The Accelerance website and email is down this morning due to a major outage at our hosting provider Earthlink. Even the Earthlink website is down. I found the support number and called but you know how that goes - no humans actually answer the phone. A message said some Earthlink customers may be experiencing problems. I think it’s all of us.

Our phones do work and I will answer if you call. You can also reach me at my Gmail address which is Steve Mezak without the space.

Bookmark to:
          

Contact Info Previously Available Through $497-$5,000 Consulting Services
Accessible at No Cost Until April 30, 2008

Redwood City, CA – [Business Wire] – Accelerance, the company dedicated to taking the risk out of outsourcing software development globally, announced that it will provide one month of free unlimited access to the 40 members in its Global Partner Network beginning today. The 40 offshore software development company partners located throughout Eastern Europe, India, Latin America, North America and Southeast Asia have been meticulously pre-screened and qualified by Accelerance. Contact information is available by registering at http://www.accelerance.com/free-jumpstart.htm.

“We’re offering this valuable global partners contact information at no charge to encourage companies to discover the benefits of outsourcing,” said Steve Mezak, Accelerance CEO and author of the awarding-winning book Software Without Borders and the Steve Mezak Blog.

According to Mezak, many free directories list tens of thousands of offshore outsourcing companies, but give no information on the competency or quality of any particular vendor. “It’s hard to tell which ones are any good. You can spend a lot of time fishing for vendors, describing a project and reviewing your bids. If you need to build an offshore software development team quickly, these directories and project bidding websites are useless.”

Previously, access to contact information in the Accelerance Global Partner Network cost clients between $497 to $5,000, depending on the consulting services included. “Once they chose an offshore vendor, our Outsourcing Jumpstart, Rapid Ramp-Up and consulting services can help pinpoint evaluation criteria and select the partner that best fit their needs,” said Mezak. “But there’s no obligation. The partner contact info is now free for a limited time.”

Companies considering using outside resources to develop software can check the Accelerance Global Partner Network Member Directory to get an overview and sense of depth and breadth of the global network.

Accelerance, Inc. offers consulting, coaching, tools and processes to help clients select offshore, near-shore and onshore outsourcing vendors quickly and safely. The Accelerance Global Partner Network of 40+ expert software development vendors in over a dozen countries provides software development services for 19 leading software technologies. Accelerance also guides customers in contract negotiation, offshore engagement set-up, and on-going software development oversight.

Bookmark to:
          

I just read a recent article titled Bottom of the Barrel in Newsweek about the problem of forced labor in Asian countries where many computer products are made. Poor people are being duped into taking manufacturing jobs in wretched conditions with little pay. It’s basically slavery.

The criticism that “low rates = slavery” is sometimes leveled at offshore software development too. Displaced American programmers may feel that to work at the rates that some offshore vendors must mean their offshore programmer replacements must be earning only slave wages.

But it’s not true. Rising salaries in India are the evidence.

Anyway, software development is a creative process. You can’t get it done with an uncooperative and unmotivated programmer chained to a computer.

Bookmark to:
          

Bill Gates was interviewed on NPR today about the limits on the number of H1-B visas issued by the U.S. Gates says the U.S. cannot attract the best talent to come work in the U.S. Microsoft and other U.S. companies are forced to hire these smart workers offshore.

I agree. But so what?

Gates says that ultimately, hiring workers offshore makes the U.S. less competitive.

I disagree.

America will continue to compete through innovation.  The challenge we face is learning how to use this global offshore talent as a resource to implement these innovations.

In other words, you can dream up an application for software without being a programmer. The trick is to communicate with your programmers what the software should ultimately do. This was a challenge even when the programmers were in the same room.  And it still is at many companies.

Companies that are importing programmers using the H1-B visa suspect that they are being trained here and then sent back to the old country where they will continue working but at a lower wage. In other words, they are taking the job back with them.

That seems like a far-fetched scheme when you can hire programmers offshore to begin with already.

To avoid the H1B visa limits, Microsoft has opened an R&D facility in Canada which has no such limits on importing foreign born talent.

Bookmark to:
          

An interesting twist on the free software business model is to include advertising in your software application and give it away for free. The article Winning with an Ad-Supported Model on SandHill Group website describes how one company named SpiceWorks is doing this with an application used by IT departments.

I think this is a very interesting idea. Is your software application focused on a specific target market that many other companies would like to reach? If so, this advertising business model could work for you too.

Bookmark to:
          

Well, they at least disrupted access to YouTube.  But that seems pretty significant.

Censorship ordered by the Pakistani government to block access to a Danish YouTube video had unexpected consequences when the rerouting of the YouTube domain name in Pakistan got propagated around the global Internet.

This incident was reported widely by the New York Times and BBC, among others.

The ability for a foreign government to disrupt the Internet, even if it is just one website domain name is a bit disconcerting. It was only temporary and fixed easily once word got out about what was going on. And the BBC article quotes the Pakistanis as saying they didn’t hack the Internet, it was just a technical glitch.

Of course this comes on the heals of two physical disruptions to the Internet caused by cuts to undersea fiber optic cables a couple of weeks ago.

Bookmark to:
          

On February 20, 2008, Steve Mezak will be speaking at the Go-to-Market Symposium hosted by Mexico-IT in four cities in Mexico about Why U.S. Companies Will Outsource to Mexico.

Bookmark to:
          

Redwood City, CA – [Business Wire] February 8, 2008 – Accelerance, the company dedicated to taking the risk out of outsourcing software development globally, has expanded its presence in Latin America, approving eight new members – two each from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico – to join its Global Partner Network. The network now has more than 40 members throughout Eastern Europe, India, Latin America, North America and Southeast Asia, providing services for 19 leading software technologies. Argentina and Chile are new country destinations for the Accelerance Global Partner Network. The Accelerance Global Partner Network member directory is now online for prospective clients to get an overview and sense of depth and breadth of the global network.

A leading provider of software solutions for the purchasing life cycle selected Accelerance to help them build a team in Latin America with the objective of enabling real-time communication and improving retention. While the client already offshored to India, they thought it made good business sense to also leverage their Latin American neighbors. The company turned to Accelerance for the expertise they needed to accomplish this expansion goal quickly and easily. 

Steve Mezak, Accelerance CEO and author of the awarding-winning book Software Without Borders and the Steve Mezak Blog said, “Many U.S. companies are looking toward Latin America for a safe, practical way to add software development resources within the same – or closer – time zone.”

Mezak is frequent speaker on outsourcing software development. This month his company will sponsor the SD Forum Event, “Software Engineering Management SIG,” featuring guest speaker, Dr. Ivar Jacobson, founder of Ivar Jacobson Consulting. On March 7, Mezak will present “Offshoring: Pro’s and Con’s” at the SD West 2008 Conference in Santa Clara, CA.

Accelerance, Inc. offers consulting, coaching, tools and processes to help clients select offshore, near-shore and onshore outsourcing vendors quickly and safely. The Accelerance Global Partner Network of 40 expert software development vendors in 20 countries provides software development services for 19 leading software technologies. Accelerance also guides customers in contract negotiation, offshore engagement set-up, and on-going software development oversight.

Bookmark to:
          

A cut to two undersea communication cables in the Mediterranean Sea caused greatly diminished bandwidth to India on January 30th. You need to consider possible disruptions to communication if you are considering offshore outsourcing.

Meanwhile, a third cable was severed a few days later in the Persian Gulf near Dubai.

An analysis of the impact on modern Internet communications is sobering. Is it a conspiracy?

There isn’t much of an impact on the U.S. and Europe if it is.  According to the Analyzing the Internet Collapse article in Technology Review, “This kind of damage is rarely such a deep concern in the United States and Europe. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are crisscrossed so completely with fast fiber networks that a break in one area typically has no significant effect. Net traffic simply uses one of many possible alternate destinations to reach its goal.”

Good thing. I’d hate to think the rest of you could get cut off from California.

Bookmark to:
          

February 21, 2008

Accelerance will sponsor the SD Forum Event, Software Engineering Management SIG featuring guest speaker, Dr. Ivar Jacobson, founder of Ivar Jacobson Consulting. The event starts promptly at 7 p.m. Registration begins at 6:30 p.m.

Bookmark to: