Yeah, I'd say four-year-old data is "the early days."
My data says you're out of date but I'm sure my data has a bias to it
as well.
Dan
On Aug 24, 2005, at 6:35 PM, Jim Bufalini wrote:
Dan,
The "several years" was late 1999 through 2001. If those were the
early
days, then so be it.
Of course, using a word like outsourcing is like saying
programming. There
are many different kinds. Do these companies have their own facilities
offshore like IBM and Microsoft with 3,000+ programmers each in
India alone?
Or, do they have a dedicated full-time programming staff offshore?
Do they
have a half dozen or so resident offshore programmers onsite on H-1
and B-1
visas?
The company we worked with had 350 programmers who admittedly were
not in
love with our business model, which used them as a backend programming
resource for smaller US developers who could then convert their
personnel
from programmers to consultants who would work with the actual
clients,
write the specs and do the installs.
The motivation of many programmers in India is to put in 4 or 5
hard and
lean years with a company there to earn the right to travel to other
countries, where the pay is much higher and where they have a good
chance of
immigration. I'd be surprised if this has changed much in 5-years.
Glowing articles aside, the realities of outsourcing are more involved
technically and culturally than appear on the surface. This is not
to say it
doesn't work, but I highly doubt any client who outsources will get
the kind
of quality and satisfaction that they would otherwise get from the
types of
people who frequent this list.
Jim
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Dan
Shafer
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 1:10 PM
To: How to use Revolution
Subject: Re: OT: Computer Science in today's market
My guess is that this is old data. Funny, but old. I know several
companies that outsource fairly complicated software projects that do
involve relatively rich UIs and they report consistently good results
from their outsourcing partners.
In the early days of outsourcing, there was a lot of this kind of
miscommunication but I suspect that in the "several years" that have
elapsed since Jim's experience, the Indian programming world has made
great strides. Read "The World is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman for an
up-to-date look at this whole area.
On Aug 24, 2005, at 11:16 AM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
Jim Bufalini wrote:
Several years ago I had a company that outsourced to India. You
can't leave
anything to the imagination in the spec. If you do it's guaranteed
to come
back wrong. And there are cultural differences to deal with that
effect the
software.
For example, making requests to reorder the prompts on a working
entry
screen, so it matches the customer's workflow, elicit disbelief
and outright
laughter. The programmers can't understand why you would take
something that
works and change it solely for the convenience of the end user.
I hope all my clients' competitors outsource. :)
That last line is one of the funniest things I've read in this
industry in years. Should be a t-shirt....
--
Richard Gaskin
Managing Editor, revJournal
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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