Call for Software Tenders: Features and Research Problems

A relevant part of software industry deals with ad hoc software solutions, which are externalized by software consumers. The process of acquirment follows a public procedure of requesting proposals. This procedure is based on a call-for-tenders document that contains, at least, a software specification and project constraints, such as budget and time. The general assumption is that the requirements stage happens prior to the call-for-tender process. However, public documents of software tendering processes support the contrary assumption. The aim of this paper is to sustain that call-for-tender processes require additional study from an empirical point of view in order to solve problems derived from current industry practices. We have analyzed call for tenders in relation to requirements engineering proposals and also under a procedural approach. In order to sustain the inclusion of call for tenders in the scope of software engineering a set of different open problems is identified.