Majoreconomicupheavalscanhavethesortofe?ectthatSchumpeterforesaw60 yearsagoascreativedestruction.Inscienceandtechnology,equivalentupheavals resultfromeitherscienti?crevolutions(asobservedbyKuhn)ortheintroduction of what Christensen calls disruptive technologies. And in software engineering, there has been no technology more disruptive than outsourcing. That it should so quickly reach maturity and an unparalleled scale is truly remarkable; that it should now be called to demonstrate its sustainability in the current ?nancial turmoil is the challenge that will prove whether and how it will endure. Early signs under even the bleak market conditions of the last 12 months are that it will not only survive, it will ?rmly establish its role across the world of business. Outsourcing throws into sharp focus the entire software engineering life- cle. Topics as diverse as requirements analysis, concurrency and model-checking need to ?nd a composite working partnership in software engineering practice. This con?uence arises from need, not dogma, and the solutions required are those that will have the right e?ect on the associated activities in the world of the application: e.g., reducing the time for a transaction or making the results of a complex analysis available in real-time. While the business of outsourcing continues to be studied, the engineering innovations that make it compelling are constantly changing. It is in this milieu that this series of conferences has placed itself.

SEAFOOD 2009: Enabling Global Partnerships to Deliver on Business Needs Companies have been outsourcing areas of software development work for many years, either because of the engineering challenges or because the outsourced aspect is not central to their core business. A profound transformation has been a?ecting this model over recent years: a massive transfer of development - tivities from the USA and Europe to a skilled labor force in service-providing countries. This transformation has been driven by the demands of a global bu- ness climate seeking to increase the value delivery of IT investment. However, the ability to realize this value can prove problematic in practice. Of particular concern are the hidden costs of globally distributed models of working, such as understanding and communicating the true business needs across organizational and cultural boundaries. To address such issues, o?shore outsourcing requires di?erent support from in-housedevelopmentandthismeansadaptingfamiliartechniques,processesand tools to this setting, as well as perhaps creating innovative new ones. Coupled with this industry transformation there is hence a pressing need to re-examine thosesoftwareengineeringapproachesthateither facilitate orimpede this model of working. With an inevitable focus on the economy in 2009, business decisions regarding the sourcing of software development projects will come under close scrutiny. It will become increasingly critical to design global partnerships that both clarify cost/bene?ts and enable delivery on business needs.