How To Choose Customized Software Development Company

The process of selecting customized software and development company that is able to provide acceptable time frame for software development and implementation can turn into a messy undertaking unless some simple are followed.

At first place, one should bear in mind that custom-made software usually requires a certain period of development and tailoring of the application even if the software developer have released similar products in the past. Organizations may have very similar requirements toward a business software application, nevertheless the use of different software and hardware platforms and third-party applications that form the corporate software environment may result in totally different approaches toward the implementation of a custom software solution. For example, an open-source application can be relatively painlessly customized to inter-operate and be compatible with other open-source solutions, while off the shelf applications rarely allow for change in their programming code for such purposes.

Thus, the implementation process depends on multiple factors that include software developer's professional background as well as the company's experience in dealing with various software and hardware platforms. Furthermore, a very complex process of determining the real needs and requirements toward a custom business software solution should take place before even thinking to start the implementation process. Therefore, one should look for a software development company that is capable to perform such a thorough test and come out with in-depth analysis of the respective customizations to be applied. For example, an applications that is customized to provide reliable service and handle company's book-keeping may for a particular firm, may not be working properly in different business environment where other accounting standards are used. The same applies to any software module which deals with data that may vary from company to company, or across various industries and regions.

The implementation of a custom-made software solutions requires not only proper due diligence and software development but also significant software testing efforts to make sure the applications is running smoothly and produces the desired outcome. Therefore, a customer should look at past software solutions released by the software vendor and conduct research on the customer feedback regarding those software applications. Of course, one should be aware that not all negative comments on the reliability and other aspects of an application’s performance should be taken seriously, and most reviews, both positive and negative must be taken with a pinch of salt. Nevertheless, the feedback from past and present customers is always helpful in the process of choosing a reliable software developer that specializes in the field of customized software solutions.

The cost of a solution is considered an essential factor when the matter in hand is to operate within a certain budget, which is a very common situation. The budget factor can be complex because the very nature of custom-made software solutions is to be more costly than their ready to use counterparts. A mass production solution is always cheaper, the basic axiom of economics says, therefore one should not compare the price of a tailored software applications and the price of a product intended for a broader audience, at first place. It makes sense, however, to compare the pricing of various software vendors before choosing one that provides the best price to quality ratio.

One have to explore as many options as are available in the market, bearing in mind that the cheapest solution available might prove costly in the long term due to additional customizations or other further software tweaks. Thus, a perfect choice would be a customized software development company that has both the experience in dealing with this particular type of software, which in addition provides affordable prices and enjoys good reputation among customers.

India Is Well-positioned to Win the Race in the Field of Custom Application Development

The boom of custom application development is a relatively new phenomenon, which occurred only after computer manufacturers have switched to non-embed software solutions and open-source software platforms gained popularity. Originally, software developers in emerging markets like India, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Latin and South America, have no access to software documentation required to develop a reliable custom-made solution based on licensed software. Following a series of court battles and overall change in market philosophy, however, today's software market allows for creation of virtually unlimited number of customized software solutions in every field of life.

These markets developments, for their part, allowed software developers and vendors across the world to compete on equal terms with large multinationals, with custom application developing now considered a major software market segment. New software development centers emerged, mainly in Asia/Pacific region and Central and Eastern Europe, where scores of gifted and well-educated software developers started making custom software to meet requirements of local markets, originally, before setting foot in new markets abroad. Thus, today's custom application development is often outsourced to software firms in these regions, with India leading the pack in the sphere of software outsourcing.

This is the big picture in the field of custom application development and it is well-documented in numerous reports and market research papers. A good number of analysts, however, tend to focus on obvious economic drivers that have led to this market situation, apparently underestimating other factors which influence today's market for custom-made software applications.

First of all, major educational hubs in the field are no more concentrated in Europe and the United States; India has managed to build a network of reputable educational institutions in the sphere of computer hardware and software, while Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union traditionally produce well-educated professionals in the field. Secondly, all and every student now has access to myriads of open-source software solutions from which to borrow ideas and functionality, or on the basis of which to build a customized software application. Free and open-source operating systems compete on equal terms with licensed rivals, thus opening the gate to creation of entirely custom-made solutions, from the underlying operating system to business software to applications for individual users. This, combined with lower labor costs in Asia/Pacific, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, made these regions major suppliers of customized software.

Some economic experts blame software outsourcing for loss of jobs in their respective country, urging adoption of legislation to protect local software developers. On the surface, there is sound economic logic in such an approach. An in-depth market analysis, however, would reveal that adoption of such restrictions shall only decrease competitiveness, resulting in higher business expenditures and regulated labor market, which does not stimulate positive economic development in the long run.

For example, India is leading world provider of custom application development services through outsourcing thanks to a combination of factors that are natural for a free-market economy; namely, well-educated software experts, lower labor costs, access to and investment into technologies, and development of research and development hubs, where large-scale projects can be completed on time. These are factors quite similar to the competitive advantages provided by the Silicon Valley in the early days of the software industry, minus the lower payroll costs.

Anyway, custom application development market cannot be re-shaped through administrative measures for good reasons; businesses around the world have need for reliable tailored applications and need them cheap. Thus, development of custom-made software is driven by the very same market forces that drive any other industry and outsourcing of custom application development to countries like India is an inevitable process whose roots can be traced to the basics of entrepreneurship: buy cheap, sell dear. To put it simply, custom application development is destined to flourish and countries like India are well positioned to grab even bigger market share in this lucrative market.

Client Server Application Development Is Prospering Business in India

Development of client server applications witnessed highs and lows during the years, and while it has been of the competence of software vendors based mainly in the West, a growing number of such applications are now developed in locations in Asia/Pacific region, mainly in India. India has emerged as world leader in the field of software outsourcing, or software off-shoring, including in the field of client server application development, which requires in-depth knowledge in the field of developing technologically advanced applications.

In the course of a few decades, India managed to develop highly effective educational institutions where future India's software developers are graduating and built impressive infrastructure to support the growth of the local IT industry. Thus, India's software developers are now able to provide world-class service, competing on equal terms with reputable software vendors in the West, which, however, are less competitive in terms of pricing, labor costs, and even preparedness to deal with large complex projects.

Client server applications are not necessarily programs that feature millions rows of software code; nevertheless software vendors outside the United States and Europe rarely took part in development of more advanced applications of this kind only a decade ago. The times have changed, however, and growing number of business customers outsource software applicationdevelopment to India-based companies, looking for a reliable yet affordable service. Local firms, in turn, gained invaluable knowledge in the process, allowing India's software vendors to claim contracts that previously have been won mostly by multinational software developers, mainly US-based.

In fact, India-based experts are behind some of the most technologically advanced R&D projects, enabling local software industry to gain first-hand experience in collaboration with world-leading universities, private and public organizations. In a continuous process of labor skill enhancement, local software developers and consultants reached a new stage in their business development, competing on equal terms with, or providing assistance to software behemoths that are behind some major operating systems or business software suites. Thus, India's software developing industry is not seeking recognition by the outside world, but is looking to set foot in new markets that now span the entire world.

India's strategic geographic location aside, the country successfully educated more than one generation of well-trained software specialists and concurrently developed the respective infrastructure to support their efforts to gain world dominance in the field of software outsourcing. Numerous start-ups grew into well-established enterprises in the course of a decade or so, creating the backbone of a flourishing software development and software consulting industry that is now able to produce viable results in virtually every niche, including client server application development.

India's major software development centers are located in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune, but smaller local IT hubs are developed across the country to support development of diversified software industry in other parts of India. The results of such a policy are easily visible, with growing number of foreign companies outsourcing software development or other IT activities to India-based firms, while the local market software market is also considered as underdeveloped, thus bearing huge growth potential. That said, the market for client server application development in India, both outsourced projects and applications intended for the booming local market, is to witness marked growth in the foreseeable future.

Major Factors Making Outsourcing of IT Application Development to India a Wise Move

Outsourcing of IT application development to India is becoming widespread among Western organizations looking for reliable service at affordable price, while local software developers and vendors now have reputation as providers of world-class service. In fact, India invested heavily in education, infrastructure, and development of software research facilities before local companies, and India's economy as a whole, have become able to benefit from development of software under contracts signed with customers based abroad. It took years, probably decades, to build the necessary infrastructure allowing for uninterrupted Internet access, to develop educational institutions capable to train well-educated software experts and those professionals to gain the first-hand experience required to take part in complex and sophisticated projects on equal terms.

At present, Asia/Pacific region is leader in the field of software outsourcing services, also called software off-shoring, while India is the world's undisputed leader in this industry, accounting for more than a third of all software outsourcing contracts. There are good reasons for foreign firms to select India as their primary choice of IT application development outsourcing, including the aforementioned presence of well-developed infrastructure, but a major fundamental factor is the lower cost of software development due mainly to lower labor costs. Actually, remunerations of India's professionals involved in development of software are going up, but at slower pace compared to wage increases in the West, while local standard of living allows for far more flexible pricing.

The gradual increase of the average remuneration for a software developer in India resulted in a recent wave of foreign-educated experts who prefer to return and pursue a career in India rather than in the West, thus boosting the number of master's degree and PhD holders involved in software development. This in turn led to a sharp increase in the number of software research and development contacts heading to India from major private and public organizations abroad.

One should not underestimate the quality of locally educated software experts, though. India have poured money into higher and tertiary education for decades, creating a well-developed network of public and private educational institutions in the field of technology. The country lacks world-leading universities and institutes but the average computer expert graduated in India can easily find a decent job abroad, which means that local software firms are able to hire well-trained personnel and provide very competitive service in terms of quality and affordability.

Another major factor in India's success story is closely related to the ongoing process of technology proliferation in an inter-connected world. Educational institutions and individual researchers are able to share knowledge instantly, while the very nature of software outsourcing results in a situation where the software developers gain knowledge and familiarize with cutting edge technologies that are otherwise difficult to access. In this mutually beneficial process, the customers benefit from lower costs of software development, while software developers and software vendors to whom such projects are outsourced gain invaluable knowledge, which further boosts their competitive advantage.

Locations like Mumbai, New Delhi, and Pune are topping the list of the world cities considered to be the best places to outsource software development, research, and consulting, while the country continues to invest in order to achieve sustainable growth of these industries, choosing to bet on knowledge-based economy. It is hard to foresee whether this will be a long-lasting process in a stagnating world economy, but India's wise investments in technologically advanced education and industries can only fuel further inflow of software outsourcing contracts from abroad. In fact, thanks to thoroughly planned long-term economic development, foreign business customers are not wondering whether outsourcing of IT application development to India is advantageous but how to choose the best fit for their respective project among numerous reputable service providers.

What Drives the Success of Web Portal Development in India?

Whether it is a personal or a corporate portal, a growing number of customers worldwide look for services related to web portal development in India to get first-class yet affordable product. Web portal development is still a rapidly growing business, with huge potential for further expansion, despite that the first web portals have emerged a few decades ago. The inevitable need to collect and present data from various sources at one site, to place offers and make trades online, to communicate with individuals and businesses gave birth to different types of web portals: from personal to corporate to governmental to tender portals.

Equipped with features like free or paid email services, stock quotes, news, and research tools, web portals are considered a major driver of the Internet’s progress as a whole, while organizations, both private and governmental, are eager to promote their own personalized web portals that might be public or not. Thus, fueled by excessive demand, web portal development evolved into a lucrative business, while the affordability of portal development services soared, especially quality services provided by reputable software developers and vendors. This undesired development, from customer’s point of view, had happened mainly because of the concentration of web portal development services in the West where market fundamentals presuppose higher costs of web and software development as well as higher payroll costs.

Gradually, this Western hegemony in the field of software development, including web development and portal development, has faded away, after new market players from Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America unveiled products and services featuring high quality and reasonable pricing. Today’s market for web portal development is much more customer friendly in terms of pricing, customization, implementation and support services available to customers as well as in terms of number of providers to choose from internationally. Moreover, the emergence of advanced online collaboration technologies has largely eliminated the obstacles preventing enterprises from adopting solutions developed abroad and installed or hosted internally through the means of remote assistance.

Web portal development in India is a relatively new phenomenon; nevertheless, the market is growing at tremendous pace, powered by rapidly expanding demand for outsourced software and web development services, mainly in the West. At present, even large multinationals outsource web portal development, implementation, and support to India-based vendors, looking for external expertise, optimization of costs and more affordable service. While the costs of web portal development in the Western hemisphere have plummeted markedly in the past decade, software developers in Asia/Pacific region are still unequaled in terms of price/quality ratio, giving them notable competitive advantage over rivals.

This is of particular interest to medium- and small-sized business looking for affordable solutions to design and implement an organizational web portal. Such an organizational web portal may feature advanced capabilities like online collaboration tools, workflow management, content management, as well as ability to connect to the system remotely and safely through a module designed to controls user access. In fact, those types of systems are widely adopted across virtually all industries and within enterprises of all sizes, which in turn means that India’s software developers can apply their skills in many different spheres where website portals are used.

The recent emergence of cloud computing as the next big thing raised questions whether the Cloud is to put an end to locally hosted and administered web portals, both public and private, while offering even greater opportunities for those involved in web portal development. As far as the cloud is considered a growingly safe environment, software developers and customers alike can take advantage of advanced third party software and hardware infrastructure to develop, host, manage, and administer web portals, which also greatly reduces the overall cost of running a public or a private web portal. Thus, web portal development in India is now trying to expand into the territory of cloud computing, where promising opportunities are hiding.

Globally, Software Consulting Services are Moving Eastward

Software consulting services emerged along with the rise of technologically advanced solutions applied in business environment all over the world. At present, the European Union and the United States are the leading world markets for software consulting, while a growing number of local companies look to outsource those services to service providers outside their respective region. The improving state of the IT education in the Asia/Pacific region, especially in countries like India, led to a situation where European and U.S.-based software consultants are no longer the only source of reliable consultancy services, nor do the services provided by local suppliers offer the best value for money in the market.

Gradually, new hubs of technological research and development, software design and development, and related software consulting, emerged in outside the traditional fortresses of knowledge-based economies in the Western world. India, along with other Asian nations and some countries in Latin America and Eastern and Central Europe, managed to develop reasonably priced software consulting services based on outsourcing, or off-shoring. According to reports by Gartner, Inc., India, the Philippines, Canada and China top the list of the countries where business process is flourishing, software consultancy being a major income generator for their respective IT sectors.

For example, India's software exports have been adding 30 percent a year on average during the past decade thus giving boost to related business sectors like software consulting, support and marketing. Other countries in the Asia/Pacific region also bet on the growing market for IT advisory services, fueled by the increasing demand for affordable and reliable services not restricted by traditional physical and regulatory restraints.

The global online business environment now shapes a market where software consultancies in countries like India or Eastern Europe are well positioned to compete on equal terms with large multinationals, providing tailored, reliable, and knowledge-based services to enterprises across the globe. Search engine optimization (SEO) provided by numerous consultants in the above mentioned countries is just the most visible part of a huge market for software consulting services that spans processes like software implementation, customization, configuration, and support among others. With the crisis-hit enterprises looking for cost reductions, there is enough room for expansion of software consulting in countries smartly investing in IT education and favorable business regulation, most experts in the field agree.

In the course of over a decade, software consultants in India and other countries outside the U.S. and Europe, gained the expertise required to provide full-scale services at the highest level, winning contracts from leading world multinational companies usually based in the West. This professional background, complemented by growing self-confidence and advanced knowledge in the field of IT, boosted the number of software consultants outside the Western Hemisphere which are able to provide world-class service. In result, even leading Western software developers are now looking for the services of India-based consultants to lower costs and get reliable service.

Obviously, the world market for software consulting services is moving eastwards in search for reliable yet affordable product, and, with virtually every business relying on some sort of software, the market for such services is destined to flourish.

India IT Market Set to Grow, Software Development Is Gaining Momentum

India is the third largest domestic market for IT services in Asia/Pacific region with local market forecast to reach $15 billion by end-2014, including software development, ranking it amongst the major emerging markets for IT services worldwide. India IT services market posted revenue of $8 billion in 2010 with industry analysts forecasting market growth of 18 percent, year-on-year, to $9.5 billion in 2011. Software development in India is gaining momentum partly due to the competitive costs offered by local software vendors and the country is rapidly transforming into a regional software development center, where numerous software developers compete on a highly fragmented market. In addition, India offers great competitive advantages to companies that want to outsource their services there or hire local software developers.

The domestic market for IT services is driven by high GDP growth in the past decade as well as government-backed infrastructure projects that fuel development of advanced IT services and software applications deployed by manufacturers, while the financial services sector, which traditionally relies on sophisticated technologies, is also booming. Telecommunications is another sector of the local economy that boosts software development market in India, demanding high-quality products and forcing local software vendors and service providers to compete with large multinationals on equal terms.

India offers tremendous growth opportunities both in terms of domestic market and as an outsourcing destination because of the evident trend to lower the cost of IT services. Organisations worldwide seek alternatives to high IT usage costs, looking for ways to reduce costs and outsource services, while a growing number of enterprises realise that developing customised business solutions in software development centers like India can prove to be less expensive in the long run, compared to the purchase of high-priced enterprise software offered by multinational software vendors.

Actually, India software development market currently stands where the Silicon Valley stood in the early 1980s; namely, numerous small and mid-sized software vendors offer highly competitive services while a few of those companies are destined to witness their products and business models become worldwide industry standards. Local software vendors and developers are strategically positioned within the region while modern infrastructure allows service providers to offer competitive prices for outsourced services to enterprises headquartered at all continents. To some extent, fragmentation of local IT services market can be regarded as a competitive advantage, stimulating new market entrants and players to offer more competitive services and high-quality products at a reasonable price.

Software development in India can boast traditions and achievements a few markets in the region have with local software developers working under projects commissioned by leading world software vendors. The country’s strategic position in the region and the fast-paced economic development that earned the country a place in the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India, China) of the fastest developing emerging markets will inevitably result in marked growth of India’s market for IT services in the near future. Furthermore, local software development is maturing and now can offer solutions designed to compete on equal terms with products developed by leading world software vendors.