Symphony Services and SIIA Host "China: The Final Frontier" Webinar Featuring Leading Independent Analysts John C. McCarthy and Bruce Richardson

Business Wire, Jan 28, 2008

Industry Experts Share Observations and Discuss China As An Offshore Software Engineering Destination

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Symphony Services, the leader in global product engineering services, today announced that its CEO Gordon Brooks will moderate a live Webinar entitled, "China: The Final Frontier." Co-presented with the SIIA, the interactive panel will feature Forrester Research's John C. McCarthy and AMR Research's Bruce Richardson. Panelists will discuss China as an offshore software engineering destination and how it compares to India and other countries such as Eastern Europe and the Philippines. McCarthy and Richardson's unique perspectives on the country's software development capabilities will provide attendees with a lively, insightful conversation that will assist them in evaluating how, and if, to incorporate China into their global product research & development (R&D) strategies.

"While India is the current leader in offshore software engineering, many companies are diversifying their global R&D portfolio with partnerships in other parts of the world to better tap into the benefits of distinct development expertise," said Brooks. "China can be an attractive complementary destination for many organizations, but there are many issues to first consider before expanding global R&D processes and infrastructure. This dialogue between two of the leading authorities on globalized product development will help attendees evaluate the China's promise as an offshore destination, and determine how it factors into to their own operational and strategic goals."

[TABLE OMITTED]

About John C. McCarthy, Forrester Research

With more than 20 years of experience at Forrester, John leads Forrester's research efforts on the use of offshore providers for IT work, product development, and business process outsourcing, as well as on the development of an IT services global delivery model. John primarily contributes to Forrester's offerings for the Sourcing & Vendor Management professional, and, as part of Forrester's industry leading offshore research team, he helps clients with their vendor management and sourcing strategies. John has been to India 16 times since 2001, Brazil three times, and has traveled to China.

He has delivered keynote addresses on the Internet and distributed computing at such premier industry events as Strategic Song Interest Group, NASSCOM, COMDEX, the Milken Institute Global Conference, BusinessWeek CIO Conference, Interop, Politics Online Conference, and Unix Expo. He has also appeared on "NBC Nightly News," MSNBC, "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," NDTV, CNBC, CNN, CNNfn, and Bloomberg TV.

About Bruce Richardson, AMR Research

Bruce Richardson brings more than 27 years of experience to his current role as chief research officer at AMR Research. Bruce has spent most of his career analyzing the software industry with a distinct emphasis on ERP and supply chain. Since joining AMR Research in 1988, he has been responsible for spearheading new market coverage and contributing to the company's analysis of leading market trends in areas such as ERP, supply chain management, service-oriented architectures, software-as-a-service, software appliances, and virtualization and visualization.

Bruce is a sought-after public speaker, having lectured and presented worldwide on the firm's behalf nearly 500 times in more than 20 countries. He has covered and analyzed SAP since 1991 and made many early market predictions that have been realized, such as the rise of the advanced planning market and the evolution of MRP to ERP. Bruce also coined the term MES early in his role at AMR Research when he was responsible for all the written research that came from the firm.

About Symphony Services

Symphony Services is a global provider of product engineering outsourcing services dedicated to helping clients compress time to market, achieve higher innovation yields and improve productivity to increase the value from their R&D investments. From strategic and operational consulting guidance to complete product lifecycle capabilities, the company is distinguished by a singular focus on product development and collaborative, end-to-end solutions. Symphony brings domain expertise and deep commercial-grade software and embedded real-time systems capabilities to its partnerships with software vendors, software-enabled businesses and companies whose products contain embedded software. Symphony Services is headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., with offices in North America, Europe and delivery centers in India and China. For more information, please visit www.symphonyservices.com, e-mail us at info@symphonysv.com or call Heather Dalloul, director, business development at 1.650.935.9534.

Copyright (c) 2008 Symphony Service Corp. All Rights Reserved. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.