OK, usually the rigged-up gadgets described here on Slashdot are pretty ridiculous. Linux-based coffee cups and crap like that.
However, I must say for the first time I am very impressed by what this person has created. Very useful, very smart!
Now the product and the labor have to be free?
I guess that ends everyone's careers in the software industry. Off to work in the Walmart warehouse for us...
What about the times when the customer has a good reason to speak like a jerk?
For example, when they have given their name and account number and explained their problem for the 8th time...:-)
I think it would be more useful to speak in terms of how much a Mars trip would *increase* the likelihood of developing cancer, beyond the natural risks you face without taking the trip.
Because in 2002, cancer caused ~22% of all the deaths (Malignant neoplasms). So the 10% statistic seems misleading.
This person is offended that they invited him to interview, then proceeded to interview him?
Getting an unsolicited job *offer* and an invitation to interview are two totally different things. All the article says is that he was "courted" several times. My definition of being "courted" by a successful company is when they say "Come work for us, when can you start?".
A company should always be respectful while interviweing a person, which is simply a process to determine that the person truly has the knowledge and skills neccessary to perform the job. However, the act of simply asking the interview questions is not itself disrespectful nor is it anything to get upset or offended by, unless you have a big chip on your shoulder about having a PhD.
No offense to you doctorates out there, but I have met some of your peers who definitely have that chip on their shoulder. I've known a lot of PhDs, but funny how I've never asked anyone if they had a PhD, if you know what I mean...
There may be a nice small business near you with owners who would love to earn your business and offer potentially comparable prices.
Walmart is the king of cheap, so expect to pay higher prices elsewhere, occasionally. However, when cheap no longer works for you, guess what the next step is?
What these MMOGs are *supposed* to be is defined by the dominant market demographic, because they are businesses.
Don't confuse the reason they made the game with the reason you play it. They want money, you want to be entertained in the way that works for you. Do you really think any of these companies care about roleplaying? Only if the money there.
So far the roleplaying schtick has worked and netted more cash than anything else, because it pleases most of the players. However, the roleplayers are slowly being outnumbered by us regular people who don't take roleplaying seriously and play for other reasons instead (exploration, pretty graphics, killing things, collecting loot, plain old social interaction, interesting game systems, etc.). As we start becoming their cash cow, your desires are going to start taking a back seat.
There needs to be significant growth in the roleplayer crowd if you want to see things change back to the way they were.
Mark Jacobs is upset because he didn't have the balls to do it first. He fell for the imaginary ethics dillemma about not selling in-game items, and someone exploited this weakness against him.
Today, Asian farmers are making the profits from character and item sales. Publishers get none of that money, so there is zero chance that this provides cash for a better game. Let the publisher get a slice of the action and you've given the companies more incentive to stay heavily invested into the games and perhaps expand them. This might even help startup MMOGs, because they have an alternate revenue stream that is not limited to monthly fees. Any time you make an industry more profitable, it opens up to more people.
I challenge the old "it will ruin the game!" argument, with the simple fact that this sales activity has been going on for several years now.
Watch the other companies trash-talk the idea at first, then later start doing it themselves. It makes complete sense to do this, and the arguments against it are rather nebulous and some are just emotional in nature. Many people are just angry at the idea that someone with cash has a big edge. And that differs from real life how? If you want to play a game that has absolutely no intrusion of real-life issues, then I suggest a single-player game.
This idea opens up the games for casual players, who would happily spend $40 to skip 100 hours of playtime to keep up in levels with their power-gamer peers. Who does this actually hurt? Other than hurting some feelings, it hurts no one.
Losing your hard-earned stuff makes people so risk-averse that it will freeze up the game flow. Will you likely try new things and explore with perma-death?
Have you ever grouped with incompetent players and one mistake got the whole group killed? Would you group with people you don't know?
Some say to just make the rewards much higher for the risk. But, these are the same rewards that you lose when you die. Once someone gets an uber item, their career is practially over due to the chance of losing that item.
This sounds like the ideal game system for gold farmers to sell stuff to out-of-luck recently dead players, rather than a game for any type of casual player or someone looking for a good time.
Since the cost of death is so high, this also sounds like a game system where only those in uber guilds will succeed where they have lots of help to stay alive.
After you've spent 6 months to get your currently level and somehow you get killed, are you likely to go through the process all over again?
Call me a skeptic.
the blame rests elsewhere, considering they get hired by people who want to pay someone for a detailed study that says someone ELSE screwed up.
Remember the SNL skit about the delivery company that stamps your packages "received" three days earlier when you need off the hook for the package being late? Same idea here.
Another way to say this is, "95% of our client-sponsored reports conclude that it was not our client's fault."
Keep in mind these are people in the games business having their relatively first "enterprise" system experience.
Seeing how the games business runs, I expected them to screw up more. They've done pretty good, except they skimped on the beta stress-testing that would have illustrated these problems sooner.
Thousands of automated clients stressing the server would have been a good idea...
BTW and off topic, but how the heck do people insert hard carriage returns in their posts?
I'm tired of looking like a moron who posts giant paragraphs, but I insert multiple carriage returns and they get stripped out.
FM radio in the US has become garbage, this certainly helps interest in satellite radio. I think as more devices become available, price ease down a bit, and more people learn about it, it will become very popular. You don't think satellite radio will catch on in Europe?
I am interested in an iPod that can be a satellite radio receiver because currently I think the iPod has an attractive design, and the ability to playback recorded music is interesting, but not quite enough to tip the scales. But, add satellite radio and then I not only get what I want (without the freaky satellite radio receiver designs they currently have) but also the ability to playback MP3s if I choose. I have alot of them, but I usually burn them to real CDs to listen. Someone pointed out battery life as maybe a problem, but I dunno. I would expect an iPod with satellite radio would be a totally new design internally and would have a slightly bigger battery to accomodate it.
BTW, I might buy a Powerbook, but I never said I was interested in a headless iMac. I always buy a new display with a new computer, since the technology moves so quickly and prices drop. Me being a person with no business sense as you pointed out, even I can detect this was a poorly executed idea. I'm trying to imagine who the market is for that device, because they market they claim that it's for doesn't seem very interested. It's not THAT cheap. If they were able to cut that price in half, then it would be a different story, but I don't want to spend $550+ to "try out" something.
"You are basicly arguing that abolishing the patent system won't work because some people have based their business model on it....."
Absolutely not, I am not arguing that. I am saying that without patents, we have an undesireable outcome. (Yes software patents are bad, copyrights do the job better but should be a lot shorter term.) Abolish patents and the concept that someone can own an idea for a time period, then you reduce the invention business to a place where those with the resources take all ideas for themselves. Right now, as a single person I can invent a new process and I can patent it to develop it further, or sell it to someone who can use it. Without a patent, I can spend however much money and time developing this new idea, but then IBM, Xerox, Proctor and Gamble, etc. can take it, make millions, and I get nothing from it. Does that sound like a desireable outcome to you? Patents are a leveler. You got companies with research divisions spewing patents. Aside from software patents that's fantastic. There is research happening. There are new ways of doing things being invented. I would argue that half of that research wouldn't occur at all without patents to ensure the folks could recoop their costs.
"you would have argued that cars are bad because people make a living based on horses."
How can you sit there and tell me what I would have argued 100 years ago? Besides, your plain wrong. Your argument is funny because the patent system is one of the reasons there was such motivation and investment in aerospace. Do you honestly think someone is willing to front the millions on commercial research to watch as someone else jumps in and exploits the idea for free? You take away patents and all you'll see are big companies inventing things, and then only those which they can make alot of money really fast. For the processes that take 10-15 years to recoop research costs, they won't bother. Frankly, I think without patents, companies people would have to blow useless money trying to obfuscate systems and devices to keep it harder to reverse engineer, because that would be their only defense. That's a very big waste of resources. Do you think the Wright brothers invented flying for the gee-whiz factor? I noticed you mentioned they filed for a patent. My goodness, why would they have done that if they were only interested in pure research? Hmmmm....
By the way, couldn't patent flying even if you wanted to. Straight from the US Patent Office website: "A patent cannot be obtained upon a mere idea or suggestion. The patent is granted upon the new machine, manufacture, etc., as has been said, and not upon the idea or suggestion of the new machine." You could only patent a flying machine, and even then, only the schematic/blueprint for a SPECIFIC flying machine. The whole argument that people ignoring patents helped develop the aerospace business is bullsh*t.
Yes, I agree that lawyers are scum and take advantage of the patent system to file lawsuits and enrich themselves, but they do it with all the laws, so I don't see patents being the root cause of lawyer behavior.
Before my wife's new job I was all for only allowing individuals to hold patents. But the circumstances of her new company made me change my mind:
My wife works for a small bio-med company made of about 8 people. They invent and patent a new testing methods for blood and urine that let you detect certain things like medical conditions, check to ensure that the medicine you take is actually working for you, etc.
Then they sell the patents to larger companies to fund research on their next patent, rinse and repeat. Half the company are PhD researchers, the others are like office support.
This is a sustainable business model if you have smart folks working on problems that are driven by demand to be solved, but perhaps the larger companies don't have the time or expertise to chase down the solutions themselves. Since this small business specializes, they are quickly mastering their techniques and coming up with new patents faster each time. It would be hard to do this type of business if large companies could not hold patents, and instead in some alternate reality, the US government would only grant patents to individuals.
This puts the food on the table for several people, solves real world problems, and the folks get paid above industry standard at least.
I think this is a showcase company that demonstrates how patents can help small business. Big business doesn't invent everything themselves and they have to buy patents, which spreads money around a little better. This small company often entertains bids from several big companies, which increases their take in. I have no idea how many other companies work like this, but hey here's one example to think about.
I have learned so much having the Internet available on my work desktop, however it has seriously challenged me to stay focused. It is going on 10 years now and I am just now getting a hang of it. I never thought it would be so hard to change, but I am better off with it.
Neither of the things you mentioned have anything to do with what I said.
I have little interest in an iPod, but I would definitely buy one if they had this capability. That would also introduce a person like me to iTunes and other related offers. Apple can get extra money from referring iPod users to satellite radio subscriptions. It seems like a natural extension of the product. There is more than a small chance that people who listen to music might be interested satellite radio from the same device, too.
Ever heard of technology partnerships to expand the market for a product? That's a big Apple weakness and has been forever. What I believe Apple is doing (which is very shortsighted) is being afraid that satellite radio would sway people away from an iTunes. They are being penny wise, but dollar stupid.
Again, we watch as Apple's brilliant technological innovation is tragically trumped by Jobs' bad business decisions. Who needs a time machine when you can relive the 80's through Apple?
Will Apple EVER learn to play well with others? Time after time it's been this weakness preventing Apple from practically taking over the computer world.
Sometimes, I think Jobs could invent a box that spits out cash and he would lose money on it.
"If you know of any other place where people can easily voice their opinion on those issues in a way that actual politicians will see them"
Write your opinion on a dollar bill and mail it to them.
...is worth doing for money.
The daily struggle to be in the workplace and earn my living has made me more skilled than if I was simply living at home with Mom and perhaps being an idealistic programmer only. The contraints and realities of the work world sometimes force you to explore and to endure things you never would have otherwise. Sometimes these things make you a better person.
Why wouldn't OSS programming be worthy of people looking to put bread on the table? Perhaps some people have visions of driving a BMW, but I envision people who earn an honest paycheck and find the self confidence with the realization that they can make a living in this crazy world using their mind. How could that motivation be bad for OSS?
This is a simple case of a kid installing an illegal wiretap to intercept communications. Decades-old laws apply to things like this.
Move along, nothing NEW to see here...
Since when did the philosophers hire the Vogons to destroy planet Earth? Everything seemed right until you got to that part.
The Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons tried to get the computer who designed the Earth (Deep Thought) turned off, because they were afraid of the damage to their livelihood of people learning a concrete answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. But then they decided to go along with the plan after Deep Thought explained how they could use the situation to ride the gravy train for life.
In your contracts, tie the vendor's payment to specific milestones and measurable quality criteria for each milestone. There should be several milestones over the course of your project, depending on the project's length. Withhold payment if they don't meet the contractual agreements. They will have a vested interest in getting the project back on track if their payment depends on it. Make sure your contracts are written carefully to ensure they are motivated to keep you on schedule and meet the quality levels that you define. Don't be shy to explain in detail exactly what work you need and how you will measure the quality of that work in the contract, because it will discourage any vendor from signing the contract that thinks they might not be able to meet the bar you set.
Also, don't fall for "time and materials" contracts, because most of the time that shields the vendor from any responsiblity of failure. They get their money as long as they do some work and have no vested interest in ensuring the project succeeds or finishes. They can drag their feet and then ultimately fail and walk away, and they get their money, but you're stuck.
Hope that helps you...
Slashdot Mirror
OK, usually the rigged-up gadgets described here on Slashdot are pretty ridiculous. Linux-based coffee cups and crap like that. However, I must say for the first time I am very impressed by what this person has created. Very useful, very smart!
Now the product and the labor have to be free? I guess that ends everyone's careers in the software industry. Off to work in the Walmart warehouse for us...
What about the times when the customer has a good reason to speak like a jerk? For example, when they have given their name and account number and explained their problem for the 8th time... :-)
I think it would be more useful to speak in terms of how much a Mars trip would *increase* the likelihood of developing cancer, beyond the natural risks you face without taking the trip.
Because in 2002, cancer caused ~22% of all the deaths (Malignant neoplasms). So the 10% statistic seems misleading.
This person is offended that they invited him to interview, then proceeded to interview him?
Getting an unsolicited job *offer* and an invitation to interview are two totally different things. All the article says is that he was "courted" several times. My definition of being "courted" by a successful company is when they say "Come work for us, when can you start?".
A company should always be respectful while interviweing a person, which is simply a process to determine that the person truly has the knowledge and skills neccessary to perform the job. However, the act of simply asking the interview questions is not itself disrespectful nor is it anything to get upset or offended by, unless you have a big chip on your shoulder about having a PhD.
No offense to you doctorates out there, but I have met some of your peers who definitely have that chip on their shoulder. I've known a lot of PhDs, but funny how I've never asked anyone if they had a PhD, if you know what I mean...
Interstellar wind is supposed to be traveling at 20km/sec so that would provide propulsion beyond the heliopause, right?
There may be a nice small business near you with owners who would love to earn your business and offer potentially comparable prices. Walmart is the king of cheap, so expect to pay higher prices elsewhere, occasionally. However, when cheap no longer works for you, guess what the next step is?
What these MMOGs are *supposed* to be is defined by the dominant market demographic, because they are businesses.
Don't confuse the reason they made the game with the reason you play it. They want money, you want to be entertained in the way that works for you. Do you really think any of these companies care about roleplaying? Only if the money there.
So far the roleplaying schtick has worked and netted more cash than anything else, because it pleases most of the players. However, the roleplayers are slowly being outnumbered by us regular people who don't take roleplaying seriously and play for other reasons instead (exploration, pretty graphics, killing things, collecting loot, plain old social interaction, interesting game systems, etc.). As we start becoming their cash cow, your desires are going to start taking a back seat.
There needs to be significant growth in the roleplayer crowd if you want to see things change back to the way they were.
Mark Jacobs is upset because he didn't have the balls to do it first. He fell for the imaginary ethics dillemma about not selling in-game items, and someone exploited this weakness against him.
Today, Asian farmers are making the profits from character and item sales. Publishers get none of that money, so there is zero chance that this provides cash for a better game. Let the publisher get a slice of the action and you've given the companies more incentive to stay heavily invested into the games and perhaps expand them. This might even help startup MMOGs, because they have an alternate revenue stream that is not limited to monthly fees. Any time you make an industry more profitable, it opens up to more people.
I challenge the old "it will ruin the game!" argument, with the simple fact that this sales activity has been going on for several years now.
Watch the other companies trash-talk the idea at first, then later start doing it themselves. It makes complete sense to do this, and the arguments against it are rather nebulous and some are just emotional in nature. Many people are just angry at the idea that someone with cash has a big edge. And that differs from real life how? If you want to play a game that has absolutely no intrusion of real-life issues, then I suggest a single-player game.
This idea opens up the games for casual players, who would happily spend $40 to skip 100 hours of playtime to keep up in levels with their power-gamer peers. Who does this actually hurt? Other than hurting some feelings, it hurts no one.
Losing your hard-earned stuff makes people so risk-averse that it will freeze up the game flow. Will you likely try new things and explore with perma-death? Have you ever grouped with incompetent players and one mistake got the whole group killed? Would you group with people you don't know? Some say to just make the rewards much higher for the risk. But, these are the same rewards that you lose when you die. Once someone gets an uber item, their career is practially over due to the chance of losing that item. This sounds like the ideal game system for gold farmers to sell stuff to out-of-luck recently dead players, rather than a game for any type of casual player or someone looking for a good time. Since the cost of death is so high, this also sounds like a game system where only those in uber guilds will succeed where they have lots of help to stay alive. After you've spent 6 months to get your currently level and somehow you get killed, are you likely to go through the process all over again? Call me a skeptic.
the blame rests elsewhere, considering they get hired by people who want to pay someone for a detailed study that says someone ELSE screwed up. Remember the SNL skit about the delivery company that stamps your packages "received" three days earlier when you need off the hook for the package being late? Same idea here. Another way to say this is, "95% of our client-sponsored reports conclude that it was not our client's fault."
Keep in mind these are people in the games business having their relatively first "enterprise" system experience.
Seeing how the games business runs, I expected them to screw up more. They've done pretty good, except they skimped on the beta stress-testing that would have illustrated these problems sooner. Thousands of automated clients stressing the server would have been a good idea...
BTW and off topic, but how the heck do people insert hard carriage returns in their posts? I'm tired of looking like a moron who posts giant paragraphs, but I insert multiple carriage returns and they get stripped out.
FM radio in the US has become garbage, this certainly helps interest in satellite radio. I think as more devices become available, price ease down a bit, and more people learn about it, it will become very popular. You don't think satellite radio will catch on in Europe? I am interested in an iPod that can be a satellite radio receiver because currently I think the iPod has an attractive design, and the ability to playback recorded music is interesting, but not quite enough to tip the scales. But, add satellite radio and then I not only get what I want (without the freaky satellite radio receiver designs they currently have) but also the ability to playback MP3s if I choose. I have alot of them, but I usually burn them to real CDs to listen. Someone pointed out battery life as maybe a problem, but I dunno. I would expect an iPod with satellite radio would be a totally new design internally and would have a slightly bigger battery to accomodate it. BTW, I might buy a Powerbook, but I never said I was interested in a headless iMac. I always buy a new display with a new computer, since the technology moves so quickly and prices drop. Me being a person with no business sense as you pointed out, even I can detect this was a poorly executed idea. I'm trying to imagine who the market is for that device, because they market they claim that it's for doesn't seem very interested. It's not THAT cheap. If they were able to cut that price in half, then it would be a different story, but I don't want to spend $550+ to "try out" something.
"You are basicly arguing that abolishing the patent system won't work because some people have based their business model on it....." Absolutely not, I am not arguing that. I am saying that without patents, we have an undesireable outcome. (Yes software patents are bad, copyrights do the job better but should be a lot shorter term.) Abolish patents and the concept that someone can own an idea for a time period, then you reduce the invention business to a place where those with the resources take all ideas for themselves. Right now, as a single person I can invent a new process and I can patent it to develop it further, or sell it to someone who can use it. Without a patent, I can spend however much money and time developing this new idea, but then IBM, Xerox, Proctor and Gamble, etc. can take it, make millions, and I get nothing from it. Does that sound like a desireable outcome to you? Patents are a leveler. You got companies with research divisions spewing patents. Aside from software patents that's fantastic. There is research happening. There are new ways of doing things being invented. I would argue that half of that research wouldn't occur at all without patents to ensure the folks could recoop their costs. "you would have argued that cars are bad because people make a living based on horses." How can you sit there and tell me what I would have argued 100 years ago? Besides, your plain wrong. Your argument is funny because the patent system is one of the reasons there was such motivation and investment in aerospace. Do you honestly think someone is willing to front the millions on commercial research to watch as someone else jumps in and exploits the idea for free? You take away patents and all you'll see are big companies inventing things, and then only those which they can make alot of money really fast. For the processes that take 10-15 years to recoop research costs, they won't bother. Frankly, I think without patents, companies people would have to blow useless money trying to obfuscate systems and devices to keep it harder to reverse engineer, because that would be their only defense. That's a very big waste of resources. Do you think the Wright brothers invented flying for the gee-whiz factor? I noticed you mentioned they filed for a patent. My goodness, why would they have done that if they were only interested in pure research? Hmmmm.... By the way, couldn't patent flying even if you wanted to. Straight from the US Patent Office website: "A patent cannot be obtained upon a mere idea or suggestion. The patent is granted upon the new machine, manufacture, etc., as has been said, and not upon the idea or suggestion of the new machine." You could only patent a flying machine, and even then, only the schematic/blueprint for a SPECIFIC flying machine. The whole argument that people ignoring patents helped develop the aerospace business is bullsh*t. Yes, I agree that lawyers are scum and take advantage of the patent system to file lawsuits and enrich themselves, but they do it with all the laws, so I don't see patents being the root cause of lawyer behavior.
Before my wife's new job I was all for only allowing individuals to hold patents. But the circumstances of her new company made me change my mind: My wife works for a small bio-med company made of about 8 people. They invent and patent a new testing methods for blood and urine that let you detect certain things like medical conditions, check to ensure that the medicine you take is actually working for you, etc. Then they sell the patents to larger companies to fund research on their next patent, rinse and repeat. Half the company are PhD researchers, the others are like office support. This is a sustainable business model if you have smart folks working on problems that are driven by demand to be solved, but perhaps the larger companies don't have the time or expertise to chase down the solutions themselves. Since this small business specializes, they are quickly mastering their techniques and coming up with new patents faster each time. It would be hard to do this type of business if large companies could not hold patents, and instead in some alternate reality, the US government would only grant patents to individuals. This puts the food on the table for several people, solves real world problems, and the folks get paid above industry standard at least. I think this is a showcase company that demonstrates how patents can help small business. Big business doesn't invent everything themselves and they have to buy patents, which spreads money around a little better. This small company often entertains bids from several big companies, which increases their take in. I have no idea how many other companies work like this, but hey here's one example to think about.
I have learned so much having the Internet available on my work desktop, however it has seriously challenged me to stay focused. It is going on 10 years now and I am just now getting a hang of it. I never thought it would be so hard to change, but I am better off with it.
Neither of the things you mentioned have anything to do with what I said. I have little interest in an iPod, but I would definitely buy one if they had this capability. That would also introduce a person like me to iTunes and other related offers. Apple can get extra money from referring iPod users to satellite radio subscriptions. It seems like a natural extension of the product. There is more than a small chance that people who listen to music might be interested satellite radio from the same device, too. Ever heard of technology partnerships to expand the market for a product? That's a big Apple weakness and has been forever. What I believe Apple is doing (which is very shortsighted) is being afraid that satellite radio would sway people away from an iTunes. They are being penny wise, but dollar stupid.
Again, we watch as Apple's brilliant technological innovation is tragically trumped by Jobs' bad business decisions. Who needs a time machine when you can relive the 80's through Apple? Will Apple EVER learn to play well with others? Time after time it's been this weakness preventing Apple from practically taking over the computer world. Sometimes, I think Jobs could invent a box that spits out cash and he would lose money on it.
Matamoros is in Mexico you moron, not Texas.
"If you know of any other place where people can easily voice their opinion on those issues in a way that actual politicians will see them" Write your opinion on a dollar bill and mail it to them.
...is worth doing for money. The daily struggle to be in the workplace and earn my living has made me more skilled than if I was simply living at home with Mom and perhaps being an idealistic programmer only. The contraints and realities of the work world sometimes force you to explore and to endure things you never would have otherwise. Sometimes these things make you a better person. Why wouldn't OSS programming be worthy of people looking to put bread on the table? Perhaps some people have visions of driving a BMW, but I envision people who earn an honest paycheck and find the self confidence with the realization that they can make a living in this crazy world using their mind. How could that motivation be bad for OSS?
This is a simple case of a kid installing an illegal wiretap to intercept communications. Decades-old laws apply to things like this. Move along, nothing NEW to see here...
Since when did the philosophers hire the Vogons to destroy planet Earth? Everything seemed right until you got to that part. The Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons tried to get the computer who designed the Earth (Deep Thought) turned off, because they were afraid of the damage to their livelihood of people learning a concrete answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. But then they decided to go along with the plan after Deep Thought explained how they could use the situation to ride the gravy train for life.
In your contracts, tie the vendor's payment to specific milestones and measurable quality criteria for each milestone. There should be several milestones over the course of your project, depending on the project's length. Withhold payment if they don't meet the contractual agreements. They will have a vested interest in getting the project back on track if their payment depends on it. Make sure your contracts are written carefully to ensure they are motivated to keep you on schedule and meet the quality levels that you define. Don't be shy to explain in detail exactly what work you need and how you will measure the quality of that work in the contract, because it will discourage any vendor from signing the contract that thinks they might not be able to meet the bar you set. Also, don't fall for "time and materials" contracts, because most of the time that shields the vendor from any responsiblity of failure. They get their money as long as they do some work and have no vested interest in ensuring the project succeeds or finishes. They can drag their feet and then ultimately fail and walk away, and they get their money, but you're stuck. Hope that helps you...