The gloomy economical situation notwithstanding, IT development budgets are on the rise, claims a report from SoftServe. The company surveyed more than 6,000 senior-level business leaders and software development professionals and most of them reported that budgets had increased in excess of 10 percent over 2008 expenditures.

Of course, the economy and cost cutting were priority too. But SoftServe claimed that this aspect came second to installing new applications and software. The respondents were looking to rope in applications that increased organizational efficiency and provided them with other benefits.

According to the survey, 38 percent of organizations indicated the use of some type of software development outsourcing. While Ukraine and China and other Eastern European companies as one of the top development locations to watch in outsourcing domain, 67 percent of companies using offshore outsourcing did so in India. 

“Even amidst reports of global economic uncertainty and confusion, many companies are choosing to steel themselves for recovery by investing more, not less, in business-critical software development initiatives,” said Taras Kytsmey, president of SoftServe. “This data gives companies a starting point for streamlining development efforts onward into 2010 and ensuring that development initiatives translate into greater return on software investments.”

The survey revealed that forty-two percent wanted agile methodologies as their software development models of choice, while one-third 36 percent employed Capability Maturity Model Integration, CMMI,  as their process maturity and quality model.

The survey reported that 87 percent of respondents reported comfort with their company’s basic coding skills. The survey also stated that 34 percent were looking for help in defining business requirements for development projects.

Recently, the company announced a new technological partnership with Sun Microsystems (News – Alert), Inc, a well-recognized global provider of hardware and software solutions. The company also announced that it became an Associate Partner in the Sun Partner Advantage Program for Independent Software Vendors. Sun’s Partner Advantage Program for ISVs provides the resources that partners need to meet the challenges of today’s market.