Ex-Facebook Elite Raising Funds From Facebook Benefactors

Two of Facebook’s elite, Dustin Moskovitz (co-founder, Facebook) and Justin Rosenstein announced in October 2998, that they had severed their ties with Facebook, one of the biggest social networking websites and were planning to start their own project. Now, according to reports, the duo have begun their highly anticipated project and have been able to acquire funding for the same from the same investors, who funded the Facebook project.

The Facebook duo had left Facebook citing reasons that, they wished to create something more personal to the users, that would be more useful to users than a social networking website. Even though both the collaborators haven’t shed much light on their pending endeavor, yet, it has been confirmed that their project is known as Asana. However, this website is still in the developmental phases, and perhaps, that is the reason, that its creators have raised funds.

According to Dustin Moskovitz,

“But something else exciting happened in the year and a half since I joined Facebook. I started spending a lot of time after work talking to Dustin. Efficiency-through-software was dear to his heart as well, and we would stay up till 3am raving about how shortcut keys and high-level abstractions would Change The World. We shared a passion for technology, for entrepreneurship, and for using them to solve the same set of problems.

As our visions for how productivity software could work came into alignment, we thought about building it inside of Facebook. It was an attractive option in many ways, and neither of us was eager to exit a company that was in such an exciting phase of its development. But at some point it became clear that doing so wouldn’t be good for Facebook or for us. Facebook needs to continue its mission of making the world more open through social software, without distraction, and the new project requires a company built around it from the ground up, with the goals of efficiency and group collaboration embedded deeply into its DNA from day 1. So we’ve decided to leave Facebook (in about a month) and start a new company, to build an extensible enterprise productivity suite, along with a high-level open-source software development toolkit, built for the Web from the ground up.

We see this new venture as very complimentary to Facebook. We hope our products will become to your work life what Facebook.com is to your social life. Our software will use Facebook Connect as the default option for identity and authentication. Our user interface will adopt many of Facebook’s conventions, creating a seamless and familiar experience for current Facebook users. And if our new development tools turn out to be useful, we hope the Facebook engineering team will come to adopt them.

Source: http://trendsupdates.com/19600/

Ghana hosts first Business Process Outsourcing conference

Ghana will host the first business process outsourcing (BPO)conference in the country this month.

The conference organized by the Ghana Association of Software and IT Services Companies (GASSCOM) is under the auspices of the Ministry of Communication, the ITES Secretariat and the World Bank.

The two-day Conference on Tuesday July 22 and 23, 2009 is under the theme “Outsourcing to Ghana, Africa’s Golden Gateway.” The venue is the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel in Accra.

A press release from the organizers says Ghana for some years now has been a technology leader and the ICT hub of West Africa, with its great people, strategic position on the equator and GMT timing (same time zone as the UK).

The already attractive investment climate in the country is being further enhanced through additional government incentives for the ICT sector, and the recent oil find, projected to bring over US$1 billion annual revenue, is expected to create unique business opportunities, in particular for the service sector.

It added, Ghana is also fast emerging as a major destination for Business Process Outsourcing/Offshoring (BPO) in Africa, and has already attracted a number of international players from the US, Europe, India and Asia.

This, according to the release, is confirmed by the 2009 AT Kearney Global Services Location Index Report which confirms Ghana as 15th overall ranking in location and 1st in Financial Attractiveness in Sub-Saharan Africa (out of 50 countries) for Business Process Outsourcing/Offshoring.

Indeed US lawmakers have identified Africa as a destination alternative to India for BPO.  According to a report by the Central Chronicle, US lawmakers and think tanks believe that Africa could be a cheaper destination for call centres as against India and Ghana was specifically mentioned.

Source: http://ghanabusinessnews.com/2009/07/21/ghana-hosts-first-business-process-outsourcing-conference/

Is Software Management Obsolete?

Committees don’t make great software. It takes a single person, an author. Maybe he gets some help. Teams don’t do it. Nobody sees the whole elephant.

I’m pretty sure I heard that basic sentiment first in about 1986, from Dave Winer, who was then the author of a Macintosh outlining program named More (now he’s better known as the de-facto father of blogging).

What reminded me over the weekend was my son emailing me about Jeff Atwood’s Software Engineering: Dead post on Coding Horror. He’s looking at this article by Tom DeMarco, author of Controlling Software Projects, a software management classic.

What DeMarco seems to be saying — and, at least, what I am definitely saying — is that control is ultimately illusory on software development projects. If you want to move your project forward, the only reliable way to do that is to cultivate a deep sense of software craftsmanship and professionalism around it.

The guys and gals who show up every day eager to hone their craft, who are passionate about building stuff that matters to them, and perhaps in some small way, to the rest of the world — those are the people and projects that will ultimately succeed.

That sounds to me a lot like Dave Winer was getting at about 25 years ago. And if it takes a single user, someone writing code and working the application because he or she wants to use it, then that’s hard to manage.

And if you’re interested in software quality, creativity, and management, you might want to look at an exchange between user interface designer Justin Curtis and an interface designer at American Airlines. It starts here with Justin’s rant about the hostile interface on the AA website; and gets more interesting here with an AA interface designer’s answer.

The group running AA.com consists of at least 200 people spread out amongst many different groups, including, for example, QA, product planning, business analysis, code development, site operations, project planning, and user experience. We have a lot of people touching the site, and a lot more with their own vested interests in how the site presents its content and functionality.

It seems that frustration was had by all.
And it certainly won’t make you wish you had a creative or design oriented position in a large company.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-berry/is-software-management-ob_b_241970.html

Outsourcing and value for money improvement–incompatible?

Why would an outsourcer ever want to offer its clients value-for-money improvement?

Perhaps before we answer that question, we should consider what value-for-money improvement is and what leads to it.

To me, value-for-money improvement means I pay less for the same thing or I pay the same and get more. And most importantly, it is my choice which of those two I choose. For example, in the PC world, that could mean I get that bigger screen and faster CPU today for the same price I would have paid for a "smaller" machine a few months ago, or I could buy that "smaller" machine for less today than it would have cost a few months ago.

If that’s what value-for-money improvement means, then how does it get delivered, in particular in relation to services? Some ways are:

• Automation removes labor and associated costs;

• Process improvements reduce labor effort, and therefore, costs; and

• Wage arbitrage can be used to reduce costs.

The key with all of the above is that at least some of the reduced costs need to be passed on to the buyer. Many believe that all the reduced costs should be passed on, but that leaves no money for the supplier to invest in actually making the improvements to get a return on that investment.

So that’s our first sign for how to set up an outsourcing relationship to achieve value for money improvements. Align savings with whoever made the investment in the improvements. If it was you as a buyer, you should get the savings; if it was your supplier, they should get some, too.

A special challenge with this topic in many situations is that the supplier’s people have bonuses based on the revenue from their client, and how much they increased the revenue by. In such a situation, individuals tend to avoid any activities that reduce revenue because it makes them look bad and potentially lose their bonuses. And if you think this isn’t a real issue, think back a number of years to how slow the US multinational companies were to offer offshore delivery options–they were afraid of the revenue reductions that would follow even if their profit margins went up.

How do we solve that one?

Source: http://www.zdnetasia.com/blogs/sourcinginsight/0,3800011231,63011916,00.htm

CSC wins nuclear outsourcing deal

IT services provider CSC is to take over the running of the IT supporting the companies tasked with cleaning up the UK’s nuclear legacy.

Five firms that previously made up the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) have signed up to the £31m outsourcing deal. The contract also covers technology for the Civil Nuclear Police Authority, also previously part of the UKAEA.

CSC will provide the organizations with infrastructure services including desktop, helpdesk and network support, applications management and database administration. CSC has a specialist unit dealing with IT services for the nuclear industry, based in Cumbria, which already supports eight other companies.

When UKAEA was restructured into separate organizations, a strategic review in 2008 led to a decision to outsource IT provision. Its in-house IT team will now transfer to the supplier.

“This is an excellent outcome to the constructive, competitive dialogue between ourselves and CSC,” said UKAEA chief executive Norman Harrison.

“It provides a sound basis for future IT services to a changing UKAEA and retains the skills and expertise of our experienced team while giving them opportunities to develop in a wider commercial environment.”

Source: http://www.vnunet.com/computing/news/2243840/csc-wins-nuclear-outsourcing

Nokia translates Web apps to mobile widgets

Nokia today introduced three mobile development tools for those desktop designers and Internet content developers looking to migrate to mobile phones with simple, personalized applications. The tools allow developers to convert standard Web code and scripting language into mobile apps and services, tying widgets – an increasingly important focus for Nokia – to the mobile phone.

Nokia has been working hard to redefine itself as an Internet-services company but has had to tone down its services push in attempt to streamline its businesses and reduce costs. The handset maker announced in April that it would focus on third-party developers rather than its own internal developers for new apps. Part of the plans were aimed at increasing opportunities for third parties, which it hopes to make easier and more widespread with today’s announcement.

Nokia’s Web Runtime (WRT) plug-ins for Adobe Dreamweaver, Microsoft Visual Studio and an updated plug-in for Aptana Studio will let Web developers using standards-based codes, such as HTML and JavaScript, turn their existing Web content into mobile widgets in less than one week, according to Craig Cumberland, Nokia’s director of Web tools and technologies. Widgets aren’t a new focus for Nokia or its global developer program, Forum Nokia, but the company is starting to achieve volume in the number of handsets that can support new apps, he said. 

"With tens of millions of devices on the market that have this capability, we certainly have a lot of positive responses from developer communities and customers about the ability to have these light-weight applications that can be generated in a fraction of the time of a mobile application that they could then potentially customize," Cumberland said.

Any developer down to the average consumer or business with, for example, PhotoShop can create and customize a widget to port to one of 27 supported Nokia S60 phones, including the N97, which launched today in the US. It can be an app to share with friends or one designed solely for a particular user and device. Cumberland created a widget to automatically convert text-based phone numbers to numerals since he couldn’t easily decipher them on his qwerty keyboard. It looks just like any other widget on the mobile phone, he said, but was designed particularly for his handset. According to Nokia, other popular widgets include breaking news headlines, stock-market tickers, social network status updates, flight arrival schedules and localized daily weather.

Nokia WRT plug-ins, available in eight languages, are built on the same open-source Webkit project environment used on Nokia’s S60 platform-based phones. Webkit also forms the basis for Apple’s Safari-based iPhone browser and Google’s Android. Nokia’s overall goal is to provide a framework for using this browser as a transport layer to allow access and integration through the Internet on a mobile device, Cumberland said. The widgets can be delivered to the handset through Nokia’s app store portal Ovi or direct to the handset’s home page, and Nokia’s eventual goal is to target this widget-based Web environment across all its platforms moving forward, he added.

"They don’t have to be incredibility complex," Cumberland said. "There is certainly a role for those apps, but there is also a big role for these light-weight phone apps and simple functionality things that allow you to personalize the functionality of the device. WRT was one of the key components from the developer perspective that allows that. Whereas it may take six to nine or 12 months to develop a highly detailed, complex Internet application, you can build and deliver a good functionality widget in just eight days."

Source: http://telephonyonline.com/mobile-apps/news/nokia-mobile-widgets-0609/

Battle of the rich Internet app development tools: JavaFX squares off against AJAX

In a mock debate focused on the rich Internet application development realm, AJAX was pitted against Sun Microsystems’ JavaFX Friday, with proponents for both technologies pointing up their entrant’s high points and the low points of their rival.

A session at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco had the co-founders of the Ajaxian Web site for AJAX technologies squaring off, with Ben Galbraith playing the part of the JavaFX advocate and Dion Almaer serving as AJAX’s proponent. Both serve as co-directors of developer tools at Mozilla. While Galbraith and Almaer are obviously geared toward AJAX, Galbraith said he also has experience consulting on Java.

"JavaFX is built on top of an incredibly mature runtime that gives you amazing performance," as well as great features and Larry Ellison, Galbraith said, giving a humorous nod to Oracle’s plans to buy Java founder Sun Microsystems.

Almaer focused on AJAX being synonymous with the Web. "It’s all Web stuff that’s going on," he said.

The two went back and forth, measuring factors such as graphics performance, language capabilities and tools.

"Today’s JavaScript runtimes are just pitiful," Galbraith said, and the Web is slow, he added. Java also has a more sophisticated API, he argued. But Almaer countered, "We have a very simple API. I consider that a feature."

Almaer also advocated the performance of the Google Chrome browser, prompting Galbraith to ask how many people actually use Chrome.

In the graphics space, JavaFX and Java outpace AJAX "by a huge margin," Galibraith said. Almaer promoted the Canvas graphical technology for browsers. Google’s new O3D technology also boosts 3-D rendering on browsers, said Almaer.

Video, Galbraith said, is "an area [where] I’m pleased to say JavaFX is also leading the way."  But citing YouTube as a successful Web video venture, Almaer said rich video already is possible now on the Web through mediums such as Flash. In addition, HTML 5 also supports video and is backed by Mozilla, he said.

Almaer asked why JavaFX needed its own language, (JavaFX Script), rather than using something already available, such as Groovy. "You have to invent yet another language," Almaer said.

JavaScript far outpaces JavaFX when it comes to available components, he said. "In our world of JavaScript, you’ve of course got millions of components," said Almaer.

Galbraith pointed out there have been issues with CSS, which is used with JavaScript. He did this by showing a coffee cup, with a box showing the words "CSS is awesome," with the word, awesome, over-running the lines of the box.

Galbraith said Java has an advantage in tools. "Come on, you’ve got nothing for tools that can even come close to the Java platform," he said. But Almaer countered that there are many single-purpose tools on the Web for AJAX. He also promoted Mozilla’s Jetpack technology for extending browsers and building Web pages.

While Java offers a single, consistent platform, the Web offers a "nightmare of compatibility problems," with multiple browsers pervasive, said Galbraith. Almaer cited Internet Explorer 7 as having the most share, followed by Mozilla Firefox and some Webkit-based browsers. Web technologists do not want a dominant player and can leverage open source software while JavaFX users must wait for the JavaFX team if they want a feature, he said.

Almaer also argued while that Java for the Mac is a variation, but Galbraith said Java on the Mac is consistent with Java 1.5 on Windows.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9134086

Ukraine: A Prospective Player on the World Software Outsourcing Market

The destruction of the Soviet Union about 15 years ago, made a huge country with a great level of IT science divided into small bricks. Nowadays, despite Russia’s expansion into the world software development market, Ukraine keeps playing an important role here too. There are several prerequisites for this.

Prerequisites

Traditionally, Ukraine always was a technical region of the USSR. No wonder, the IT education was and still is one of the most popular and respective education in the region. Such well-known Ukrainian universities as Kyiv National Technical University, Donetsk National Technical University etc. as well as new establishments with more innovative approach for IT specialists education, such as Donetsk State Institute of Artificial Intelligence and others, educate a new prospective generation of young IT professionals, ambitious and purposeful.

It’s obvious, Ukrainian students win in international contests, and show true professionalism and ability to enter a business life immediately, hence, to play the first fiddle in the labour market. As the latest example, one can remember students of Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics that became first place winners of the International Web Development Contest (I.C.W.D.I.C. 2005) held by XITEX Software Company in spring 2005.

That is why governments of European countries encourage Ukrainian programmers to come and to work there. Germany is the best example of a country that understands all pros and cons of Ukrainian IT professional, thus it’s the country that sees its benefits of employing Ukrainian programmers.

Another one important factor is the cost of labour. In Ukraine, usual hourly rates for programmers are $10-$15. Although they are little bigger than Indian ones, they are still 1.5 times lesser than Russian ones and several times lesser than American or European costs. If you consider the high level of professionalism and responsibility, then you add a European mind and time zone, plus a fluent English of the most of IT people, you realize that Ukraine is that happy medium each company looks for. Hence, many companies that outsource have already realized it.

Ukraine’s Prospects

Due to the Market Visio’s research http://research.aventures.biz/eng/result.html, the volume of Ukrainian IT-services export in 2003 was estimated to be $70M, 40% more in comparison with 2002. The market prospects for 2005 were to be $150M; that is three times more in three years.

There are about 300 public companies that work for export. They are located mainly in big cities such as Kyiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk etc. There are also a huge amount of groups of professionals who are mainly engaged in export on a level of freelancers. The total number of IT specialists engaged in IT-export services was about 10,000 in 2003 and grew considerably during next years.

Everything mentioned above shows that Ukraine has great prospects to become and equal player to the most known leaders of the market. Its well-developed IT infrastructure, level of services, and professionalism of programmers made Ukrainian companies able to compete for complex and complicated projects with other well-known developers. There are several companies that invest in their own software solutions and market them internationally with success. However, all of them are engaged into smaller or bigger software development projects as subcontractors.

The next step of Ukrainian gait into the world IT market seems to be a wide establishment of offshore development centers based on currently existing software development companies. Prerequisites are obvious:

1. Ukrainian IT companies have whole infrastructure required to develop reliable custom application and deliver it in time.

2. The gross yearly expenditure per one programmer will vary from $20,000 to $30,000.

3. Ukraine’s time zone is GMT +02:00. Hence, all programmers and project managers will be available on daytime for any European company.

The only thing remains to be done, though. Ukrainian IT companies are making only their first steps in self-promotion. The more professional they become in this field, the more obvious it would be that Ukraine becomes a competitive player on the world software outsourcing market.

Source: http://www.ozelwebtasarim.com/index.php/web-haberleri/11799-ukraine-a-prospective-player-on-the-world-software-outsourcing-market

China Rising in Importance in Global Outsourcing

A new paper from KPMG takes a look at China’s rising importance in global outsourcing. Suppliers have progressed to specialize in niche areas such as:

• Legal process outsourcing

• Animation and gaming

• E-learning

• Offshore engineering

• Pharmaceutical R&D

While many companies are showing greater appetite for outsourcing diversification, they still want the reassurance of dealing with companies with global perspective and experience, the paper says. This is where the Chinese government’s 1000–100–10 plan comes into play:

Launched in 2006 with funding in excess of US$1bn, the plan aimed to establish 10 Chinese cities as global outsourcing bases (subsequently increased to 20 cities in January 2009), to attract 100 international corporates to outsource to these locations and to develop 1000 Chinese outsourcing vendors to service this new client base. It was a breathtakingly ambitious plan but the results can be seen with Dalian, Shanghai and Beijing already ranked in the top 10 most attractive cities for outsourcing.

It is reckoned that Shanghai could even challenge Bangalore for the top spot within two years, with Dalian and Beijing thought likely to make it into the top five.

While the potential benefits of China as an outsourcing center are many — technical skills, language skills, depth of talent and pricing to name but a few — it is the increasing professionalism of the fledgling, 15 year old industry which is impressing many, the paper concludes. For example, many businesses now offer thorough, months-long training programs in technical skills and customer service, sometimes stationing workers overseas for extended periods at customer locations to become more familiar with the client’s business operations.

Source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/139232-china-rising-in-importance-in-global-outsourcing

Outsourcing offers less economic value: One-third CEOs worldwide

At a time when the Obama administration is coming down heavily on companies shipping jobs overseas, a survey shows that one-third of the CEOs worldwide believe outsourcing offers less economic value than five years ago.

Moreover, the chiefs at American firms find outsourcing less attractive than their counterparts in non-US-based entities.

"One-third of CEOs believe outsourcing offers less economic value than five years ago," the survey conducted by leading bourse NYSE Euronext.

The ‘CEO Report 2010’ showed that chiefs of non-based companies find outsourcing more attractive than those of US businesses.

Spread across 23 industries and 24 countries, a total of 284 CEOs participated in the survey.

Regarding the economic value of outsourcing, 45 per cent of the respondents felt that it remains the same as compared to earlier whereas only 22 per cent believed that such a move is economically more attractive.

Interestingly, the percentage of outsourcing has little changed in the last two years, the report said.

India is one of the most favoured outsourcing destinations in the world mainly on account of low cost and skilled manpower.

The Obama administration has restricted the hiring of H-1B visa-holders by companies bailed out by the Federal government and recently announced a plan to end tax incentives for American entities generating jobs overseas.

Both moves are expected to impact the Indian IT sector, whose major chunk of revenues come from the US.

When asked about plans to maximize the opportunity in emerging markets, 21 per cent of the participants said they are seeking and or expanding local partnerships, including outsourcing arrangements.

About 46 per cent of the chiefs noted that they are looking at establishing and or expanding local marketing, sales activity.

"Larger companies as well as those outsourcing companies, involved in manufacturing/construction and business/information services are most likely to have used outsourcing," the report noted.

Of that total, 195 responses were from the US; 48 from Europe and the UK; 12 from Latin America; nine from the Asia-Pacific region; and 18 from Canada and Bermuda, among others.

Independent market research and consulting firm Opinion Research Corp conducted the survey through the internet, phone and mail from March 5 to April 13, 2009.

Meanwhile, the latest report by A T Kearney’s Global Services said that India, China and Malaysia are among the most favoured outsourcing destinations in the world.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Outsourcing-offers-less-economic-value/articleshow/4561565.cms