Apparently the Founder Group (according to Wikipedia) “the second largest PC manufacturer in China,” has decided to enter the software outsourcing market with the creation of “Founder Software.”

While I welcome the company’s validation of the software outsourcing industry in China, I really have to wonder about their prospects.  My first thought is that providing excellent service to western companies is a far different business from building & selling great products.  The types of discipline, processes and values required to succeed in the service business are dramatically different.  You can’t just take a great development engineer, or dev manager, and have them magically become great service delivery people.  It just doesn’t happen.  I’ve seen a number of successful Chinese product companies who have tried to carve out a service organization.  Most have ended up with very disappointing results.  UFIDA Software Engineering is one of the very few successes that I can point to.

My second thought goes to their statement (from their press release) “Founder Software is focusing its business in the North American market and it has already established offices in a number of US and Canadian cities.” This is a great objective, but it’s a real stretch for any domestic Chinese company to actually win business in the U.S.  They inevitably fail to make the required investment, and they underestimate the level of sophistication required to build confidence with western buyers.  I respectfully submit that Founder Software is already demonstrating that they “don’t get it.”  I looked at their website last week, and was about to review it again in preparation for this post.  Unfortunately, it’s not reachable - tracert just dies off - not a great way to win western business.  Finally, their press release states that they’ll be traveling across North America attending conferences.  This is great for stories to the shareholders back home, but it’s not the way to win and keep clients in the U.S.

I wish Founder Software all the best, but they aren’t off to a great start right out of the gate.

Technorati Tags:  China, China Outsourcing