The tech industry is one of the cornerstones of the American economy, and software development companies in US heavily contribute to this impressive status. Apple and Google alone make up 4% of California’s GDP. More so, over 40% of R&D investments in a number of states comes from IT and software development companies. Victoria Espinel, CEO of BSA, says that the impact of software solutions on the lives of Americans has drastically broadened over the last decade. The trends that steer software development companies in US have changed as well, mirroring the momentum of each time period and addressing existing challenges.
Software Development Trend #1 — Open Source
The US tech industry promotes openness and sharing. This is also true for IT and software development companies in U.S. The approach extends from the design of tech companies’ offices to the features of their inventions and software solutions. Since 2014, when Tesla decided to release its patents to the public, the trend only keeps strengthening. The latest examples include Google’s Artificial Intelligence API that can analyze videos and detect certain objects in them, and an auditing system for healthcare that works similarly to blockchain—both software solutions are open source. As the world is embracing the sharing economy and facing different challenges, open source software development is one of the strongest auxiliary trends of our time.
Software Development Trend #2 — Data
When discussing Big data and its pivotal part in business processes in 2017, other data-related issues in software programming and app development are lost in its shadow. Here, a series of questions arises. Who is going to manage Big Data in companies before AI takes the reigns in analysis, management, data delivery, and other functions? Moreover, there should be someone to double check information for reliability. This is why companies will invest in data departments and data units that will check information for accuracy before it is presented to decision makers. Software development companies in US will need them as much as any other business. Concurrently, organizations will approach these companies for app development — to empower their data units with handy mobile application software.
Furthermore, the data presented to decision makers must be easy to understand. The solution comes in large business dashboards, designed specifically to make informed decisions based on Big Data analytics. This part of enterprise software development and app development will likely be a key focus in 2017 for software development companies in US.
Software Development Trend #3 — Government Projects
Tech and IT companies have been working with the federal institutions and the U.S. government for years. First and foremost, cybersecurity is on the national agenda — as is software security in general. The second reason lies in the ubiquity of smartphones and the increasing reliance on software, including governmental services. Thus, software development companies in US will be working with the federal government, creating problem-solving software solutions for the good of the country.
As an example, one Virginia-based software development company provides IT services for a range of governmental contracts. They include software for U.S. courts case-management system ($115 million) and environmental simulation software ($54 million). The overall result speaks for itself—Virginia’s software development companies made a great contribution to the state, bringing in $12 billion of pledged investment over the last 10 years and creating job opportunities for thousands of people.
