Nearshore vs Offshore

The Digital Moose Lounge Sorry for the late notice, I'm speaking Thursday at the Digital moose lounge in Santa Clara about Outsourcing to Canada versus Offshoring. DML is an association of Canadian expats in the valley. They do great work!

Offshore Outsourcing World Blog - News & Events About Offshore Outsourcing World :: Bangaloring Seniors from the West

Offshore Outsourcing World Blog - News & Events About Offshore Outsourcing World :: Bangaloring Seniors from the West: "UK-based writer, Deborah Moggach’s imaginative idea about giving a new identity to India’s Silicon Valley, from “outsourcing hub of IT services” to “global destination for elderly care” has not escaped the attention of the Indian government."

You can't stop progress, you just can't... ;-) Hey we send our parents to eldery homes in other towns, now we're talking another country. Somehow the saying that if the person is not in the cubicle next you could be anywhere in the world, does't work for me and my mom!

AjaxWrite, the Newest Ajax Office Entrant

Michael's minutes and now from this "AjaxWrite, an online Ajax version of Word, is the newest entrant into the online office space. It opens and saves documents in Word format (you can also save in PDF), has good basic functionality and is fairly fast. I agree with Michael Robertson, the man behind AjaxWrite, that this and other Ajax Word products like Writely and Zoho Writer significanly reduce the need for most of the world’s population to buy Microsoft Word." from TechChrunch. Come on- AjaxWrite and other Ajax productivity applications have a long way to go before coming even close to the experience a desktop application can offer. We are talking about this AjaxWrite, or Internet Wordpad for two reasons. First the man behind is Michael Robertson loves to take jabs at big industry players, remember mp3.com and lately MS and Lindows lawsuit. Second this is web 2.0, and the web is going to do every thing kind of syndrom bubble call it what you want. I was at Corel back in 1996 when the company decided to develop office for Java, remember that? Well I wasn't involved directly, but I know all too well the complexity and challenges of developing web based productivity applications, Claude Montpetit and many others were in the trenches ask them what it is like.

I believe strongly in the model of WebApps, but we have to look at the web for it's real productivity benefits, connectivity and taping the information available. The apps that will take hold on the web are the ones which needs a certain level of connectivity, ie they make use of the fact they are connected in a significant way. For example - Reviewing files is very important, productivity when on the road is reviewing, not producing as such, we should have services for reviewing word/excel files safely in a public environment, it would beat doing this on a blackberry or treo.

AjaxWrite is going to improve, but when are you going to write a document of more than a few paragraphs in a browser window? Maybe when you write an e-mail, so yes I could see Outlook going web only. Filling in a form is another place where you spend decent amount of time writing stuff in a browser window. Another one document reviews, quick and dirty comments or edits to fire back to the author of the document. The competition in those cases is not Word or Excel, they are not the targets, or they are the wrong targets in my mind, but They are easy targets, they are Microsoft, and they get you mileage. Innovator's solution as a good case study on what the blackberry really competes with, I think it applies in this case as well.

I think Ajax applications will develop into a new category, a good interface for manipulating, editing, creating information of and on the web. There are sources of informations organized and not organized on the web that are just asking to be put to use. Ajax apps will leverage webservices in new ways. This is both a larger and narrower mission than creating documents. The productivity apps are a few the basic elements from which they will feed. They will take over from where the productivity apps stop, and go in new ways. Trying to replace instead of complementing them may be the only way to understand where the elements all fit in the picture unfortunately.

business2blog: B2Day : Can Sinofsky Help Microsoft Make the Leap From Vaporware to Perpetual Beta?

business2blog: B2Day : Can Sinofsky Help Microsoft Make the Leap From Vaporware to Perpetual Beta?: "The new boss of Microsoft’s Windows division, Steven Sinofsky, is a bit of an aberration on the Redmond campus. As head of product development for Office, he is actually known for delivering software products on time (well, he was known for that until it was revealed yesterday that Office 2007 will be late). " The amount of fuss over the delay is just enormous if you ask me. For one - Windows has never been shipped on time, it's always been delayed. Second the number of delays of Vista are no worse than what we've seen in the past. Third I understand that because they've been late in the past, doesn't mean they should be late again.

Who really needs Vista this year, aside from MS? I have XP running right now, I'm far from being tired of running XP. I have Vista installed as a beta, it's nice, funky, but to me this is all curiosity, XP is cutting the muster for me just fine.

On the other hand some people are freaking out at the stability issue and how the sky is going to fall on our head regarding Vista. Some are saying they will need to re-write millions of line of code before shipping. I'm a sampling of one, not very meaning full, take it for what you paid for, MS has been shipping software for more than 25years, I don't believe they would have let it go that bad before making corrections.

InformationWeek | Networking Merger | Alcatel, Lucent In Merger Talks | March 24, 2006

InformationWeek | Networking Merger | Alcatel, Lucent In Merger Talks | March 24, 2006: "The deal could potentially create a communications powerhouse, with combined sales of more than $25 billion. 'We can confirm that Lucent and Alcatel are engaged in discussions about a potential merger of equals that is intended to be priced at market,' according to a statement issued by the companies." Talk about a huge deal in the telecom world, this will probably force more consolidation of other players it goes through. Bets are on, on who's next, Nortel with Seimens, Cisco with Nortel, or Ericson with ???

From Slashdot - Opinion: Why Good Technologists Are Hard to Find - Computerworld

Opinion: Why Good Technologists Are Hard to Find - Computerworld Most excellent point of view. Enrollment in schools is a North American wide problem. The baby boomers yes again them, will leave a void after their retirement, or come back contracting for huge money because we can't find anybody to pair them with before they leave and take over once they are gone. All in all two situations I would rather not deal with.

I would add to the opinion of the author the following paradox. The offshoring threat is if we here in North America do not crank out enough graduates to take care of things. Cranking out more students counter balance offshoring -yes. Should we not have sufficient quantity of graduates, we run the risk of outsourcing everything as opposed to what makes business sense, thus getting rid of great expertise and knowledge. Our infrastructure would be controled by others, and we would not have anything to say about it. Running the risk of running out of innovators and techies is a big problem that we can't afford otherwise we're at the mercy of the mood of our outsourcing partner.

EU getting serious with Indian students

from the IndiaTimes ET EU is looking to award 1000 scholarships to Indian students. "Every students is handed a scholarship of 17000Euro for the whole year. In Europe University is free, the scholarship easily supplements a student for his or her living expenses during the year" This is what I call a serious business proposition, and a real good opportunity for Indian students to see and experience the world. We're trying to put something along those lines here in Canada, we're only starting, we have our work cut out for us.

Globalizing and Innovating versus expanding in India

A few weeks back I wrote about a meeting I had with someone from Tata while touring the facility over in Mumbai India. My host elaborated a theory that there was no way that IBM/Accenture etc could not ever compete with their Indian competitors like TCS. Listening to him I totally bought it, IBM and large comanies in North America were in fact in big troubles. The whole argument is that the cost structure of American co several managemement layers and head office costs, can't be offset by expanding in India even if done in bulk.

Well yesterday I read something else in eweek India 2.0 from Stan Gibson he argues that their might be more competition than we think to the whole story. His point is simple how difficult is it for a global company like IBM to expand in India, ie one country, when they have been expanding in other countries for the last 60years. Expansion, multi-cultural, global workforce is part of IBM's DNA. Another thing really strong within companies like IBM is their innovation cababilities. Compare this with India's companies challenge, expand in every industrial country in the world at the same time, and learn to innovate.

I hate not to have an answer, it's one of those where I think we'll have to play it by ear.

Interesting R&D Outsourcing in Health & Life Sciences

R&D Outsourcing Goes Strategic Numbers shows that 9 out of 10 companies in sectors like Oil&Gas, Automotives, BioTech are outsourcing R&D activities to partners. In the software industry this numbers falls to 1 out of 4. Since the softwawre industry is maturing, and facing more and more pricing pressure, whether coming from OSS or other factors, it is going to go the way of the more mature industries. This means good growth in this market and explains why the market is set to go from 1B in 05 to 10B in 2010.

What is interesting with the link above is that the same industries that we call mature are calling for even more outsourcing. The guidelines to a successful relationship are awfully reasonable for our industry as well. This makes me think we would have much to learn by speaking to other industries, in other words let's stop re-inventing the wheel. Other people's people experience can become my insight. This is the motto behind a group we actively participate in OSEF We're getting the VPs of r&d in ottawa to get out of their ivory towers and share with their peers in town, OSEF helps them fast track their way toward success world domination.

Looking at the big picture, we should be talking to people doing R&D in other sectors(unrelated industries) to learn from them as well, I'm sure they can teach us a trick or two, after all the Automotive industry has been doing R&D for over a century now, and Software R&D is 50 years old, their ought to be something to learn from them.

PDO Picking up steam

We're talking about it and more and more people are talking about it. This is a good sign. I can see more write ups about it in the outsourcing journals, and even blogs here and there.

Today what we must do is make sure that Canada is on the map as a destination. I believe we have the assets required to be among the top destinations for OPD. I'm talking with CGI today, and tomorrow to see what they think of the trend, getting a large player like them to play in thsi game would send a great message to the world about our capabilities. I believe CGI has no choice if they still want to be a major player in 5-10years, but I will to hear what they have to say.

Right now we're a small fish in a small pond, we need to work to make it a large pond so that we can grow more and faster!

Part of our argument relies on: Roughly 10years ago, we saw the IT supply chain blown into pieces, in other words, IT org realized they couldn't and needed not to do it all alone, if they wanted to keep up and be totally focussed on their differentiator. They started lining up partners that could depend on for specific areas of their business, specialized partners, with large economy of scales, and numerous hours of expertise acquired through other engagments. The same is happening with R&D, it is being blown into pieces, they too are now looking at how they can leverage partners in their supply chain to deliver more value to their customers.

canada's assets are geographical proximity, cultural fit to the US and our innovation capabilities. This means that we understand very well the product environment, we can read between the lines, finish our clients' sentences. It's also good because Canada's has an innovation history, our engineers are second to none. This deep understanding, and innovation capabilities helps Canada's firms sign for projects that are more risky, where the unknowns are greater, this is what R&D is about, needless to say we have great R&D programs to tap into.

BarCampOttawa

Our own BarCamp This is going to be fun, come and join a good day of exchange among a technology driven crowd, your kind of crowd! This is the kind of event that is grassroots and reminds me of the stories I read on the homebrew club so many times. I strongly believe in the potential of linking like minded people and who knows what happens next, who cares really at this point, it's techies for techies!

More India Trip Report

Bear with me more thoughts - Talking with a some folks I was out in India with, I want to share with you some of our discussions. The most impressive thing for the CEO of a very large company from Canada with us there were as follow:

• Capability and Capacity
• I find this amazing, putting things in context, for someone who is leading a billion dollar company to still be caught offguard about the setup and the infrastructure tells me how much India has its act together.
• They do high end work
• Yes visiting India makes you realize they do more than clear customs for the good we import, they do problem solving for us, see Evalueserve for an example of company doing so pretty wicked stuff, and from India!
• Quality is outstanding - better than here, Canada!
• My take on this is it would depend on the type of work we're talking about. It's true for certain categories and not for others. They have this way of learning, so India will keep moving up the food chain where it makes economic sense for both the buyer and India itself. So yes for highly automatable projects, no for quick turn around and initiatives with a component of risks.
• To enter India one needs a partner, can't go direct to penetrate the market.
• For a company the size of Macadamian , about 60people, going to India alone is very risky, high turn over, corruption, culture are just few of the things we would have difficulties handling.
• Both our Federal and Provincial governments are asleep with what is going on
• They don't know what to do, they are a deer caught in the headlights. Our country, province needs to understand better our SWOT, and target emerging markets with this in mind. BTW India's CEO and Nasscomm executives couldn't care less about trade missions with politic people, they want to talk business. Getting our industry, our private sector to visit the world has to be part of our strategy to prosper in the new world.
• Infosy Chairman asked him point blank "What's up with all those art degrees in North America?"
• This is another thing close to my heart. We have a declining population in Sciences enrollment, we need to act to chage the trend. We're innovators, problem solvers at heart, I want us to keep building on those strengths. Guidance in sciences is inexistant, I mean the guidance our teens are getting for undergrad studies is that they should not go in sciences, this is wrong, there are plenty of opportunities, and more to come, we will have a gap in supply versus demand, and India is going to look so much more prettier then, and you bet India knows this.

A competitive advantage- OPD

A competitive advantage- The Economic Times: "Outsourcing would help in optimal resource utilisation for critical schedule-based projects as well as complex functionality projects. The key challenge for an ISV to leverage the benefits of Offshore Product Development for portfolio management and competence management is identifying right partners in India. "

OPD is not an India only thing. There are other countries, the Eastern Block, Russia and yes Canada are very well suited for this type of activity. Canada is the best place for it in my mind. Our proximity, cultural fit, as well as our innovation culture, are key in understanding the product environment, making it more effective to execute faster. They help us jump right in, with minimal ramp up time. They also allow us to take more risk, shorter projects. More and more I see the long term stuff going to far away whether through us or directly. On the other hand the short turn around projects, complex are done here. This is the foundation of my theory that ISV will need multiple partners ti compete better. There is no one size fit all vendor or geographic spot.

India trip report - India's take away

I kicked out the malarone out of my system and its side effects on my stomach, I'm happy about that. I still have thoughts here and there about he trip, the best way to let them go is write them down.

• India is where the party is regarding ICT services. The stock market is hot, the egos are big, and the dreams even bigger. I think this is the closest thing that I will ever participate in to the gold rush that opened the west way back when.
• Every body in India is a tech guy, through all the meetings I had over the whole week, every body you talk to is a techie. This sends a strong business message - we're here to understand your problem, and find a solution. This differs from the relationship sales approach conmmonly found in other markets, where the sale cycle is about golf games and late evenings at the strip club.
• Setting up an office in India is risky business, attrition is averaging about 20%, job hoping is common place, every body wants more money even in India. This makes the recruitement very difficult. There is also corruption, they are no different than anybody else, they want to improve their standard of livings, they do this by kick backs and other schemes. The indian government recognises the problem, and is increasing the salaries of the public workforce to compete better with equivalent jobs in the private sector in the hope of getting rid of the problem.

Tough talk or reality?

This is another post "à la" take away from my India trip. Lately all that you hear from the large SI firms Accenture, IBM, HP is "I don't worry about my North American competitors, I worry about India" Before going to India I would have said this is just another way to play down your known competition and make your existing clients feel secure with you, because you have an India strategy.

After my trip to India I tend to believe now that it's not tough talk - it's reality. The reasons are: First the quality India is producing is good, if not better than our NA standards, just like Japanese cars are better than any other cars. Second the cost structure of an Indian company and a NA company are 180Degrees different. The NA company goes to India to lower its costs, with its bloated/heavy/fat cat upper management structure. The Indian company comes to NA with a sales office, paid on results, bodies working on visas going back as soon as they are done, and a Management structure that is no where the cost of the comparable services company in NA. So same or better quality at a lesser cost, awefully similar to the japanese car industry of the late 80s. This is a cocktail named "Wake up!"