The management making the choices is usually (at least in energy industry) completely clueless about IT and/or software design. However that can all still be circumvented by hiring a manager that knows their stuff.
The main difference is the legal wrapper. If shit hits the fan and you outsourced you can always blame the vendor to limit your own liability. This cannot be done to the same degree if the 'vendor' is an internal team.
That alone drives the majority of choices and "gut" feelings of my management (not IT) to either purchase or develop. Some times we do both in parallel and 'sell' the idea to our preferred software house for integration with the main product. The the general preference is "buy off the shelf" because "we are not a software house".
As a side note, the corporate management (goes all the way up to the CEOs) will not approve hiring of developers here, we have to hire people as administrators with "programming language skills a plus" in the job notice. Key being you support a vendor app while coding something to make it work...
I don't know enough to be able to say definitively whether that's a good business decision or not in our case (sure the users might hate it, but if the company saves money thats all the management cares about). So yes, upper management is an issue.
Now completely departing from the topic: There is a constant struggle in the engineering business. Core of the issue being the difference between project/plan and construct/maintain phases of a job. Project people spend less than 1% of the plant life (from design to decommission) on the job, but any delay or mistakes cost millions in the later phases, however, there is a constant pressure to deliver this 1% phase on-time and under budget.
So you see, us developing or getting developed efficient software to save time is counter productive to the company making money. Sounds odd? Problem is, the way we earn money... Each person on the job is paid extra and the company keeps the difference. Less people, less pay. More efficient software requires less people to run.
Sure it saves billions in the long run for the client (likes of BP, Shell etc.), but the company making those decisions ultimately makes less (because BP, Shell etc. come and say "you can do it for less now"). Yes you can bid a job and say, "pay us more so that we develop very efficient work-flows for you and deliver ahead of schedule with more added value", but a competitor will come in, say the same, bid less then not deliver what they promised and get away with it. On top of that the bidding people have no clue about the latest IT infrastructure. A project manager gets hired after the fact and told "you have £10 and 1 year to deliver the golden goose".
As a result rate of efficiency increase is very slow and our management has that much more incentive to get someone else to do the software and get ripped off, so that they can do the ripping off with a 10% margin themselves, have their ass legally covered and not have to lay off a bunch of devs after the job is done.
Large screen is very comfortable, it also smudges a lot less than the N1. I got the unlocked version for £530 and have a £17.5/m plan (1 month rolling) so the phone should pay for itself in 16 months.
A couple of things you may want to know about the GN: Lack of menu button is not an issue as it does appear for most apps. The only one that takes a little getting used to is the stock browser app that for some unknown reason accesses the menu via a different mechanic (make sure to go to Labs and turn on Quick controls, makes life much easier). The software buttons at the bottom of the phone move to the top when the phone is rotated clockwise, makes for a much nicer experience IMO. Camera MP is not an issue at all, you really cant see the difference between S2 and GN in terms of quality (white balance/iso choice will differ for the same composition due to different software). The phone does not feel plastic at all. There is zero flexing or bending and the main chassis feels metal due to the paint used. My only gripe is the back cover, which sort of 'sticks' on and is very fragile looking once off. However, since the phone has no internal SDcard slot the need to take the cover off is greatly diminished. There is no Flash support, yet. Adobe has not updated their mobile app, but its on the way. Some apps have not updated to ICS (no Swype for instance). The phone is a lot more responsive than N1, whether thats due to ICS i dont know. Orientation changes are very slow (maybe slower than N1) which really gets up my nose, but some people think thats normal. You can read more here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1389748
Lack of expandable memory is an issue, but not a big one. The advantage is you can download ALL your apps without making a dent. I can see add-on docks coming out soon that will let you plug something in at the bottom for extra space.
My point was, on average, off the shelf products carry less quantified risk than in-house development.
That's unrelated to the question at hand.
Let me re-phrase: Using an internal team to develop a product on average carries more quantified risk, vs using an external company to develop a product.
very limited anecdotal evidence only
A lot of risk analysis is done with the above too.
My definition of "gut" is doing an ad-hoc risk analysis in your head and going with it. All things being equal (quality of information etc.) all its down to is skill of the analyser vs experience of the "gut" feeler.
I am not stating that some random person off the street will be better at making decisions than a skilled analyser.
You cant expect a full risk analysis in a comment on SD, or can you?
My point was, on average, off the shelf products carry less quantified risk than in-house development. Yes, there will be a time and place for both, however, most of the time it is less risky to get the work done by a company with a good portfolio in that area of industry (does not just apply with software).
Now I interpreted your reply to GP as "you should have looked at the risk" which I agree with, but what I tried to point out is that they did not inherently make a bad decision by going with another company to provide the software. Even if this was a "gut" decision it is very likely that GPs company would have arrived to the same conclusion: To outsource.
However, GPs company may not have done the subsequent risk analysis on the choice of different vendors and chose the wrong one...
I agree with you that risk is usually not taken into account and a lot of people make bad decisions and lose a lot of money. However I maintain that good managers who know the industry can make the correct "gut" decisions and save a lot of money. You can of course argue that its luck, but I prefer to call it experience and it takes skill to know how far that experience can take you and when to let an MBA analyse your risks for you.
What's the risk the outsourcing company will close down? don't know? Then you shouldn't be relying on them for a business critical function. What's the risk that your competitor could pay off your outsource company to get access to your systems? Don't know? Then why are you outsourcing?
Is this a good risk analysis for "billion dollar business decisions"?
Can you quantify the risk of a developer you hired in house leaving after the job is done without passing on the support documentation? Probably, maybe? Hire more than 1? How many, what's a safe number? 2? 5?
Great you have a team now. After they finish your in-house program you need to sack most of them because the job is now a "maintain" one. Can you quantify the risk of one or more of them re-creating your system and selling it to a competitor? What about leaving a back door? If its more than one person you sacked, how can you be sure who did it? What if the code appears on Source Forge? Maybe you are ok with all of the above so long as you have a system that works for you.
So now you have a system that works and users are happy (that's another risk I wont go into here). 3/5 years pass and your current PC lease program runs out and you need to replace all your worker PCs with new ones. Only one problem, the new PCs run a different version of the OS and your in house system is not compatible. Do you: A) Hire more developers to make it compatible and run the above risks all over again or B) stall the upgrade for a bit longer to delay the inevitable.
Would you like to call a friend or use 50/50?
Now you have a ton of risks involved with outsourcing or even buying something that "sort-of" fits off the shelve. But they are usually smaller than the in-house ones. Most systems started off in-house and were copied to an off the shelf system, so if you have money to burn and don't care if your code is leaked go right ahead make that billion dollar decision.
Would that not require him and 56 other richer people to become permanent residents of the moon? That sounds like something out of James Bond. I like it.
In the UK at least no-one is forcing anyone to give up having a life. It also depends where you are in life. IT covers a large spectrum from well paid professionals to help desk staff working off a script.
Should there be a Programmer Union and a Help Desk Union?? How about an Administrator union?
Would you like it if your union mandated a strike because help desk personnel are underplayed? How about sacked because they are outsourced from India now?
Other unions already paved the way for minimum wage and benefits, don't settle for less just because your boss wants you to create that spreadsheet in the middle of the night. You already have rights.
This is the major issue with IT because the industry moves so fast. In other walks of life you leave education, learn the trade then pass on your skills and lead the next generation.
This breaks down with IT where every generation has a new set of skills. So a lot of businesses just say "screw it" and hire a general manager with some exposure to IT rather than a guru that has been in it for years and is asking for 5 times more salary.
That and most old timers in IT don't like to manage, they like to have their own thing to administer and run a "Get off my lawn" policy.
It's one thing to do it and quite another to support it for 10 years. You also have to understand that not all companies are Software companies. You wouldn't commission Microsoft to design an oil refinery, would you?
Sore, the cost is the same for both parties, but one has no clue about how to manage the project and the other does.
So you outsource when you lack the expertise to build whatever it is and support it for the next decade. Even when a company has the knowledge to do it, support capability is a vital factor. Sure, you can hire a dev fore the same cost, but retaining them after the job is done is very hard or expensive and training support personnel is equally so (Devs are really bad at training).
Risk of a company closing down is a lot less than a student you trained up to support something for the next 10 years wanting a better job after 1 year.
pay off your outsource company to get access to your systems?
Possibly a small part. I've yet to see any student be good at a job in the first few Months. You still need to train them, so to me it doesn't matter what degree they have as long as they get through HR. I could train a Philosophy student in IT.
But just this once, assuming you are right, they still did not know it will be a "bombing". Everyone thought it would be a hostage situation, up until the first plane crashed.
Unless of course you argue that they still knew and let it happen, but the burden of proof is on you there my friend.
Are you saying Iran needs to implement a slashdot type moderation system for its internet and allow its citizens to moderate the US sites into "oblivion"?
Sure beats being imprisoned and... beaten to death...
I was with you until Pearl Harbor, then it all went down hill...
Pearl Harbor also happened in a middle of a war, the one US was silly enough to ignore up until then. If US had assisted in the Blitz, Pearl Harbour would not have happened because those ships would be at sea.
Also, "Out of nowhere"? That's a little overrated isn't it? Most bombings are out of nowhere otherwise they are generally prevented. Name a single bombing that the target knew about and let happen (besides industrial mining and the likes).
Slashdot Mirror
The management making the choices is usually (at least in energy industry) completely clueless about IT and/or software design. However that can all still be circumvented by hiring a manager that knows their stuff.
The main difference is the legal wrapper. If shit hits the fan and you outsourced you can always blame the vendor to limit your own liability. This cannot be done to the same degree if the 'vendor' is an internal team.
That alone drives the majority of choices and "gut" feelings of my management (not IT) to either purchase or develop. Some times we do both in parallel and 'sell' the idea to our preferred software house for integration with the main product. The the general preference is "buy off the shelf" because "we are not a software house".
As a side note, the corporate management (goes all the way up to the CEOs) will not approve hiring of developers here, we have to hire people as administrators with "programming language skills a plus" in the job notice. Key being you support a vendor app while coding something to make it work...
I don't know enough to be able to say definitively whether that's a good business decision or not in our case (sure the users might hate it, but if the company saves money thats all the management cares about). So yes, upper management is an issue.
Now completely departing from the topic: There is a constant struggle in the engineering business. Core of the issue being the difference between project/plan and construct/maintain phases of a job. Project people spend less than 1% of the plant life (from design to decommission) on the job, but any delay or mistakes cost millions in the later phases, however, there is a constant pressure to deliver this 1% phase on-time and under budget.
So you see, us developing or getting developed efficient software to save time is counter productive to the company making money. Sounds odd? Problem is, the way we earn money... Each person on the job is paid extra and the company keeps the difference. Less people, less pay. More efficient software requires less people to run.
Sure it saves billions in the long run for the client (likes of BP, Shell etc.), but the company making those decisions ultimately makes less (because BP, Shell etc. come and say "you can do it for less now"). Yes you can bid a job and say, "pay us more so that we develop very efficient work-flows for you and deliver ahead of schedule with more added value", but a competitor will come in, say the same, bid less then not deliver what they promised and get away with it. On top of that the bidding people have no clue about the latest IT infrastructure. A project manager gets hired after the fact and told "you have £10 and 1 year to deliver the golden goose".
As a result rate of efficiency increase is very slow and our management has that much more incentive to get someone else to do the software and get ripped off, so that they can do the ripping off with a 10% margin themselves, have their ass legally covered and not have to lay off a bunch of devs after the job is done.
Had it for about a month now in UK.
Large screen is very comfortable, it also smudges a lot less than the N1.
I got the unlocked version for £530 and have a £17.5/m plan (1 month rolling) so the phone should pay for itself in 16 months.
A couple of things you may want to know about the GN:
Lack of menu button is not an issue as it does appear for most apps. The only one that takes a little getting used to is the stock browser app that for some unknown reason accesses the menu via a different mechanic (make sure to go to Labs and turn on Quick controls, makes life much easier).
The software buttons at the bottom of the phone move to the top when the phone is rotated clockwise, makes for a much nicer experience IMO.
Camera MP is not an issue at all, you really cant see the difference between S2 and GN in terms of quality (white balance/iso choice will differ for the same composition due to different software).
The phone does not feel plastic at all. There is zero flexing or bending and the main chassis feels metal due to the paint used. My only gripe is the back cover, which sort of 'sticks' on and is very fragile looking once off. However, since the phone has no internal SDcard slot the need to take the cover off is greatly diminished.
There is no Flash support, yet. Adobe has not updated their mobile app, but its on the way.
Some apps have not updated to ICS (no Swype for instance).
The phone is a lot more responsive than N1, whether thats due to ICS i dont know.
Orientation changes are very slow (maybe slower than N1) which really gets up my nose, but some people think thats normal. You can read more here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1389748
Lack of expandable memory is an issue, but not a big one. The advantage is you can download ALL your apps without making a dent. I can see add-on docks coming out soon that will let you plug something in at the bottom for extra space.
Customers who don't bargain happened.
My point was, on average, off the shelf products carry less quantified risk than in-house development.
That's unrelated to the question at hand.
Let me re-phrase: Using an internal team to develop a product on average carries more quantified risk, vs using an external company to develop a product.
very limited anecdotal evidence only
A lot of risk analysis is done with the above too.
My definition of "gut" is doing an ad-hoc risk analysis in your head and going with it. All things being equal (quality of information etc.) all its down to is skill of the analyser vs experience of the "gut" feeler.
I am not stating that some random person off the street will be better at making decisions than a skilled analyser.
You cant expect a full risk analysis in a comment on SD, or can you?
My point was, on average, off the shelf products carry less quantified risk than in-house development. Yes, there will be a time and place for both, however, most of the time it is less risky to get the work done by a company with a good portfolio in that area of industry (does not just apply with software).
Now I interpreted your reply to GP as "you should have looked at the risk" which I agree with, but what I tried to point out is that they did not inherently make a bad decision by going with another company to provide the software. Even if this was a "gut" decision it is very likely that GPs company would have arrived to the same conclusion: To outsource.
However, GPs company may not have done the subsequent risk analysis on the choice of different vendors and chose the wrong one...
I agree with you that risk is usually not taken into account and a lot of people make bad decisions and lose a lot of money. However I maintain that good managers who know the industry can make the correct "gut" decisions and save a lot of money. You can of course argue that its luck, but I prefer to call it experience and it takes skill to know how far that experience can take you and when to let an MBA analyse your risks for you.
As far as my simple brain can understand the Standard Model only covers the garage, anything outside will be breaking from the Standard Model.
So if the car is in the driveway physics is even more complicated than we thought.
What's the risk the outsourcing company will close down? don't know? Then you shouldn't be relying on them for a business critical function. What's the risk that your competitor could pay off your outsource company to get access to your systems? Don't know? Then why are you outsourcing?
Is this a good risk analysis for "billion dollar business decisions"?
Can you quantify the risk of a developer you hired in house leaving after the job is done without passing on the support documentation? Probably, maybe? Hire more than 1? How many, what's a safe number? 2? 5?
Great you have a team now. After they finish your in-house program you need to sack most of them because the job is now a "maintain" one. Can you quantify the risk of one or more of them re-creating your system and selling it to a competitor? What about leaving a back door? If its more than one person you sacked, how can you be sure who did it? What if the code appears on Source Forge? Maybe you are ok with all of the above so long as you have a system that works for you.
So now you have a system that works and users are happy (that's another risk I wont go into here). 3/5 years pass and your current PC lease program runs out and you need to replace all your worker PCs with new ones. Only one problem, the new PCs run a different version of the OS and your in house system is not compatible. Do you: A) Hire more developers to make it compatible and run the above risks all over again or B) stall the upgrade for a bit longer to delay the inevitable.
Would you like to call a friend or use 50/50?
Now you have a ton of risks involved with outsourcing or even buying something that "sort-of" fits off the shelve. But they are usually smaller than the in-house ones. Most systems started off in-house and were copied to an off the shelf system, so if you have money to burn and don't care if your code is leaked go right ahead make that billion dollar decision.
Would that not require him and 56 other richer people to become permanent residents of the moon? That sounds like something out of James Bond. I like it.
Mod parent up.
Branson is about as likeable as Bill Gates.
You must use IE.
Did they teach you to win debates by using derogative comments in your MBA?
In the UK at least no-one is forcing anyone to give up having a life. It also depends where you are in life. IT covers a large spectrum from well paid professionals to help desk staff working off a script.
Should there be a Programmer Union and a Help Desk Union?? How about an Administrator union?
Would you like it if your union mandated a strike because help desk personnel are underplayed? How about sacked because they are outsourced from India now?
Other unions already paved the way for minimum wage and benefits, don't settle for less just because your boss wants you to create that spreadsheet in the middle of the night. You already have rights.
our lead developer dived into the COTS code
This doesn't sound very legal.
This is the major issue with IT because the industry moves so fast. In other walks of life you leave education, learn the trade then pass on your skills and lead the next generation.
This breaks down with IT where every generation has a new set of skills. So a lot of businesses just say "screw it" and hire a general manager with some exposure to IT rather than a guru that has been in it for years and is asking for 5 times more salary.
That and most old timers in IT don't like to manage, they like to have their own thing to administer and run a "Get off my lawn" policy.
It's one thing to do it and quite another to support it for 10 years. You also have to understand that not all companies are Software companies. You wouldn't commission Microsoft to design an oil refinery, would you?
Sore, the cost is the same for both parties, but one has no clue about how to manage the project and the other does.
So you outsource when you lack the expertise to build whatever it is and support it for the next decade. Even when a company has the knowledge to do it, support capability is a vital factor. Sure, you can hire a dev fore the same cost, but retaining them after the job is done is very hard or expensive and training support personnel is equally so (Devs are really bad at training).
Risk of a company closing down is a lot less than a student you trained up to support something for the next 10 years wanting a better job after 1 year.
pay off your outsource company to get access to your systems?
Really?
Last thing I need is for some Union to tell me I need to strike or cant do overtime....
Possibly a small part. I've yet to see any student be good at a job in the first few Months. You still need to train them, so to me it doesn't matter what degree they have as long as they get through HR. I could train a Philosophy student in IT.
Or hallucinogenics.
That sounds more like a religion
I try to not give into conspiracy theories :)
But just this once, assuming you are right, they still did not know it will be a "bombing". Everyone thought it would be a hostage situation, up until the first plane crashed.
Unless of course you argue that they still knew and let it happen, but the burden of proof is on you there my friend.
Are you saying Iran needs to implement a slashdot type moderation system for its internet and allow its citizens to moderate the US sites into "oblivion"?
Sure beats being imprisoned and... beaten to death...
Axis would have won regardless of US involvement. Germany and Italy declared war on the United States after Pearl Harbor December 11 1941.
On Jan 5th 1942 General Zhukov began of a major Red Army offensive and Germany had been retreating since then.
US have accelerated Axis defeat, but it did not decide the outcome of WW2.
We helped defeat the Nazis, which rescued the Soviets, and begat the Cold War which begat Jihadists etc.
I'm sorry what?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_World_War_II
You need to get your history straight. Soviets didn't need rescuing, you rescued Europe from becoming an extension of CCCP.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1390229/posts
As for who would be better off with what, who can say...
I was with you until Pearl Harbor, then it all went down hill...
Pearl Harbor also happened in a middle of a war, the one US was silly enough to ignore up until then. If US had assisted in the Blitz, Pearl Harbour would not have happened because those ships would be at sea.
Also, "Out of nowhere"? That's a little overrated isn't it? Most bombings are out of nowhere otherwise they are generally prevented. Name a single bombing that the target knew about and let happen (besides industrial mining and the likes).
I dont get it. It looks ok to me...?
Are you saying its good or bad?
Sure it has some pro US propaganda, but its their government site, thats what I'd expect...
Well.......
Asteroids do suicide runs on our planet, that would fall in the "War on Terror" category.