Sunday, May 04, 2003

Global Software Manufacturing The global advantage With U.S. enterprises increasingly looking to offshore talent to reduce costs, the American programmer has become, in bottom-line speak, a fungible asset. As the globalization of software development unfolds all around us, it's clear that dollars-per-line-of-code is but one of the equation's variables. Other factors influencing this view include time to market, the speed with which project teams and resources can be assembled, and the rate at which tools and techniques can be transferred between offshore outfits and U.S and European companies. [Full story at InfoWorld.com] ... [via Jon's Radio] Jon has a good story -- a follow-up to an earlier story on a similar topic -- about the emerging trend towards more global outsourcing in IT, and how this is related to open source both in its materials (more and more outsourcing projects leveraging open source) and methodology (best-practices for distributed development based on learning from open source development).  Both of these trends form foundations for what I believe is an ongoing shift in the software manufacturing economy, and will play a big role for commercial software projects in the next 5-10 years.   Related anecdote.  I met with a venture investor recently who said that he demands in his term sheets that at least 50% of R&D expense be from overseas/outsourced development, and he says that growing in percentage.  One of our largest and fastest growing portfolio companies leverages out-of-country engineering as a significant competitive advantage.    10:29:05 PM    comment []