Trust me, I manage a project which is outsourced and currently employs 3 software engg offshore.
The pluses -
(1) Benefit in terms of costs. Well they bill us 30 bucks for a software developer where here I would assume it will be around 60.. Whoopee doo..
(2) The supposed 24 hour day where your team onsite would plug 12 straight hours and your offshore team would plug in another 12 hours, therefore giving the client the impression that his project was worked upon for 24 hours..
I can agree with some of your points here. An associate of mine (let's call him Joe) is nearing the end of a contract with an offshore development "team" that was supposed to have put together a complex system for retrieving large amounts of data over a network to local systems based on a user-defined set of criteria (sorry to be light on the details, but I don't want to compromise his project).
In 1 year, they cobbled together a system that meets some of the criteria and is subject to constant failures. Testing was non-existent. When a new version of the system was submitted to Joe, he would run it through the most rudimentary tests and it would die. He'd send back these results and was usually met with "Oh, but it can't do that much of X, just this much." This resulted in a review of the requirements and a tug-of-war before the issue was corrected. This happened every single time it would break. The final product is, bluntly, of inferior quality, despite the company claiming they have 20 full time developers working on it.
Now, about 4 months ago, in exasperation, Joe called a local freelance developer and asked if he could build the system. He said that he could. His system is now nearing completion, and exceeds the requirements, all for less than was blown on the offshore shop.
In the end, 1 experienced, albeit expensive, developer was able to complete a complicated project in 1/3 the time of the offshore shop, and for about 1/2 the cost.
This is not the only example I've seen, but it's the most pertinent. The other poster's story seems to simply reinforce my experience that in the very short term, these offshore solutions look great, but they don't seem to deliver on what they promise.
Actually our experiences are not that much different.
While I was getting shitty quality from my offshore partner, I talked to one of my buddies from CA, whom I know for over 7 years and who ironically initiated me to a community called slashdot 4-5 years ago. I asked him to help, he currently works for a Fortune 100 and he, thank God, said he would.
And he is the only person responsible for turning this around. I brought him on, explained the system to him in less than an hour and we went ahead and designe
Promptness is its own reward, if one lives by the clock instead of the sword.
Outsourcing wont be here for long.. (Score:5, Informative)
The pluses -
(1) Benefit in terms of costs. Well they bill us 30 bucks for a software developer where here I would assume it will be around 60.. Whoopee doo..
(2) The supposed 24 hour day where your team onsite would plug 12 straight hours and your offshore team would plug in another 12 hours, therefore giving the client the impression that his project was worked upon for 24 hours..
(3) Now that implementation i
Re:Outsourcing wont be here for long.. (Score:2)
In 1 year, they cobbled together a system that meets some of the criteria and is subject to constant failures. Testing was non-existent. When a new version of the system was submitted to Joe, he would run it through the most rudimentary tests and it would die. He'd send back these results and was usually met with "Oh, but it can't do that much of X, just this much." This resulted in a review of the requirements and a tug-of-war before the issue was corrected. This happened every single time it would break. The final product is, bluntly, of inferior quality, despite the company claiming they have 20 full time developers working on it.
Now, about 4 months ago, in exasperation, Joe called a local freelance developer and asked if he could build the system. He said that he could. His system is now nearing completion, and exceeds the requirements, all for less than was blown on the offshore shop.
In the end, 1 experienced, albeit expensive, developer was able to complete a complicated project in 1/3 the time of the offshore shop, and for about 1/2 the cost.
This is not the only example I've seen, but it's the most pertinent. The other poster's story seems to simply reinforce my experience that in the very short term, these offshore solutions look great, but they don't seem to deliver on what they promise.
Re:Outsourcing wont be here for long.. (Score:2)
While I was getting shitty quality from my offshore partner, I talked to one of my buddies from CA, whom I know for over 7 years and who ironically initiated me to a community called slashdot 4-5 years ago. I asked him to help, he currently works for a Fortune 100 and he, thank God, said he would.
And he is the only person responsible for turning this around. I brought him on, explained the system to him in less than an hour and we went ahead and designe