Offshore Product Development Blog

Mobile Application Development: Overpriced might be justified!

2012-02-20T04:33:00.000-08:00

Almost decided on the mobile application development partner yet rethinking the price?

Yes you have to look for the best deal but do not let price be the determining factor when you are choosing a mobile application development partner.

With a mobile app you surely want to reach out better and cater to a wider audience. This will only happen when your app is unique and caters to the needs of its audience. In order to achieve this, you need a good mobile application development partner that understands your product and creates its mobile app accordingly.

While the experience and expertise of the vendor needs to be evaluated carefully, you also need to evaluate the pricing that the vendor is offering. The overall cost borne by the mobile application development company to fully develop an application may take you by surprise. Yes, it is possible to get a mobile app developed for your product at a cheaper rate. However, if you do not want to compromise on the quality of your application, it is better to avoid from such options.

If the cost is worrying you, then probably you should also know the reasons why prices differ:

Mobile application development is expensive owing to the time, effort and creativity that goes into developing an app. Comparing mobile website development costs with app development expenses will not be justified since there are a lot of complex functionalities that need to be considered for mobile applications.
The process of developing mobile apps is much more involved and takes much longer than mobile website development. The developer has to first look into the complexities of the particular OS that the app is being developed for. Next she understands the exact functionalities of the device and then starts with the development process.
In case of cross-platform apps he has to dedicate more time to create an app that is compatible across devices and OS. The type of device may also vary. For example, the iPhone 3gs and the iPhone 4 have different graphics requirements.

Mobile application development costs will also depend on other factors like the type of app like a data driven app or a game app and the UI design. Development of a quality mobile app may seem overpriced, but in the long term, it will benefit you in terms of the revenue that you can generate with a successful app out there in the market.

Guidelines for Testing Mobile Apps

2012-02-09T22:09:00.000-08:00

The mobile computing environment poses unique challenges due to the many devices, diverse software and hardware configurations and communication intricacies. This diversity poses different challenges when it comes to mobile application development, deployment, and quality assurance. This calls for thorough and unique mobile testing strategies that ensure that the application runs smoothly once published.

It is important to test mobile apps before publishing them to the market not only to find errors but also to understand the quality of the application that you are offering. Does the app function as desired? Will it address the needs of end customers so that they recommend your app and use it frequently? To ensure the success of the app, you need to have a robust application that works across various platforms and devices.

Here a few essential guidelines for testing mobile apps:

Study and understand the network landscape and device landscape. This will help you identify bottlenecks and resolve them quickly
Select the right test tool (automation/manual). The tool should support all desired platforms and devices, testing for various screen types, resolutions, and input mechanisms. It should be connected to the external system to carry out end-to-end testing and should perform well when accessed from a remote environment
Carry out testing in uncontrolled real-world test conditions (field-based testing), especially for a multi-tier mobile application.
Conduct performance testing, UI testing and compatibility testing using actual devices. Measure performance only under realistic conditions of wireless traffic and maximum user load.
To identify the most critical hardware/platform combination to test, use the Weighted Device Platform Matrix method. This will be very useful especially when you need to test high hardware/platform combinations in less time.
Check the end-to-end functional flow in all possible platforms at least once using emulators as well as with the actual device.

For efficient and error-free delivery you should plan your mobile application testing strategy across manual and automation testing approaches. Since enterprise applications require special testing techniques, partnering with third-party vendors can be a viable option.

Exploring Mobile in Healthcare

2012-02-05T22:21:00.000-08:00

Mobile communication has changed the way most of the things work today. Similarly, healthcare and its various aspects have become easily accessible thanks to mobile health (mhealth).

There are quite few mobile apps already available but the demand for healthcare mobile application development is increasing by the day. A number of innovations are being made to harness the power of mobile phones, applications, SMS and even social media to improve the overall healthcare system.

For consumers, mhealth is seen as easy, anywhere and anytime access to healthcare knowledge and services. Healthcare is one of the key growth areas, particularly for Smartphones, because of their ability to combine communication with alerts, references and records. Healthcare will be transformed by the emergence of smartphones offering solutions in communication, knowledge, transactions and integration.

Here are a few attributes of mobile that will benefit healthcare:

•    mHealth will enable better management of patient info. Mobile will provide easy and fast access to patient data and will reduce paperwork to a large extent. Critical information regarding the patient’s health or the procedures undergone by him/her will be available with just a single click.
•    In case of an emergency, most people are clueless as to what they should be doing to help the patient till medical help arrives. Mobile applications will help people connect with their doctor quickly, so they receive guidance on first aid and other such medical help.
•    For physicians, mhealth will provide easy access to the latest evidence-based medicine knowledge at the point of care. Real-time access to medical information, including Electronic Medical Records (EMR), enables care providers to seamlessly connect with each other and collaborate on providing effective patient care.
•    Patients can engage in online conversations with other patients. This helps them tone down psychological stress by sharing experiences and knowledge regarding a particular health condition and better manage their own health.

Currently, there are over 6,000 medical and healthcare mobile apps across platforms. Mobile application developers are working towards introducing robust tools for decision support and advanced clinical imagery.

Top Cloud Trends Of 2012

2012-01-29T22:26:00.000-08:00

Cloud Computing has become a scalable delivery platform inthe field of services computing. Much is being anticipated of the "thecloud"- the money it will save as well as the agility it will bring tocomputing. 2012 is expected to be the year in which cloud sourcing surpassestraditional outsourced product development and other outsourcing services.

Most large organizations have at least one cloud service andmore often they have six. Collaboration services lead these deployments, withhosted email, anti- virus/spam filters and web conferencing the most commonapplications being deployed into the cloud by large enterprises. Here are someof the top cloud trends that will be seen in 2012.

Cloud Becomes Common
Cloud computing will become a lot more common than it was in2011. It will change the way work is done and will become the acceptableplatform for the delivery of services. End users are already becoming familiarwith the benefits of cloud, and will now want to take that into the enterprise.Cloud will now be an accepted paradigm shift.

Outsourcing will be revolutionized by Cloud
Cloud computing is considered as the next shift in ITarchitecture and has been tagged as the 'game changing force' in IT. Outsourcing will take to cloud computing inorder to make it more efficient and reliable for both employers and freelancers.As the outsourced product development world drifts from utility low-cost business models tovalue-based model, cloud appears as a very attractive option.

Cloud Business Platformwill Strengthen EconomyBusinesses migrating to the cloud will help accelerateeconomic growth. Companies will start subscribing to applications instead ofinvesting large amounts of money for servers and software. This will help themsave a lot.

Private Cloud over Public Cloud
Business owners will find it more significant to use cloudcomputing to speed up their internal application. By moving their internal ITinfrastructure to cloud, they will gain more workload efficiency. However, mostbusinesses moving to cloud, including those with very rigid regulatoryrequirements and those with the least will end up using a hybrid model.

No matter which model companies adopt to move to the cloud,it is now very clear that most of them are either planning a cloudimplementation, evaluating cloud services or have already implemented a cloudstrategy.

Tips for Multi-Platform Mobile App Development

2012-01-20T00:10:00.000-08:00

An increasing number of smartphones are arriving and taking the mobile market by storm. With this arises the need to build mobile applications that are compatible across mobile platforms. The iPhone is currently the most popular mobile platform for apps, but Android has also emerged as a worthy competitor.

Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Mobile are not too far away.
To offer the best mobile apps, you need to support atleast the most widely used smartphones if not all. But how do you go about developing for multiple platforms? Here are a few tips that can help you with multi-platform mobile app development.

Select a Suitable Approach
In future, apps will be created using HTML5, which is a major extension of the current HTML specifications that could provide direct APIs to GPS and other mobile-specific features.

As of today, one of the approaches used is to provide a “driver” for each phone that provides access to, for example, accelerometer and GPS from scripting languages like JavaScript, Ruby and Python. This way a developer can write the app once in a scripting language (together with HTML and CSS) that can be run on all the phones that have the “driver”.

Another method involves writing the app in one language and then having it “translated” to other languages that can be used on other phones. A developer would then create the app and run it through a tool to produce versions that could run on other platforms.

Select a Suitable Multi-Platform Mobile App Development Tool
There are various tools that are available for developers who are considering developing a cross platform mobile app. These frameworks make it a lot easier for developers to build a functional mobile app that works across platforms. Some of the popular tools include PhoneGap, Application Craft, Rhomobile, Appcelerator, etc.

Select a Suitable Business Model
Before you start developing your mobile app, you should analyze the possible business models you can use for monetizing your app. The available business models include upfront payment, freemium, in-app purchases, ad supported and recurring billing. In order to decide how you would want to monetize you app you need to evaluate how you'll be able to promote it. Having a business model in mind while developing is your app will help you develop around your model.

Tools for Cross Platform Mobile App Development

2012-01-17T00:57:00.000-08:00

Over the last year, a lot of smartphones have flooded the mobile market. They all offer a variety of applications that make the smartphone more user friendly and adaptive. Users are now increasingly looking for applications that can be used across mobile platforms.

Most app developers want to target at least the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry platforms if not more. Developers with applications that are compatible across all platforms will definitely have a competitive advantage. There are various tools that are available for developers who are considering developing a cross platform mobile app. Here’s a list of the few good tools that can be used for cross platform mobile app development:

Rhomobile - Rhomobile offers a Ruby-based framework that enables developers to create applications for various smartphone devices and operating systems. Rhodes is the name of the open-sourced framework that is used. With this framework, developers are only required to write the code once. From the initial code, Rhodes can quickly modify the application’s code to build apps for different platforms, operating systems or smartphones. RhoHub and RhoSync help developers keep application data current on mobile devices.

PhoneGap - PhoneGap is a HTML5 app platform that allows you to author native applications with web technologies and get access to APIs and appstore. It allows app development for iPhone, iTouch, iPAD, Android, Blackberry, Symbian and Palm, becoming one of the few products that supports almost all major platforms. The company offers a cross-platform simulator (an Adobe AIR app), as well as online training sessions to help you access native APIs and build functioning mobile apps on the PhoneGap platform.

Corona - Corona's framework dramatically increases productivity. Tasks like animating objects in OpenGL or creating user-interface widgets takes only one line of code, and changes are instantly viewable in the Corona Simulator. You can rapidly test without lengthy build times.

Appcelerator - Titanium empowers you to create immersive, full-featured applications that go beyond browser boundaries and stick with your audience whenever and wherever they are. Once built, Titanium-based applications can be tested, packaged, and distributed through the Appcelerator Network’s cloud services. The Titanium platform is open source, so you may also access the source code to the complete application at any time for your own use.

Sencha Touch - Sencha Touch is the world's first app framework built specifically to leverage HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript for the highest level of power, flexibility, and optimization. It makes specific use of HTML5 to deliver components like audio and video, as well as a local storage proxy for saving data offline. It has made extensive use of CSS3 in its stylesheets to provide the most robust styling layer possible.

Things to Know Before You Mobile-Enable Your Product

2012-01-09T06:26:00.000-08:00

Mobile is certainly the next big thing. The pace at which mobile application development is picking up is not surprising, yet mind blowing. Either today or tomorrow, you will have to mobile-enable your product. Only then will you be able to cater to a wider audience and keep up with the latest business trends. A number of factors have contributed to this shift in attitude.

A fusion of design, functionality, accessibility and affordability has effectively brought about a ‘tipping point’, where mobile phones have not only become almost universally adopted as communication devices, they are also essential lifestyle accessories and a gateway to retail, leisure, business and educational activities. Planning to go mobile? Here are a few things to know before you mobile enable your product:

Mobile enterprise platforms enable an extensible architecture that can adapt to back-end system support, growing mobile application development and support across a broad set of mobile users, devices, and mobile operating systems. In addition, open platforms provide key technologies that embrace Web services and 4GL tooling for simplified multiple back-end enablement, rapid and efficient development and deployment, and improved delivery of composite applications.
Enterprise mobile deployments are complex and companies who are looking to mobile enable their product are most concerned about IT security and management, end-user productivity and usability requirements. They are deploying mobile applications touching multiple back-end systems and other third-party applications to drive a strategic solution. They seek a platform that is robust enough to address these issues. While choosing a mobile platform for your product, make sure it drives valuable improvement to business processes across entire organizations by reducing complexity and solving business problems.
The mobile platform that you choose for your product must be able to deploy multiple applications efficiently across multiple device types.

Mobile Application Development for Small Businesses

2011-12-23T04:29:00.001-08:00

Owing to the ever surging smart phone markets, it seems like today every company is in need of a mobile app. The mobile app today is what a website was a few years ago, an essential tool that has moved from being a luxury to a necessity for all kinds of businesses. Simple as it may sound with the number of people who seem to be able to do it, mobile application development can be a daunting task, especially for businesses whose competency does not lie in technology. Offshoring your mobile app development can be a good way to get you work done without too many hassles. Read on to know why…

Why should you offshore mobile application development?

Outsource it to the Expert: Your offshore partner is equipped with the expertise to build intelligent and integrated mobile apps. Their experience can help you create a strong mobile app and not just a diluted version of your product. Having a mobile strategy implies that your mobile product helps you get the much required insight into customer preferences. The result is a mobile app that is well-coded, scalable and extensible.

Avoid the Hassles of Maintaining your team: When you outsource mobile app development, your partners will set-up a team of developers for you. You don’t need to set up an in-house team whom you will not be able to give a growth path. At the same time, you get a team of experts who understand the objective of your product and accordingly build an intelligent mobile app.

Save the Cost Required for the Right Infrastructure: Your offshore partner will also be equipped with the infrastructure and tools that are required to develop the best mobile app for your product. However, on-contract developers might not have the required infrastructure like all the test devices and latest development tools. They might also lack the experience that is required to build a future-ready mobile app. An outsourced product development build apps for various other clients, hence knows what works and what does not.

On many occasions, on-contract developers work primarily towards the extra buck that they make. Less attention towards quality of the app might be a possibility with on-contract developers.

Offshoring mobile app development is one of the best ways to ensure that your product has a future proof mobile app with the latest mobile capabilities!

Creating Better Products, Faster!

2011-12-06T21:04:00.001-08:00

In this competitive market, every IT company wants to grow and prosper and to maintain their edge in the market; organizations need to be able to focus on their core business processes and strategies. Today, many companies are getting involved in outsourced product development because of its tremendous benefits.

One of the major benefits that outsourced product development offers is the ability to create better products and deliver them to the market faster. However, to ensure that you create better products faster, you need to make sure that you have the right offshore product development partner.

Choose a product development partner who has the expertise and the experience to put in thought process and execute the product development plan effectively to build an ace product. To make sure that your offshore product development efforts are successful you need a partner more than a vendor. Choose a vendor who understands your vision and goals well, else even after spending your time in writing long specifications; you might not get the right results. By selecting a partner who understands your business, you have an offshore product development team that understands your requirements easily and implements proposed solutions quickly.

Before outsourcing your product’s development, you need to analyze the kind of people who would be a part of your product development team. Your offshore partner should have people who have extensive software product development experience in various roles so that they can fully take on the responsibility of building a stable product for you. Instead of looking for the lowest price, you should look for the best people. The offshore team must understand your business, not just your technology needs through brief communication.

Top 3 Challenges of Mobile Application Development

2011-12-01T04:55:00.001-08:00

Mobile is the easiest way to get information on the run. However, developing a mobile app for your product might be challenging for some of the following reasons:

Screen Size: Mobile screens are small. It is important that you identify those few important features that most of your users would require. On the basis of that, you need to decide the number of features that you want to include in your mobile app and the order that you want to put them in. You need to give priority to the information that is relevant for your users.

Speed: Even the best smart phones actually encounter problems related to speed. The device slows down because of various reasons such as the crowded cellular networks or lack of network coverage. In such a situation, every click matters. Every click actually means a chance of dropped connection. Your users, for sure, would not have the time to wait for long. You always run the risk of losing your user to someone else. Speed up your mobile app by using as few images as possible and include information that is vital for your users and which adds value to the mobile app. Unnecessary cluttering only makes your mobile application heavy and slow.

Usability: Usability should be seriously considered when creating a mobile app. Mobile devices do not work as uniformly as desktop does. Some mobiles have keypads and the others are touch screen. Users often struggle to carry out simple actions such as typing a message or searching for a contact from the address book. So it is always wise to optimize your mobile application depending on the set of users you are targeting.

Should you integrate your product with your mobile app?

2011-11-20T23:12:00.001-08:00

With the trend moving from desktops and laptops to tablets and smartphones, mobile web application development is appealing for a number of reasons. More and more of our interaction online occurs on mobile devices. The trend towards integrated app stores within smartphones is significant. It only makes sense to take your product from mobile to web, so that it is available to a wider audience from anywhere. Few of the advantages of creating a mobile app for your product are:

Mobile Apps take the “wait” out of mobile. Since most, if not all, of the information is stored within the application, there’s no need to wait on loading information
They are great for storing larger amounts of information, such as videos and catalogues. And since the information is stored within the app, the user’s experience is greatly enhanced.
They can act as a container for traditional content such as videos or games, or as a gateway to a brand's multiple services and offers.
Most importantly, mobile applications are connected with consumers in a real-time and therefore allow for immediate and precise consumer feedback and insight.
Mobile apps help you reinforce your brand and connect you with on-the-go consumers.
They help you increase your visibility, accessibility, sell-through and exposure across mobile devices

Following the mobile app trend is the best way ahead for your product as it is a quick and effective for marketing and building brand loyalty amongst your consumers.

Your IP is safe!

2011-11-14T00:26:00.001-08:00

A key concern for you while adopting the Outsourced Product Development model would be the protection of your existing and new intellectual property rights (IPRs). Outsourcing requires the sharing of a wide array of proprietary knowledge. Nonetheless, every type of IP asset – product idea, trade secrets, trademarks, designs, patents, copyright and related rights, etc. – may be involved at the different levels of outsourcing relationships. It is but natural that you worry about the protection of these against violation.

Adopting the Build-Operate-Transfer model is one sure-shot way of ensuring that your IP is safe. With the Build Operate Transfer model you get your own dedicated team that:

You can transfer to your own subsidiary. You have the option to transfer the team to your own subsidiary. You don't need to hire a new team who has to re-learn the product.
Takes complete ownership of the product. When your team knows about your business function and the impact that their work might have on it, there is an improvement in the quality of output. They work towards a better product, not your acceptance.

With a lot of companies adapting this model for outsourced product development, build operate transfer is the next big wave. A dedicated offshore team will be an extension of your own engineering/development center. Through such dedicated facilities, you receive the best skill sets, resources, flexibility and time-to-market advantages. All necessary efforts to protect your Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) can be taken.

The Build Operate Transfer model helps organizations jump-start their operations in a crunched-cycle time. Build operate Transfer also mitigates the risks involved with outsourcing to a large extent.

Is mobile website catching up fast with mobile app?

2011-11-08T23:01:00.000-08:00

Mobile applications have been around for quite some time now. However, now with the emergence of HTML 5, mobile websites seem to be the preference for many who are looking to foray into mobile space. A mobile website is similar to any other website except that it is designed for the smaller handheld display and touch-screen interface.

While it is undeniably true that mobile, in general, is catching up, and potentially overtaking the desktop at a rapid clip as a means of accessing content and information, mobile application development or building a mobile website really depends on how you want to tap into the trend. But mobile website solutions are evolving quickly, and, thanks to the likes of HTML5, you will soon be able to create an experience that is much more fluid, integrated and “app-like” than ever before without creating an actual app.

However today as compared to a mobile website, a native mobile app offers number of advantages, few of which are:

A user can go to any site providing similar services as you, through a browser, but an app user is captive to you.
Mobile apps are apt if your content presentation is constant and only content or data changes each time. Apps do not change in the layout too frequently which means less data is transferred and process takes lesser time.
Mobile apps offer better targeting: You need access to user information provided by the phone such as location, address book, accelerometer, etc. Native Apps are also the best option if you are interested in reaching a niche market represented by usage of a particular device and a particular operating system.
In case of a mobile app, there are no compatibility issues. When they are developed they are developed as iPhone apps, Android apps or Blackberry apps. The screen size and features are consistent for all users. You can control the way text and images are displayed, as well as the use of sounds and videos.
An app offers a highly interactive interface and richer than what HTML can provide. Apps provide more feature-rich functionality today than mobile websites.

Although HTML5 might change this equation further in the future and favor mobile website, mobile applications are undoubtedly the next wave in the evolution of e-business.

Offshore Team Lacks Insight!

2011-09-25T22:16:00.000-07:00

This is a common issue faced by most product companies who have opted for outsourced product development. Clients often complain about deliverables not being up to the mark or the team being unable to deliver the desired results.

The offshore team lacking insight is considered as one of the major reasons that leads to the failure of offshoring. It also results in a major delay in the time to market of the product.

An important reason that your offshore team lacks the required insight could be because enough product related knowledge has not been shared with the them. The team has very little knowledge regarding the objective of your product and hence fails to deliver as per expectation.

Another challenge is that there is lack of communication with the offshore team. Even with technology such as video conferencing, communication is only as good as the information being dispersed. If you don’t have a well-developed process in place that addresses knowledge and documentation management, then there will always be work that is produced based on outdated and incorrect information. This causes a repetitive cycle of rework by the offshore team.

The solution to this problem is to go for an offshore setup that will give you a dedicated team of your own. With a dedicated offshore team, you can:

Share knowledge more freely with your own offshore employees. Knowledge transfer needs to be done just once.

Hire people with specific skills and expertise as per your requirements.

Get greater flexibility in managing projects and deliverables.

Receive better quality output since employees are familiar with the business functionality and objective of your product.

Outsourcing or Offshoring?

2011-09-12T02:23:00.000-07:00

Outsourcing and Off-shoring – these are concepts that have been in discussion for a long time. However, older perceptions have given way to newer thought processes and better ways of leveraging talent.

Unlike before outsourcing today is not a way to cut costs. It implies partnership between two companies in a symbiotic relationship. Outsourcing refers to partnering with an expert in the field.

Off-shoring, on the other hand, describes the relocation of a business process by a company from one country to another in order to cut costs.

Despite the often interchangeable usage of these terms, outsourcing and offshoring are two different dimensions. Outsourcing is when a company hires some expert or professionals to complete a certain task. This can happen to enhance productivity, improve customer support and minimize capital expenditure. Outsourcing software product development is a trend that’s catching up fast owing to the numerous advantages that it offers.

Of the many, an important benefit is that you can leverage your outsourcing vendor’s cumulative experience in product development to the maximum. You get a team of skilled individuals who have the mindset required for developing products. While the entire product lifecycle is taken care of, you can focus on developing and growing your core business.

In the long run, outsourcing is a better option as compared to offshoring if you want specialists working on developing your product. All you need is a trusted outsourcing partner who understands the way you work and is capable of setting up a team that inculcates your culture and way of working. Choose a vendor who understands the objectives and audience of your product well, else you will have to spend your time in writing long specification docs.

By selecting an able partner, you have a development team that understands your business goals so they work towards a better product and not only your acceptance.

Outsourcing 2011: A Paradigm Shift

2011-08-18T01:39:00.000-07:00

The market for product development services is going through a fundamental transformation driven by a series of major business, technological, and supplier changes. Product companies are moving from using outsourcing for just staff augmentation to outsourcing the complete product development to offshore partners.
Unlike previous years, today more and more companies are looking forward to set up an offshore/near-shore team primarily to tap the global talent than just for cost saving.

Companies need low cost product variants and people with local market expertise for sale in emerging markets such as India, China and Brazil. Companies today are willing to outsource the core engineering and not only the peripheral maintenance work. Owing to this shift, now it will be harder for mediocre service providers to sustain the competition. Your outsourcing service provider should be able to:

Reduce Time to Market:
Time to market is the key factor deciding the success of a product. It is very important that your Offshore Product Development Partner not only has ace product developers but also has domain experts to help you build quality products on time.
Set up Better Processes:
Your Offshore Product Development provider should set up processes for effective collaborative development and help you manage the product as well. This will go a long way in improving your governance capabilities.
Address the Entire Product Lifecycle
For you to focus on your core business, your offshore vendor should be able to take up additional functions such as operations, product management, help desk and support and not just limit themselves to product development.

Three Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing a Vendor for Offshore Product Development

2008-06-13T00:38:00.000-07:00

My last post described the differences between product development and custom application development.

In this post, I am going to list 3 vendor selection criteria that are apt for selecting a partner for custom application development, but spell doom if used by product companies to select offshore product development partners.
Here they are:

Size
How much leverage do you think you will get for your 5-25 person business with a vendor company that has other customers giving it millions of dollars in revenue every year? Will such a company be flexible enough to take care of your unique requirements? After all you are not critical to its success. It has its own agenda.

Quality Certifications
ISO and CMM Certifications are about building processes, not software. Processes should be built in such a way that they can be systematically improved over a period of time. When applied intelligently and correctly, they could offer many benefits. However, most companies are interested in using them as marketing tools to sell their services than improving their software development processes.

Think about it. Almost every offshore company is CMM certified. But are any of these: Microsoft, Oracle or Cisco?

Low Rates
Not all “Software Developers” are capable of undertaking product development work. Let’s consider the situation in India – one of the top outsourcing destinations.

At the top are engineers from premier schools such as IITs and RECs, who are capable of abstract thinking, high level problem solving and innovation. These are equivalent to graduates from Ivy League schools in the US.

At the other end are people who have done a two or three year course in application programming - equivalent to technicians who have solid training, but can only take responsibility for routine tasks.

The former get paid almost ten times the latter. Unfortunately, most vendors pass both these categories of people as “developers”.

Choose a vendor who can provide you people from the top engineering institutes with relevant experience in the domain/technologies you use.

I plan to devote an upcoming post to more such pitfalls in offshore product development vendor selection. Meanwhile, if you have learnt any lessons in selecting offshore vendors, email me at nitinsblog@gmail.com and let me know. I won’t share any specific information, but it would be great if other people could learn from your mistakes too!

Why is product development different?

2008-06-04T02:04:00.000-07:00

Building an innovative, complex software product and maintaining a legacy system are two different ballgames altogether, when opting for Offshore Product Development.

Products Specifications keep evolving
Products do not work in a single, well defined environment where all situations are predictable or can be included in a single requirement specification. Product development is more evolving and functional specifications keep changing till the very end of the release cycle.

Products are not easily partitioned
Unlike large IT departments, products do not have well demarcated blocks that can be partitioned off cleanly and completed elsewhere. Teams at multiple locations work on the same code base and integrate their work continuously for multi-location development to succeed.

Time and people are always scarce
Product development teams work aggressive release schedules and typically never have resources to spare exclusively for coordinating with offshore teams.