For one thing, smaller software development firms are hard to find. But if we did find anyone, it was just by luck. About 75 percent of the listed firms are U.S.-based, about 15 percent are based in India, and 10 percent are from other countries. The database contains information such as how many and what types of jobs the company did in the last 12 months, the programming skills it has, annual revenue, number of employees and the geographical area in which it is willing to work. Each vendor is issued a private Web page that lists current bids and past project history.
Criteria can include location, desired skill set or size of the company.
The client can also specify how many vendors may bid. For example, one client requested 10 bidders from the United States and five from India. This page is restricted only to the client and the vendors invited to bid. Vendors can post questions for the client to answer on the project page. The client can post an answer so that all bidding vendors can see it, or they can post a reply to only particular vendors.