OT: Computer Science in today's market

[Jim Bufalini]

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: use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com
> [mailto:use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com]On 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
> >  _______________________________________________________
> >  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com
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>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Dan Shafer, Revolution Consultant and Author
> http://www.shafermedia.com
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