Making Reuse a Realityâ„¢. Eight years of Building Component Supply, Aiding Component Adoption and Driving Reuseâ„¢.

The pioneer of the market for "off-the-shelf" reusable software components, ComponentSource was founded in 1995. As former software engineers, the founders of the company noticed a huge market opportunity to source and supply commercial "off-the-shelf" reusable software components (software building blocks) to developers who needed to increase both productivity and quality in their application development. It was clear from the company's outset that it was simply a matter of time before the component-based approach to application development - where applications are constructed with software building blocks - became widespread and that pre-built software components were in demand by businesses everywhere. Key drivers for this change included the well-known IT skills shortage and ever-increasing business demands for speed, flexibility and change management in supporting IT systems.

Today amongst a climate of IT budget cuts, the availability of pre-built reusable components takes on a new significance. If you were to assess the potential application development effort that is displaced through the deployment of pre-built "off-the-shelf" components for industry at large it would run into billions of dollars. Using established industry metrics based on lines of source code, the ComponentSource value study, "The ROI of commercial 'off-the-shelf' (COTS) components" for the first time shows how investing in an expert-built COTS component or Web service - which range in price from several hundred dollars to several thousand on themarket - may offset the development costs of applications to the tune of millions of dollars and bring new services to market faster and far more cost effectively.

The benefits of component reuse, as proven on themarket are also prompting businesses to unlock the intellectual property inside of their organizations and harvest and reuse their own internally built software component assets. Having made the shift to component-based development, many organizations are now seeking to gain the return on investment for their efforts. The demand for an end-to-end reuse solution prompted ComponentSource to launch ComponentSource Enterprise Reuse Solution™ (ComponentSource ERS™) in May 2001. The latest version, launched in August, 2002, expands the company's role to that of a Software Asset Value Provider with the launch of SAVE-IT® (Software Asset Value Engineering in Information Technology). The SAVE-IT solution strengthens the business rationale for reuse, which is unique to ComponentSource's approach. It realizes that establishing effective enterprise-scale software reuse is as much a business challenge as a technical one. To drive down the costs of application development, SAVE-IT is designed to establish asset management within an organization as a business within a business and places a hard dollar value on software assets available internally as well as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. This then justifies the investment in their acquisition and reuse.

ComponentSource Plays a Variety of Industry Roles

1. Industry barometer on the supply and adoption of reusable software components and Web services for all platforms 2. Market builder - growing the supply of reusable components on themarket 3. World's largest marketplace and community for reusable components 4. Software Asset Value Provider

Industry Barometer

ComponentSource is technology agnostic, independent of any component platform, and with eight years of market expertise, serves as an industry barometer on the supply and adoption of reusable software components and Web services. We provide press and analysts with industry insight and an independent view of the software component market, and regularly speak by invitation at major trade shows and industry forums. In addition, the company is an active member of several industry working groups, including the Object Management Group (OMG) and the Rational-led Reusable Asset Specification (RAS). Our list of key partner alliances includes platform partners such as Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, BEA Systems, EDS and IBM, as well as component tool ISVs such as Aonix, Borland and Rational Software.

Market Builder

ComponentSource is the pioneer of themarket for "off-the-shelf" reusable components. Over the past eight years it has continued to grow the supply of components to benefit industry at large. The company's long-term objective has been to promote the reuse of "off-the-shelf" expertise so that organizations are able to "Buy Before They Build." It has successfully broken down the traditional barriers for component supply and component consumption along the way, serving component ISVs, corporate developers, organizations and consortia looking to speed up their application development efforts.

World's largest marketplace and community for reusable components

Headquartered in the Atlanta area with offices in Reading, England and Tokyo, Japan, today ComponentSource is a global e-business and the marketplace of choice for technical decision makers finding, evaluating and procuring reusable software components. ComponentSource is home to the world's largest community and marketplace for reusable software components. Our user base of over half a million corporate developers spans 110 countries. ComponentSource customers range from major systems integrators, IT shops to ninety percent of the global Fortune 2000 organizations such as General Electric, Federal Express and First Union.

Software Asset Value Provider

The company's eight years of expertise in enabling the exchange of reusable components and Web services on its public marketplace has been translated into a powerful end-to-end solution for the reuse of software component assets inside of organizations. ComponentSource is first to market as a Software Asset Value Provider with ComponentSource SAVE-IT - a proven three-pronged commercial approach to establish the business drivers for reuse of software assets inside of an organization, and a scalable asset rich infrastructure to institutionalize reuse.

The above roles are explained in more detail in the following sections:

1. Building the Component Supply on themarket - enabling "Buy before you Build" 2. Aiding component adoption on themarket - breaking down the barriers to "Buy before you Build" 3. Driving Reuse™: Software Reuse Infrastructure Provider - "Reuse before you Buy, Buy before you Build"

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