Volume 13 is a special issue of the journal that focuses on the "emergence of software exporting industries in dozens of developing and emerging economies". It is edited by Erran Carmel of the Kogod School of Business at the American University in Washington D.C., USA, who also contributes the following editorial introduction:

Dozens of nations around the world are trying to be the “next India” – to launch successful software exporting industries. There is enormous excitement around this idea.

As guest editor of this special issue, I am very pleased that we have assembled a “first” in this area. While many articles have been written on individual nations’ software successes in recent years, this issue represents the first coming together of so many in-depth analyses on this new generation of software exporting industries. In this special issue we probably have the first thorough analyses of the nascent software exporting industries in Iran, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Bangladesh.

In order to attain high quality articles on this relatively new topic, roughly half the articles were written by practitioners. Shirley Tessler, Avron Barr, and Paul Tjia are consultants specializing in this area. Nagy Hanna is a World Bank economist who has been studying the intersection of technology and development for more than a decade. Norbert Bruell and Emmy Gengler live and breathe these issues as senior managers in two software exporting firms.

The issue is laid out as follows. I begin with three articles that lay the foundations for the topic. “Taxonomy of New Software Exporting Nations” classifies the many nations involved in software export. “Impacts on National Well Being Resulting from Their Software Exporting Industries” addresses the question of why we care about the software industry more than we care about other industries. “Success Factors” enhances existing frameworks that deal with what nations need to have - or do - in order to succeed.

We then move to in-depth analyses of five nations’ nascent software exporting industries. Bangladesh, by Paul Tjia; Iran by Brian Nicholson and Sundeep Sahay; Indonesia, by Norbert Bruell; Ukraine by Emmy B. Gengler; and Vietnam by Shyam R. Chidamber.

Finally, the special issue includes two broader articles on this phenomenon. The intersection of the software industry and broader ICT (Information and Communication Technology) issues is addressed by Shirley Tessler, Avron Barr, and Nagy Hanna. Christopher Coward shares results from his study of how decision makers in small- and medium-sized American companies decide to venture offshore for software.

I thank Richard Heeks, Brian Nicholson, and S. Krishna for spurring many of these ideas in Bangalore, India, May 2002, at the IFIP working group conference (The Social Implications of Computers in Developing Nations Conference). Finally, I thank Robert Davison, editor of EJISDC, for ably supporting this year-long project.