A Peek Into China's Tech Sector
Stories Columns Opinions Resources
Sun extends Groovy, PHP support to NetBeans
Version 6.5 of the IDE will see complete support for those two languages along with comple...
|
Sun reorganizes its software production infrastructure
Facing economic hardships, lost revenue and loss of employees, Sun has split its software ...
|
Adobe steers Flash toward RIA implementation
At this year's Adobe MAX Conference, the focus was on Flash, this time making Flash more o...
|
BigLever builds a bridge to SCM with Gears
The Gears Universal Configuration Management Bridge allows CM systems to integrate with Ge...
|
SOA Watch: New economic realities
In the current economic downturn, agile programming and SOA are attractive options that bu...
|
Integration Watch: A new twist on threads
The key to raising the efficiency of multiprocessors is to shrink the overall workload by ...
|
Integration Watch: The Return of NetRexx?
Java scripting languages are seeing a surge in popularity, with NetRexx looking particular...
|
Windows & .NET Watch: Transaction crowd gets a boost
With multicore chips becoming the standard for processors, the need for a flexible, usable...
|
From the Editors: Election should shake up JCP
Rod Johnson has the right ideas for opening up the Java Community Process, and he may be a...
|
Letters to the Editor: Sun gives REST, SOAP choice
A reader takes issue with a headline on our story about Sun working with REST along with S...
|
Guest View: Be smart and lazy
The optimal solution for problems is the simplest one, so always aim to streamline your ap...
|
Zeichick's Take: From EXEC to EXEC 2 to REXX to NetRexx
Andrew Binstock's column last week, "The Return of NetRexx," brought back some fond memori...
|
Practical tips for saving money on code maintenance
If software design is expensive, well, code maintenance is even more so. When you look...
|
Transform your app-dev quality by involving the whole community in testing
As the saying goes, the more eyes you have on software, the shallower the bugs. That’...
|
Build your dev and test labs for less – a lot less – with virtualization
You don’t have the budget to equip developers and software test teams with all the har...
|
Software Common Hacks and Counterattacks: A Guide to Protecting Software Products against the Top 7 Piracy Threats
Software piracy continues to be a growing epidemic. This white paper examines prevalen...
|
By Edward J. Correia
August 12, 2008 —
As the world turns its attention to the 2008 summer Olympic games in the northern Chinese city of Beijing, I thought it would be a good time to share the story of Brian Schwarz, a western journalist granted rare access to one of China's offshore development centers in the eastern city of Shanghai.
Seizing on the growing outsourcing trend, China has built a number of offshore development centers (ODC). “As a western business journalist, ODCs seemed mysterious. Questions filled my head, such as how an ODC actually operates and how two teams of engineers on opposite sides of the globe can be able to work together to create a successful product.”
Schwarz requested and was granted one-day access to Long Circle, an ODC providing engineering services to multinational companies developing embedded software and hardware technologies. What follows is a description of that day, changing only the names.
“I was honored to have an opportunity to visit this state-of-the-art facility in Pudong, on the eastern side of China’s most vibrant commercial city.” Long Circle’s Voice-of-Customers (VOC) team—with members in both the U.S. and China—has been working with U.S. clients on project definition and management since 1994. China’s Engineering Center of Excellence in Shanghai carries out the project work.
Even before arriving at Long Circle at around 8 a.m., the company was buzzing with activity. “Hayden phoned Jim, Speedsmart’s U.S. VP of engineering to discuss recruiting efforts. Speedsmart was a long-time client, and Hayden has had conversations with him before.” On this day, Jim was looking for a team of top ASIC design engineers.
Speedsmart’s recruits were required to have extensive front-end and back-end system and architecture experience, and Long Circle had been building this team for more than a month. “We are not a headhunting service,” Hayden explained with a smile, “but part of building a team for our customers, of course, requires us to find the team.”
At 8:25 a.m., more staff members started to stream in. Hayden stepped into the doorway and asked if Schwarz would like to attend their weekly teleconference with MagicImage, another ODC customer. He jumped at the chance. Standing beside Hayden was Long Circle's VP of technology, Weiming, who oversees all project management work for ODC teams. “We went into the conference room where the rest of the MagicImage ODC team—a total of six— was sitting, and dialed into a U.S. bridge.”
The meeting focused on the status of defects found in a new product that was to be released soon. The two teams ranked the severity of each defect and identified which one to focus on first. “By listening to the discussion, I could tell both teams understood the system equally well, and had formed a close relationship.”
At 9:25 a.m., Schwarz and Weiming walked out of the conference room to a secure area that Weiming accessed with a badge. “He took me to the MagicImage’s ODC area, where Vivian explained to me how the complex system works. I didn’t understand much.”
At this point, Weiming explained that Steven, leader of U.S.-based Solarios—another ODC customer—just got a hold of him over Skype and wanted to have an emergency teleconference as soon as possible. Steven was planning to show some new products at an exhibition in Taiwan and his ODC team needed to help resolve some technical issues.
By 10:50 a.m., the emergency teleconference had started, with application screen shots projected on the wall. The application runs on cell phones and interacts with a GPS board over Bluetooth. Steven, still on Skype, said he did not like how some of the logic flows were going.
Just before noon, Hayden hung up his phone. He and Speedsmart’s Michael just completed a joint phone interview with a candidate who might be a good match. With 12 years’ experience in the right area, there was a lot to talk about. Now we were ready to head out for lunch.
At 3 p.m., Weiming started his presentation on the Product Development Process for a couple of new hires. Schwarz joined in. The five-step process considers the client’s specific needs. “The process involves requirements specifications, system modeling and analysis, design-build-test iteration, project acceptance and delivery and postmortem.” Each step has numerous sub-categories.
By 5:30 p.m., it was off-duty time for most of the staff, but the ODC working for Steven’s company was still undergoing its emergency work. Hayden said it could last another several hours. “I asked Hayden when he would go home. He said he had another interview at [6 p.m.] and he would leave after it concluded.” Schwarz decided he would leave for home.
So why would a U.S. company want Long Circle to build and host an ODC rather than do it on their own? “This is often asked by candidates,” explained Hayden. “Three reasons: recruiting network, service orientation and cost savings. Very often the talent they need is not something they can recruit easily to their satisfaction, or within a meaningful time frame.” Schwarz cited research from Gartner that Chinese ODCs can cost as much as 30 percent less than so-called “captive ODCs,” which companies build and operate on their own.
Share this link: http://www.sdtimes.com/link/32692