Independent Software Vendor

An independent software vendor (ISV) is a company specializing in making or selling software, designed for mass or niche markets. Such markets may be diverse, including software for real estate brokers, scheduling for healthcare personnel, barcode scanning, stock maintenance and even child care management software.

Specialized products generally offer higher productivity to organizations than more generalized software such as basic spreadsheet or database packages.

Most large software companies have special programs for ISVs.

ISVs are frequently categorised into three different groups:

ISVs dedicated to a company process

Software publishers that develop in house software addressing generic corporate needs (i.e. accounting software, networking software, CRM software, etc.).There are an estimated 5456 ISVs dedicated to a specific company process across EMEA (Jan 2012) including companies such as IBM, Baracuda Networks and SAS.

ISVs dedicated to a specific activity

Software publishers that develop in house software addressing a specific industry or activity (i.e. Catia for CAD industry).There are an estimated 6380 ISVs dedicated to a specific activity across EMEA (Jan 2012) including companies such as McAffee, Sage and Trend Micro.

Software publishers (other)

Software companies that develop in house software meant for general use by companies (i.e. linguistic tools, word-processing...). There are an estimated 4588 Software publishers dedicated to a specific company process across EMEA (Jan 2012) including Microsoft, Oracle, Novell...

An ISV makes and sells software products that run on one or more computer hardware or operating system platforms. The companies that make the platforms, such as Microsoft, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Novell, Google, Oracle, Apple, SAP and salesforce.com encourage and lend support to ISVs, often with special "business partner" programs.

In general, the more applications that run on a platform, the more value it offers to customers. Of course, platform manufacturers such as Microsoft and IBM make applications as well, but don't have the resources and, in many cases, the special knowledge required, to make them all.

Some ISVs focus on a particular operating system, such as IBM's small business AS/400, for which there are thousands of ISV applications. Other ISVs specialize in a particular application area, such as engineering, and develop software primarily for high-end Unix-based workstation platforms.

ISVs make and sell software that is added to platforms. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) use hardware platform components to build larger products. Value-added resellers (VARs) incorporate platform software into their own software product packages.

According to the Institute for Partner Education & Development, at least 50 percent of an Independent Software Vendor’s revenue comes from the development of proprietary software solutions or applications. They have expertise in standard market platforms (Windows, Unix, Linux, Mac OS X) and large business software solutions.