PurposeThis paper examines application lifecycle management (ALM) and how it can benefit the outsourcing of application development.Design/methodology/approachThis is a viewpoint paper.FindingsALM products address the critical development needs of developers, IT managers, and CIOs by allowing all to function in a cohesive distributed environment with outsourced components.Originality/valueThe paper will be of interest to managers involved in the outsourcing of application development.