Independant Software Vendor (ISV) Definition

The ISV definition or Independent Software Vendor is referred to as a company or a person who produces consumer or enterprise software products with intellectual property. The independent software vendors produce software that is compatible to run on multiple computer hardware and operating systems.

The independent software vendors are usually part of larger software ecosystems such as Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Apple, Google, etc. They publish their software through these companies to the end-users but the ownership of the software belongs to the vendor.

How does an ISV publish their products?

The leading software and hardware manufacturing companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce, Apple, and AWS usually conduct ISV partner programs to support independent software vendors to publish their products through their software and hardware platforms. They believe these software products are more innovative and add value to their ecosystems and the end-users.

Through these ISV partner programs, the independent software vendors receive the required technical support they need to successfully build, test and deploy their products on the partner platform and also the required marketing support to take their products to the end-users.

With the technology advancements, the independent software vendors also make use of cloud platforms such as Software as a service (SAAS) and Platform as a service (PAAS) to deliver their software products to the end-users. HubSpot, Google Drive, Wix, and Shopify are examples of cloud-based SAAS products published by independent software vendors directly to the end-users. Microsoft Azure, Salesforce AppExchange, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are examples for PAAS that help independent software vendors to publish their products through more established manufacturer ecosystems. Now, you know the ISV definition. Learn more about ISV with this use case!