Marciniak, John J., and Donald J. Reifer. Software Acquisition Management. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1990. Marciniak and Reifer fully explore the considerations on both the buying and selling sides of outsourced software relationships. The book has a strong engineering bent, and it discusses how to put work out for bid, write contracts, and manage outsourced projects from start to completion.

Humphrey, W. S., and W. L. Sweet. A Method for Assessing the Software Engineering Capability of Contractors. SEI Technical Report CMU/SEI-87-TR-23, Pittsburgh: Software Engineering Institute, 1987. This report contains more than 100 detailed questions that you can use to assess a vendor's software-development capability. The questions are divided into categories of organizational structure; resources, personnel, and training; technology management; documented standards and procedures; process metrics; data management and analysis; process control; and tools and technology. Vendor evaluation has been a major emphasis of work at the Software Engineering Institute, and this report also describes an overarching framework that you can use to evaluate the vendor's general development capabilities.

Humphrey, Watts S. Managing the Software Process. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1989. Chapter 19 is devoted to contracting for software. It contains insightful guidelines for establishing a relationship with a vendor, developing a set of requirements, tracking progress, monitoring quality, and managing vendors at different competency levels.

Dedene, Guido, and Jean-Pierre De Vreese. "Realities of Off-Shore Reengineering," IEEE Software, January 1995, 35–45. This is an interesting case study in outsourcing two software projects overseas.