer of Bit9 offers a frank discussion about spear phishing - the most common technique used in today's advanced attacks.
Learn how to build a solid business case for your migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux so you can run leaner, innovate faster, be more flexible and own the New Now.
Social media isn't about you; it's about everything around you. As you consider how your customers want to communicate with you, social media is something that can't be ignored. But what should your strategy be? Is social media "just another channel?" What kind of a plan makes sense for your contact center and for your customers? Join our experts as they share their insight and research results.
Hardware tokens were a popular method of strong authentication in past years but the cumbersome provisioning and distribution tasks, high support requirements and replacement costs have limited their growth. The additional log-in steps that hardware tokens require and the resulting user frustrations have limited adoption and make them impractical for larger scale partner and customer applications.
Sponsored Links
