Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Definition
Basic – Web/Development
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What Is an ISV? Independent Software Vendor Definition
An ISV (independent software vendor) is a company that builds, markets, and sells its own software applications. The “independent" part means the company isn’t owned by a hardware manufacturer or platform provider. It develops software that runs on platforms other companies built, like Windows, macOS, or a public cloud, without being controlled by them.
Intuit is an ISV. So are Adobe, Salesforce, and the small team behind the niche case management tool your law firm swears by. Company size doesn’t matter here. What matters is the business model: the product is the software itself, sold to end users or businesses, rather than software bundled with hardware or built purely for internal use.
What Makes an ISV Software Vendor “Independent"?
The distinction comes down to ownership and control. Microsoft writes software, but it also owns the Windows platform, so nobody calls it an ISV. An ISV software vendor sits one layer up.
It builds applications on top of platforms it doesn’t own, which usually means supporting several of them at once.
That independence shapes everything about how these companies operate. A typical ISV has to answer questions platform owners never face:
- Which operating systems do we support?
- What happens when a customer’s hardware can’t run our minimum specs?
- How do we push updates to thousands of installs we don’t control?
Types of ISV Software Vendors
Most ISVs fall into one of a few delivery models:
- Desktop software vendors build applications installed locally on each machine. Tax software like Drake, CAD tools like AutoCAD, and legacy accounting products like Sage often live here.
- SaaS vendors deliver software through the browser on a subscription. No local install, and the vendor controls the environment end to end.
- Hybrid vendors are somewhere in between, often mid-transition. The core product is a desktop application, but customers increasingly expect to access it from anywhere.
That third group faces the hardest problem. Rewriting a mature desktop application as a web app can take years and millions of dollars. Meanwhile customers are asking for remote access today.
How Cloud Computing Changed the ISV Model
Cloud computing moved processing, storage, and application delivery off local machines and onto remote infrastructure accessed over the internet.
Instead of software living and running on the device in front of the user, it runs in a data center, and the device just displays the output. For ISVs, this broke the old dependency between “our software" and “the customer’s hardware."
An application that once required a powerful local workstation can now run through desktop virtualization on centralized infrastructure and reach users on any device, including thin clients, tablets, and aging laptops.
The economics shifted too: customers moved from large upfront license-plus-hardware purchases to predictable subscription costs, and vendors gained the ability to update, patch, and support one controlled environment instead of thousands of scattered installs.
This is exactly the gap virtual desktop hosting fills for desktop-era ISVs. Rather than rebuilding the product as a web app, the vendor hosts the existing application on cloud desktops and gives every customer browser-based access.
We built our ISV cloud hosting offering around this model: the ISV keeps its codebase, we handle the infrastructure through our global data centers, and end users get secure remote access from any device.
Deployment takes under 20 minutes per desktop, and there’s no minimum contract, which matters when you’re onboarding customers one at a time.
ISV vs. VAR vs. OEM
Three acronyms that get mixed up constantly:
| Term | What They Do | Example |
|---|---|---|
| ISV (independent software vendor) | Develops and sells its own software | Intuit selling QuickBooks |
| VAR (value-added reseller) | Resells others’ products with added services | An IT firm bundling QuickBooks with setup and support |
| OEM (original equipment manufacturer) | Builds hardware, sometimes bundling software | Dell shipping laptops with Windows preinstalled |
An ISV creates the product. A VAR distributes and enhances it. An OEM makes the machines it runs on. One company can technically wear more than one hat, but the roles are distinct. Many managed service providers operate as VARs, packaging ISV software with infrastructure and support for their clients.
Frequently Asked Questions About ISVs
Is Microsoft an ISV?
No. Microsoft owns the platforms (Windows, Azure) that ISVs build on, which disqualifies it from the “independent" label. Companies building software for Windows or Azure are the ISVs in that relationship.
Is a SaaS company an ISV?
Usually, yes. SaaS describes the delivery model, while ISV describes the business type. A company that develops its own software and delivers it as a subscription service is both.
How do ISVs deliver desktop software to remote users?
The most common path without a full rewrite is hosting the application on virtual desktops or a DaaS platform, so users access it through a browser while the software runs on cloud infrastructure. Our application virtualization approach handles this without any changes to the software itself.
What does ISV certification mean?
Platform owners like Microsoft and SAP run ISV partner programs that certify third-party software as compatible and supported on their platforms. Certification is a trust signal for buyers, not a requirement to be an ISV.
How much does it cost for an ISV to host software in the cloud?
Costs depend on the workload each customer runs, not the number of users. Our pricing is per VM sized by resource needs, and multiple users can share one machine, which keeps per-customer hosting costs predictable as an ISV scales.
