We sent out a press release today announcing that we've joined Microsoft's ISV NXT, a partner program at Microsoft that actively supports the ISV community and the ecosystem around ISVs.
As someone who's worked in product development outsourcing for nearly 10 years, ISV NXT is a revelation. I've bumped into many partner folks from many a platform vendor, including IBM, Oracle, Sun - you name it. They were all eager to get us signed up to their partner program, then their next question would be "so how many licenses of [insert server software here] do you think you can sell in a year"? Upon explaining that we provide engineering and design services to ISVs, not to IT departments, and that we're not a reseller, their next question is always "ummm, yeah... but how many licenses could you sell?" They simply don't get it.
Granted, the amount of commercial software for sale being created (i.e. software created by ISVs) vs. software for use (i.e. internal applications built by IT departments) is small - something like 10% of the software being written, so on one hand you can excuse them for ignoring it. But I think that's changing - more and more product companies are becoming software-enabled - meaning their product includes some component of software - think nav computers in cars, online banking, and so on.
So kudos to Microsoft for "getting it". They are the first to recognize that there is an ecosystem of product development outsourcing companies, and that they are influential in helping ISVs and SaaS companies choose the platform software on which to base their product.
I'm excited about our new partnership with Microsoft, because it gives us and our customers better access to Microsoft resources, which will mean fewer roadblocks when we're helping customers develop their product on the latest pre-release Microsoft platforms.
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