- Independent software vendor
Independent software vendor (ISV) is a business term for companies specializing in making or selling
software , designed formass marketing or forniche market s. Such markets may be diverse including software forreal estate brokers, scheduling for healthcare personnel,barcode scanning, stock maintenance and evenchild care management software .Specialized products generally offer higher productivity to organizations than more generalized software such as basic
spreadsheet ordatabase packages.Most large software companies, including
Microsoft andIBM , have special programs for ISVs.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
BEA Systems ,Microsoft ,Novell ,IBM ,Sun Microsystems ,Hewlett-Packard , and Apple, 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 businessAS/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-endUnix -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 reseller s" (VARs) incorporate platform software into their own software product packages.ee also
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Independent hardware vendor
*Software company
*Micro ISV
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