Software Sweatshop

Never really read Steve Mezak's work (CEO of Accelerance) , although I'm not a member of his partner network, he makes some good points in a post called 'How to Fail at Outsourcing' It's actually a comment on an article in Information Week called  'How to Select an Indian Outsourcing Partner' The InformationWeek article highlights 3 main issues cited by CIO's who cancelled outsourcing contracts:

1. Need for excessive management/oversight
2. Unrealized savings
   
3. Work quality

Steve said that most offshore failures occur when you don't find the right type of outsourcing partner he says,

"By wrong kind of vendor, I mean one that is happy to charge you for some junior programmers put in a room for you, and even give them computers and an Internet connection, but then fails to follow through with any kind of supervision, management or professional software development process."

 He's right in saying "I think a key mistake people make is treating software development only as a financial transaction rather than recognizing it as a collaborative and creative process. If all you hire is cheap programmers without experience, no matter what country they are in, then you will get what you pay for"

What you really pay for in outsourcing is project management and communication. I mean how hard is it to find .NET, Java, or Ruby on Rails developers? Good developers are easy to find anywhere, finding someone that can get the job done is the real issue.

You really pay for the process of managing the developers and providing a thorough product. And I'm gonna let you in on a little secret GOOD DEVELOPERS AREN'T CHEAP, whether they're down the hall or across the world.

Outsourcing is about high value, not low cost.