New Technology: Microsoft Surface

I'm sure you have see the new technology from Microsoft called 'Microsoft Surface'. This is the coolest innovative product to come out from Microsoft after Google and Apple started hogging the news with their innovations.

Microsoft Surface uses the HCI technology called multi-touch first popularised by Apple on its iPhone. Even though Apple beat them to the market with multi-touch, Microsoft's Surface is an innovative product that can open up a whole new market.



As a product engineering services provided when one sees a new technology like Surface, you start to think of applications for this technology. We have a role to play as a technology evangelist in understanding the applications of new technologies and demonstrating its usage to technology firms and eventually help integrate or bring new products based on new technologies. Offshore product engineering firms especially brings a key benefit to technology adoption in reducing the cost of technology adoption in the marketplace.

Outsourcing Engineering Research

I keep an eye out for real world stories on outsourcing new product development especially research and prototyping of new technologies and concepts.

I came across this interesting article by Steve Mezak, an outsourcing consultant titled How to Outsource Research Needed to Create Software-- And Get it Right.

Sometimes you know exactly what you want your software to do. You can easily hire an offshore programming team or a freelancer if you have a small project, and direct them to develop what you need.

Other times, you may not be so sure. You need someone to research what is best,or even possible, before software development can begin. Outsourcing of your research before you begin development takes a special type of engineering team.

He gives couple of examples of his experience outsourcing research and prototyping. He concludes be saying:

The key result of outsourcing your research is knowledge. Use that knowledge you gain to minimize the technical risks before you develop your software.

From my experience working with customers in providing research for a new product has been that customers who understands working with remote teams (be it within your country or outside) have been able to capitalize on outsourcing research work. Outsourcing the entire concept to market cycle of a product is challenging, however I can vouch for it from my experience that it is a workable model.

10 tips on dealing with offshore developers

As a manager at an offshore services provider, one of the key aspects of my job is managing expectations of clients. Especially those who are new to offshore outsourcing.

Here is a post from Yakov Fain listing ten practical tips for the rookie manager. He has some more interesting posts at this site.
Link >>

Hybrid model for outsourcing

Recent article, Alternative offshore model emerging in India, by John Ribeoro at IDG News Service, cites a new market research by Forrester Research concluding that companies are moving towards a hybrid model of offshoring versus deciding in favor of either captive or partner model.

Forrester Research Inc. found that hidden costs raise the baseline expense per person per month at a subsidiary to $4,944, compared to the baseline cost of $4,231 per person per month to hire an outsourcer. A number of companies are shutting down their captive centers and turning to outsourcers, said Sudin Apte, senior analyst and country head for India for Forrester.

"Captives centers run as cost-centers and cannot be as competitive as a vendor offering services," Apte said. The size of the captive center also matters. "My experience suggests that generally the minimum economic size for a captive operation is about 1,000 staff," said Siddharth Pai, a partner at outsourcing consultancy firm Technology Partners International in Houston. A smaller staff means the expenses of real estate, infrastructure, and other overhead keep the cost per person at levels too high to appeal to the parent company, he added.

A number of firms inlcuding startups have opted for a captive center in last few years and are struggling to gain full potential out of their captive centers. Attrition and overheads are cited as key reasons however, when you look at a captive vs outsourced option, one of the key factors that really makes the difference is whether you have a person who can take ownership and drive your captive center or not unless you are a Cisco, Microsoft or Google. When you outsource, the vendor is hungry to make it happen; is your point man in India hungry and experienced enough to make it happen for you?

"Typically, clients tend to want to build their own operation rather than outsource when the process they are considering taking offshore is closer to their own revenue generation, such as product design, Pai said.

As a result, some foreign companies are likely to have Indian subsidiaries and also use outsourcers in the country, Pai said. Forrester expects 20 percent of captive centers to take this "hybrid" approach. Large companies, such as Microsoft and Cisco, are already using this offshore strategy in India to cut costs and to avoid hiring and managing more staff directly.

As a technology firm if the piece of product development you wish to do offshore is not too close to a technology IP then it might very well be better to opt to outsource than build a captive center. If your product is a business app that doesnt have any propritary technologies associated with it, then the argument towards a captive center might be less convincing.

I must add though that for a number of companies small and large, offshore outsourcing via partners is what makes bringing an innovative new product or technology implementation to market feasible. This I say from personal experience providing outsourced product development and prototyping to several companies.

Edit: Here is the direct link to the Exec Summary of the Forrester Report: Shattering The Offshore Captive Center Myth

doubtsourcing

Been getting these in my email for couple of weeks now. Wonder what list they got my email from. More at http://www.doubtsourcing.com

Open Source & Outsourcing

Continuing on the open source theme, here is a question for you.

How does open source play out in the outsourcing world?

• I think outsourcing companies have been delivering somewhat of an open source code to their customers for years. The offshore outsourcing companies delivered custom software and products to clients with source code on a work for hire basis. Of course it is not same as free open source software developed by a community. And the software is not open to the public. Neverthless I think it is close to the commercial open source movement at present. And a lot of times the rationale given by outsourcing companies, particilarly the offshore ones, for build vs buy was that they gave source code ownership to companies and delivered customer software at the same or lower cost as licensing. And this is still the model to a large extent in outsourcing.
  
  
• At the same time, open source is disruptive to the whole software industry and therefore can immediatly affect outsourcing firms especially in the product engineering space.
  
  
• Outsourced vendors & SIs offering IT solutions implementation and support services are likely to see more opportunities with open source adoption in enterprises. A number of companies have already taken up open source implementation and support services as a key growth area.
  
  
• There is also open outsourcing that can be a threat to outsourcing companies. Open outsoucing can eliminate the need for outsourcing companies again in the product development space.
  
  
• I see commercial open source as an opportunity for outsourcing firms to enter product space rather than being stuck being pure service firms. It is also an opportunity for outsourcers to give back to the community by participating and developing truly open source software free for all while continuing to grow their outsourcing services. Infact being an active participant in the open source community can be a key competitive advantage in the not so distant future.
  
  
• Product engineering outsourcing firms have been using open source software to and building/integrating them in to products and applications. One of the key factors to be aware of is the licensing issues associated with integrating open source code into products you deliver to clients. Read the licensing agreement for any open source code you decide to use and make sure your client is ok with the licensing agreement.
  
  
• Companies that makes commercial open source software are very sensitive to the licensing and copyright surrounding open source code they make available and therefore reluctant to outsource.
  

What say?

Microsoft and Opensource

I was at the Microsoft Open Source ISV Forum held at SF today. Curious to see what Microsoft had to say to open source ISVs to say the least.

As a Microsoft NXT Delivery Partner and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, we (my employer & I) have had an ongoing relationship with Microsoft. However, as an engineering services provider we were witness to a dramatic shift in platform choice from ISVs and SaaS providers to open source in last couple of years. So this event piqued my curiosity as to how Microsoft is dealing with the now prevalent open source community.

Interestingly, this event came on the heals of an article on Forbes about Microsoft's announcement of Linux patent violations which generated immediate flak in the open source community for their approach.

So when Sam Ramji, Microsoft's Director of Platform Technology Strategy, took the stage he had a lot of explaining to do. On one hand he was advocating OS ISVs to adopt Microsoft platform while on the other hand there were his bosses making patent violation threats to the OS community! I must say even though it was a rough session for Ramji he did manage to survive it without losing face.

The gist of his argument that I took away is as follows:

• Microsoft is not in favor of litigation - they have been at the receiving end of numerous patent law suits and paid billions, but they have only had two offensive cases where they initiated patent litigation.
• Platform is what is key for Microsoft. And they welcome open source ISVs and developers to adopt Microsoft platform so that Microsoft doesnt lose out as OS gains even more adoption. Towards this Microsoft is willing to invest in helping the OS ISVs develop on Microsoft platform.
• The benefit OS ISVs and developers gain by adopting Microsoft as a platform is the volume of users who want applications on Windows.

There were some interesting comments on how the OS ISV's reputation will be tarnished by partnering with Microsoft.

I found Redmonk Stephen O'Grady's presentation most impressive of the day's. His rationale for OS ISVs was that the choice of Microsoft as a platform is simple - as an OS ISV with thin margins volume is what is most crucial for your business. And at present and for the foreseeable future Microsoft platform is what gets you volume business.

John Roberts CEO of SugarCRM the superstar of commercial open source software presented his experience in partnering with Microsoft (interestingly SugarCRM site is down as I write this). So did Marc Lind from Aras an exclusively Microsoft based Open Source Enterprise PLM software vendor.

The commercial OS SugarCRM story is by now commonplace with many having adopted the same model. However, Aras's story was intersting how they went from a commercial Microsoft client server vendor to an open source enterprise PLM solution provider. My take is that the payoff for Aras is from the tremendous interest in the marketplace for opensource. And by going exclusive on Windows, they have gained a lot of PR from Microsoft.

As John Roberts put it, the key is not whether it is open source or commercial, it all comes down to the best product. And his assessment is that the opensource model has helped him create a superior product.

Start afresh

It's been a while since I first setup this blog and even though I had a couple of random posts, it took me a while to determine what best to publish on this blog.

After some thought and part laziness and part my son's birth 6 months back, I am now ready to start afresh.

The blog will primarily focus on my current professional focus. Which is providing outsourced product engineering services to technology companies. I will cover aspects of product development and product lifecycle management in today's Web 2.0 and Opensource world. Though this is always changing and we should be ready for 3.0 pretty soon as product developers.

As time goes I am sure my professional focus will evolve and change as the technology marketplace changes. So dont be surprised if tomorrow the focus of this blog dramatically change. Though I hope I the blog will keep a record of the path I took as well as my views on the market while navigating it.