[thelist] [work] Re: Outsourcing

[Hershel Robinson]

I have now taken this position which I mentioned in January on evolt.

Do you still have a contact to share?

Thank you,
Hershel

Shane Miller wrote:
> I have worked with vendors in India off and on for about six years, and
> I would generally agree with Peter.  I wouldn't go there.  It's never
> really worked out for me, though I've done it sometimes for strategic
> reasons when they have turned around and hired me to help consult with
> their processes, etc.
> 
> If you decide to go the route of hiring programmers in India, I would be
> happy to forward to you the contact information of the most reliable
> contact I have found there.  He's not a programmer himself but he lived
> and worked in Chicago a few years, he has extensive experience working
> with and for Americans, he has many resources in India and can help you
> get the job done better than anybody else I've found over the years.
> 
> That said, I would still suggest you contract the work within North
> America.
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> Shane Miller
> President
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org
> [mailto:thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of Peter Brunone
> (EasyListBox.com)
> Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 8:07 AM
> To: hershelr at netvision.net.il; thelist at lists.evolt.org;
> thelist at lists.evolt.org
> Subject: Re: [thelist] Outsourcing
> 
> If I were you, his savings due to outsourcing would be soaked up by my
> exorbitant fee which would be necessary to make it worth my while to
> deal with that situation.
> 
> But then again I've heard all the bad stories -- seen the results of a
> few as well) --and few of the good.  Time zones wouldn't be a problem
> for you, but communication... well, that's another story.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Peter
> 
>  From: Hershel Robinson hershelr at netvision.net.il
> 
> I was approached by a potential client last week. He has a medium sized 
> web app which has undergone such patching over the years that he is 
> ready for a rebuild from scratch. He is working on the proposal now. His
> 
> plan is to outsource the actual programming to cheap programmers in 
> India or the former Soviet Union from one of the various websites 
> offering such services.
> 
> He told me that his research indicates that "if you do your due 
> diligence there are some very reliable programmers." He is looking to 
> build in PHP/MySQL using an MVC pattern.
> 
> He is looking to hire me (or someone like me) to be a technical manager 
> to oversee the outsourced programmers and to understand the code and to 
> be able to arrange a transfer to a different outsource firm in the 
> middle should things go sour and also to be able to work within the code
> 
> after the build is done, for further changes etc.
> 
> What do people think about his idea of outsourcing? I wonder about the 
> quality of the code which will be produced. The quality of the backend 
> code, how true it will be to an MVC pattern, the quality of the produced
> 
> frontend code, how valid (HTML and CSS) it will be, will it use CSS 
> layout or even CSS for appropriate formatting.
> 
> Even if we require all these things from the programmers, what will be 
> the quality of the code itself and therefore how easy it will be to 
> continue to work in it?
> 
> I have not given a final answer to this client and were I to present a 
> strong case, he might be open to changing his plans. I myself am not 
> convinced either way. It could well be that either the code will not be 
> bad, or that it won't be really bad, yet it's still worth the savings he
> 
> realizes by outsourcing.
> 
> Anyone have any experience to share?
> 
> Thanks,
> Hershel


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