Software Product Company vs Software Service Company

Many students have this question in their mind. What is the difference between “software product company” and “software service company”.

I too have this doubt when I was doing engineering.

I realized when I started to attend campus interviews. There are many differences so I think this blog would help those people who are eagerly waiting for a campus interview.

Let’s consider “dress”. There are two ways by which we can buy a dress for us. We can go to some shopping malls, or we can buy dresses online based on our size. Here, we are buying ready made dresses based on size. Some people use to buy shirt cloth bits and then they go to a tailor shop and give their body dimensions and then ask the tailor to stitch it. This is called a “custom-made dress”.

Consider another example, TV manufacturing company who manufactures TVs and sells to the customers. It’s considered as a product company because they don’t do any customizations based on user requirements. They make TVs by understanding the needs of the public in a general manner.

Consider another example, Pizza company who cooks based on user requirements. Customers have to specify toppings based on their need. Pizza company notes down the requirements from the customers and then prepares Pizza based on the requirements and then serves it to the customers. It’s considered as a service company. Here, the company is cooking food based on user requirements.

Similarly, there are two categories in the software field also. They are Software product company and Software service company.

Software product company analyses the public requirements in general and market requirements then they create a “software product”. The “software product” would be sold to the public.

A customer whose needs are not satisfied with the existing software. Then, they approach the Software service company and then they explain their requirements to the “software service company”. “Software service company” would have a contract with that customer and promises to create software for the customized requirements within a stipulated time and money. These software companies are named “software service companies”.

Students need to analyze their skills before starting their career.

Differences between “software product company” and “software service company” for software developer are:

Both follow different approaches while recruiting the candidates. Software product companies would focus more on programming skills while recruiting. Software service companies also test our programming skills, but it won’t be that tough when compared to software product companies.

You can gain more programming knowledge in software product companies because they use to develop from scratch. You can also gain programming knowledge in software service companies, but it depends on the technology you are working. Software service companies mostly work using frameworks. It’s very rare to get more programming knowledge in software service companies.

There won’t be many onsite opportunities for software product companies for software developer role because they won’t directly work with clients. Software developers develop feature by analyzing the market needs and competitors features in a software product company. Software service companies have many opportunities because they work very closely with client requirements.

NOTE: It depends on the company and your role.

Software product companies pay you very nicely at your initial stages itself. It varies from company to company. In average, the pay is from 6 lakh to 15 lakhs for freshers. Software service companies would be less when compared to software product companies. It varies from company to company. In average, the pay is from 2.4 lakh to 3.5 lakhs for freshers.

Getting into the software product company is very tough when compared to a software service company. You need to do exceptionally well to get into the software product companies.

You can gain depth knowledge in a particular field in software product companies whereas you can gain breadth knowledge across various fields in software service companies.

There is time flexibility for work in most of the software companies whereas there is no time flexibility for work in most of the software service companies.

There won’t be any dress code for most of the software product companies whereas there is some dress code for most of the software service companies.

There are many more differences.

Thanks!!! Work for your passion instead of money !!!