Scio Consulting Partners with VersionOne for Agile SaaS Development

    SAN JOSE, CA, August 13, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Scio Consulting, the leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product development services and VersionOne, the leading provider of Agile project management tools, today announced a partnership to help software companies who are focused on building SaaS applications to adopt Agile development practices across distributed teams.

Scio has been helping small- and medium-size North American software companies build on-demand software products for five years using Agile project management. According to Rick Chapman of leading industry publication, Softletter, "Agile development practices are crucial for SaaS providers to respond to their customers needs dynamically and remain competitive. As of 2008, 68% percent of all SaaS products are developed using Agile project management, and that number is growing rapidly."

Scio Consulting's experience with SaaS software and agile methods led Scio to select VersionOne's Agile project management tool as the latest addition to the Scio Consulting SaaS development toolkit. VersionOne is now the principal platform for planning, tracking and reporting at the project and program level to connect customers' in-house and Scio's nearshore development teams in Mexico. VersionOne also serves as the collaboration bridge that helps Scio and its' customer development teams accelerate development and delivery of SaaS products to market.

"Our technical team evaluated several of the major Agile project management tools and concluded that VersionOne was the easiest to learn and adopt. This is especially important to us because a good portion of our clients are still new to Agile development and the intuitive approach of VersionOne makes the transition very smooth," said Jeremy Beck, VP of Business Development of Scio Consulting. Beck went on to say, "VersionOne is an important technology partner because their Agile project management tools further enhance the value that Scio Consulting delivers to our software clients. We are very excited to be working with the VersionOne team."

"VersionOne and Scio Consulting have many goals in common, including our desire to help software companies (with distributed teams) simplify the adoption of Agile practices and enhance their collaboration through on-demand platforms," said Robert C. Holler, President & CEO of VersionOne.

States Adolfo Cruz, Director of the PMO for Scio, "Due to the nature of SaaS business models, Agile is a must. However, since Agile requires high collaboration and effective communication, the near-shore development that Scio provides is a better alternative to off-shore teams because of the shared time zone and close proximity." Scio's near-shore software development center in Mexico provides all the benefits of outsourcing, such as scaling flexibility and up to 40% cost reduction for application development, without the challenges of off-shoring to distant Asian destinations.

About VersionOne

VersionOne is recognized by agile practitioners as the leader in agile management tools. By simplifying the process of planning and tracking agile software projects, we help development teams consistently deliver software faster.

Since 2002, companies such as Adobe, Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin, Motorola, Novell, Sony and Symantec have turned to VersionOne to help provide greater value to their customers. Today more than 10,000 teams and 70,000 users in 50 countries use VersionOne's agile project management tools to streamline and standardize their agile development efforts.
Whether you're a small, single agile team just getting started with agile development or a multi-team, global enterprise, with VersionOne you'll get the best tools in the industry backed by the pioneers in agile project planning and management.

VersionOne. Start small. Scale smart. See for yourself at www.VersionOne.com.

About Scio Consulting

Scio Consulting, based in San Jose, CA, is a provider of outsourced application development and consulting services to North American software companies (ISVs), leveraging its Agile Nearshore Development Center in Morelia, Mexico. With its deep experience with the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and On-Demand business models, Scio helps ISVs and Internet-based businesses bring their applications to market faster, with better quality and less risk. For more details about Scio, visit their website at www.sciodev.com

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