Login to read an introduction about the 2009 voke Innovators.

Following the economic downturn of 2000 to 2003, the Fortune 500 companies that pursued short-term cost-cutting strategies such as outsourcing and rollbacks in quality assurance found themselves ill prepared for future opportunities.  New research suggests that those enterprise organizations that continue to invest in critical IT areas such as software development, virtualization, and core lifecycle solutions will be better positioned for the next cycle of growth and expansion.

Outsourcing and specifically the trend to move tasks to offshore providers is evolving. At the end of the 20th century, the concept of using an offshore provider was primarily a cost issue. As the nuances, positives, and negatives of using offshore providers became visible the idea of team virtualization was the most popular reason for outsourcing. Now, as teams are truly virtualized across boundaries, both real and imaginary, outsourcing is about to enter a new phase. Offshore providers will more than likely take on more technical roles and responsibilities while their clients concentrate on the core business and deliver strategic value.  Emerging nations where populations are increasing their technical skills are a haven for entrepreneurs and venture capital investments.  In this edition of the Future Watch, we hypothesize on where technical skills will emerge and why standards will be driven to acceptance.