What ISVs can do to speed time-to-market

Early in our careers we heard the old clich????, "time is money" and we genuinely believe it. So, is "time is money" the same as "time to market"? I think they are one and the same. As independent software vendors (ISVs) think about how they bring software to market for general consumption to customers, there are many steps along the way that consume time and cost money.

There are the schedules and timelines (aka projects) in which success is measured based on how quickly and efficiently we complete the tasks required to bring software to market. Additionally, we assign resources to assist us in completing each task. Those resources are typically people, processes and technology. Next, as we move through our projects and learn over time, we must stay flexible and adapt to changing situations, requirements, thoughts and assumptions. Lastly, we must determine what markets we want to serve - such as the U.S., E.U., Asia, Middle East or others - and how we reach them.

As we enter 2011, we should think about cloud computing as a tool to enable us to implement our software in any market in record time. To me, the cloud is about process automation and technology where people are released from legacy chores they have become accustomed to doing and can instead focus on core products and services; the software we develop to automate other chores not currently automated or worse yet... poorly automated.

I can't help but to think of an example from my youth, when my father would change the oil in his car out in the garage and then dispose of the old oil. Today, do we ever see someone out in the garage on a Saturday morning changing their oil? No, the process is automated, completed in one-tenth of the time it took my father to do it from start to finish, and it's at a fair price. However, it is still more expensive than if he did it himself, but "time is money" and he will happily pay to have it done.

There are numerous ways cloud can be used as a tool to make "time to market" quickly and efficiently. I don't typically get into discussions around software development methodologies like iterative, waterfall, spiral or the next flavor of the day. Here is how I think about it: Every software development project develops, integrates, delivers and manages its software through a software development lifecycle. I look forward to sharing more details in future blog posts.