In one of the previous articles (Outsourcing in a changing world) I wrote about the Outsourcing approach helping to get the best results made but somebody else.

But it becomes even more essential if to start speaking about specific IT spheres – for example Internet TV software or streaming video software. It can be very efficient to work with programming (or software development) companies specializing directly on these solutions. Such specialization and its efficiency and impact on productivity were proved many years ago. Adam Smith, the father of economic thought, stated that division of labor is one of the main factors influencing productivity of labor. Can you name many other economic industries that face such a great dependency on the qualification of human resources. Yes, you can mention surgery and consulting. But nobody can deny that programming (software development and design) efficiency connected with the efficiency of IT personnel working in a particular company.

Just think about good examples. Let’s take SAP. They invented their approach and started to specialize while implementing their solutions. The result is extremely outstanding. I’ve read about 40,000 successful implementations! If you remind the price of SAP software you can easily understand how much money specialization approach brought to SAP owners.

Returning to streaming video software I can say that if you need to carry out a webinar (seminar or training through the Internet or other type of network) or need some web conferencing software solution outsourcing is the best idea. You save money because specializing companies have previous experience and can use their previous analysis and even some previous programming done. And in most case through ordering IPTV software from an experienced company you save your time and nerves. I think you agree that in most cases they both cost even more than just money spent for programming.

The Executive-analytical Centre of the Belarusian President issued the certificate for BELIPSec. This new software was developed by the information security department of Belhard Group, leading ISO 9001-2001 certified IT-holding.

BelIPSEC secures all protocols of higher levels (such as ТСР, FTP, TFTP, X.400, НТРР, Telnet, SMTP, SNMP, NFS, FTAM etc.).

Sometimes it’s necessary to know a bit more than it’s possible to learn during to appropriate time. Very often company can’t hire the specialists that possess enough qualification not only to learn but even to find what’s necessary to be learnt.

In this case outsourcing can be not just the best but even the only way out. In today’s world when information doubles every half of a year or even faster (some specialists say that information doubles every three (3) months) such situations can happen very often. But in some spheres new features appear or maybe better to say are being introduced almost every day. I’m speaking about the information-communication technologies (ICT) industry. Almost every day we can hear about some new programs, plugins, and protopypes.

So, if you need some knowledge in web development it’s a good idea to think about IT outsourcing. While hiring programmers from other companies you can shift the responsibility of acquiring additional IT knowledge. From the moment of signing a contract with a Java Programming or PHP development company you have the right to insist on using the modern IT components and providing web development services on the highest possible level. I think that nowadays it’s one of the most important advantages of outsourcing in software development sphere.

The average salary for .net Web Developers jobs is about $74,000. Average .net Web Developers salaries can vary greatly due to company, industry, location, benefits and experience. There is a calculation of average salary for all jobs with the term “.net Web Developers” anywhere in the job listing (In USD as of Oct 13, 2008).
.net developer - $71,000
.net developers - $73,000
c# .net developers - $79,000
c# .net developer - $80,000
c# .net software developer - $66,000
senior .net developer - $79,000
web developer - $60,000
project manager - $75,000
software developer - $70,000
.net architect - $93,000
java developer - $78,000
c# developer - $76,000

As we can see from the table, the biggest salary gets .net architect followed by senior .net developer and java developer.

Let’s determine, what skills must have “the most expensive” one: .net architect. These are main characteristics, which were determined by professionals in this field.
1. The ability to take a complex problem and break it down into simple well determined manageable subcomponents that are coupled.
2. Architect and design a solid base application framework that allows for ease of maintainability. And design a system that can withstand the test of time, as well as meet other opinions of industrial-strength software.
3. Use best practices and architectural design patterns with no over-engineering the system to death.
4. Do more with less: Use reusable library frameworks and
proven technologies.
5. Ensure that the system is highly automated.
6. Has real experience in truly distributed architectures.

So, the salary is really good, but it is very important to understand, that you can get good money only for good knowledge and experience. But all jobs in the sphere of web development are well-paid and professional specialists get appropriate money.

IT outsourcing is an industry that is rapidly changing. Over the past decade it has undergone a radical transformation; first an option reserved for the few - and then - it has now become an almost routine choice for many.

Belarus’ strength is based in its mature technical infrastructure and educational system. While Eastern Europe currently accounts for a small share of the global IT outsourcing market, it is already an outsourcing hot spot and a favorite location.

The advantages of Belarusian IT outsourcing are:

Real cost savings: as far as price is an initial consideration in any offshore initiative, Belarusian service providers offer really low rates for software developers – as low as not to compromise on quality in no way. Typically, the rates of Belarusian software companies are about seven times lower than those of the U.S. or Western Europe. And if the difference in wages and rates is substantial, the reduction of in-house development costs is significant and the savings become real.

Access to a essential pool of IT talent: availability of qualified human resources goes together with the price criterion. Belarus can provide access to a significant number of professionals with vast programming experience and knowledge and strong mathematics background. Most of Belarusian IT companies perform such services as offshore software design and development, offshore staffing and team creation. Different software project outsourcing models and offshore staffing models are used.

Workforce stability: An average Belarusian software provider keeps partnerships stable with its personnel turnover rate of about 10%.

Fast time to market and quick response to end-customers’ demands: the right set of software development processes, adherence to industry standards and vast experience of working with international clients guarantee the optimal combination of quality, flexibility and speed.

I’ve heard today a very good phrase from one of our customers of software development. He said “I never choose to pay low dollar for a bad work”. I’m sure that he was completely right. Price of the service is very important but it’s not the only factor to take into consideration while deciding if to outsource IT services or develop software on a “in-house” basis.

Hiring your own web developers has very essential advantages:
- you can choose the specialists and check their qualification in the programming language or domain;
- programming (your software development project) is the main part of their job – so can be sure that they are busy doing your project and are not involved in something else at the same time;
- An in-house project manager reviews work, sets up the calendar, controls all the deadlines and so on.

It sounds to be easy but not really in many cases. Software development outsourcing can be really very helpful if:
-you have no staff of software developers of necessary level of qualification and expertise;
-you are not sure that you can find a good project manager who will organize everything from staff recruiting to project implementation (the whole software development life cycle);
-you have no time and willingness to involve yourself in software development process with all those “strange people” (web developers) and strange terms (like Agile, or SOA architecture).

Outsourcing your IT project has some cons that are necessary to think over. The first problem that you’ll face is about finding the “right” firm, the “right” service provider. I wrote about this in some of the previous articles (Choosing the software development company to work with). But for sure it is a risk.
Another difficulty of outsourcing is concerns training the “outside” software developers in your tone and feel. It can take some time before you explain them the details of your idea.

But the truth is that most of the outsourcing problems are really important only for the first time of choosing a software development service provider. When you start the second project you will have all the necessary information about your partner. And it will take much less time to explain your ideas. So, why not to try?

And going back to the beginning of my article I need to say that in IT sphere outsourcing can be very cost-effective. It’s not a big problem to find good software development companies with good portfolio and more than 10 years of experience. It can save up to 50% of our budget in comparison to “in-house” programming and “in-house” IT management.

Some people (especially those who are very far from IT sphere) think that programmers (or web developers) are very different people who are involved in a mysterious process of software development. So, I decided to collect some statements dedicated to programming that can prove that in the information technologies industry everything is almost the same as in the others… I hope nobody takes this too serious.

All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.

Before software can be reusable it first has to be usable.

The software isn’t finished until the last user is dead.

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.

Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.

Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more ‘user-friendly’…  Their best approach so far has been to take all the old brochures and stamp the words ‘user-friendly’ on the cover.

A hacker on a roll may be able to produce–in a period of a few months–something that a small development group (say, 7-8 people) would have a hard time getting together over a year.  IBM used to report that certain programmers might be as much as 100 times as productive as other workers, or more.

There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about and those nobody uses.

There is no programming language–no matter how structured–that will prevent programmers from making bad programs.

In software, we rarely have meaningful requirements.  Even if we do, the only measure of success that matters is whether our solution solves the customer’s shifting idea of what their problem is.

There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.

Any C programmer here ? Yeah i got a C in programming class. That counts ?

The fist thing to check is experience. His experience is a key to achive the goals of the project. Experience is not only the knowledge of HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, PHP, ASP, JavaScript, or other technologies and programming languages. Many students with no experience can say a lot about these web development languages.
Asking about experience can include:

• Have they worked with other businesses in related industries to yours?
• How long has the company been in business?
• How has their work impacted their client’s businesses?

Pay a huge attention to their portfolio and don’t forget to call former clients.
The second important question is dedicated to their business approach – they can operate as technologists or marketers. It’s very important as great technology itself rarely leads to a higher bottom line. They need to understand your business goals, you market, your potential problems and so on.

The last but not the least question the combination between price and terms.

It is important that your web designer can not only provide this functionality but can modify or customize the functionality to meet your specific requirements as needed. Programming is a very time consuming process and will always cost more. The more customized your solution becomes, the higher the cost.
Dynamic websites have a much longer life-span because they are flexible, expandable and customizable. It’s unlikely that it will last forever without an upgrade, but you should be able to get several productive years out of it before upgrading.
You need to hire a great designer, a programmer/developer, a copywriter, a Search Engine specialist, a Project Manager, and a Certified Internet Consultant to advise you on how to make the best use of it all. If you find all that in one person, you have just struck gold!
Many website designers attempt to provide all these services as an individual rather than a team. It almost always leads to a longer than expected delivery time and a less than anticipated return on investment.
Ask your designer how many people are on their team and how they will ensure a quick launch of your project. A robust, dynamic website and Internet Marketing System should be delivered in a 60-90 day timeframe.

And don’t forget to discuss your project maintenance conditions. Not many managers think about the end and the starting point. But good managers do!

There is a huge dilemma: you can hire programmers rent a place and start a software development project yourself. Or you can hire a company. I mean software development outsourcing.

 And if the second variant seems better here are some ideas you may want to think over. Before you start reading I need to say that these statements came from almost 15 years of BelHard operations. 

1. Determine the criteria that will influence your choice. They can be:

• Hour rate
• Total cost of the project, including maintenance, hosting, management and so on
• Team qualification (including certificates, standards and awards) and experience – this can be divided into many
• Team or company history
• Financial position of the company
• Number of people involved in software development process
• The average age of the team
• Availability of rescue team
• And so on…

Determine the weight for each criteria 

2. Create the list of potential suppliers. Internet can be really helpful for this. 

3. Interview the potential suppliers and fill the form with weighted criteria. Ask them to provide as many documents to prove their qualification 

4. Check if the ways of communication they suggest is OK for you and for the goals of the project. For example, if the speak about Agile methodologies they are more realistic when it comes to making sure communication is facilitated correctly and often with real code sent back for verification, reflection and fine-tuning. It can influence greatly the results of the project. 

5. Involve lawyer to create a good contract. This is VERY cost-effective investment. 

It’s not the complete list. So… to be continued…

Barack Obama on Wednesday said while America cannot “shy away” from globalisation, it would have to take measures to ensure that jobs are not shipped overseas. Obama recognised this problem: “The issue of outsourcing is a genuine and important issue but to refer to one country was, I think, an error.” More than error, it was lack of judgment from someone who is very aware of the way racism functions in US society.

Here are some comment on this issue:

It would be interesting to know what fraction of the jobs that were lost were producing goods/services for (a) US economy (b) US exports to foreign countries and whether the jobs lost really lead to direct new jobs in foreign countries. If the jobs lost didn’t lead to new jobs in foreign countries then anti-outsourcing rant is pure paranoia and just an effect of capitalistic economy. If the new jobs created in foreign countries were of the type (b) then it is an effect of globalization and American workers and economy has to learn the new game. If it was of type (a) then outsourcing is something to complain about. What kind of capitalism should America adopt where it wants all trade to be one sided i.e only sell but no buy ?

Can you make cheap items like china whom u are dependant on almost every house items.
Also can you work like Asians who think work is first then comes family.
or are u planning to increase the Work visa for Asians.

While I am strongly in favor of globalization as something that benefits all sides, I am not really worried even if Obama is serious about this and becomes president. I don’t think one person can stop globalization even if it is the president of Amrika, though maybe he could slow things down a bit for sometime. In balance I still think he is a sincere and thoughtful person and I still lean towards him as president (FWIW of course, as a non-citizen).

Any other opinions?