J.D. Edwards To Outsource Some Development To India

Covansys, an IT outsourcing and services company based in Farmington Hills, Mich., plans to earmark about 60 development personnel in India for J.D. Edwards development tasks.

J.D. Edwards, a Denver-based developer of ERP and supply chain software, said that the additional development capability will allow the company to more speedily enhance and upgrade its flagship product suite, J.D. Edwards 5. The Covansys partnership also prevents J.D. Edwards from having to open its own development facility.

J.D. Edwards plans to put some of its U.S. developers to work in new ways, such as having them create new products rather than code product upgrades or test software.

Solution providers such as Mphasis, CherryRoad Technologies and Horizon Companies are exploring or have farmed out some development to companies in India, China and other locales. What's more, many IT vendors including Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and Microsoft also rely on the around-the-clock, affordable development skills that foreign developers can offer. That trend has sparked some controversy among U.S. workers who feel they have been displaced by cheaper foreign labor.