To outsource or not to outsource - that is the question.....

[Graham]

Hi,

I'm a software manager of a small firm in Cambridgeshire in the UK.
The commercial wolves within the company are closing in with their
limited chequebooks and saying they want a medium sized product
offering out by
first quarter 2005.

This leaves me with a headache.

I would like to retain development expertise in house for reasons of
maintenance. However, we are not experienced in Java, and we want to
re-write
our Oracle forms application suite on this platform.

Does anybody have any insights, practical experience of the pros of
cons
of outsourcing Vs bringing in an external consultant and trying to
build
a team. If so, what kind of time constraints were they were working
under
and costs etc..

In addition, does anybody have any practical experience of converting
a
relational database structure to fit the Java Object Orientated model.

TIA

Graham Lucas

 

[John]

Hi,

I'm a software manager of a small firm in Cambridgeshire in the UK.
The commercial wolves within the company are closing in with their
limited chequebooks and saying they want a medium sized product
offering out by
first quarter 2005.

This leaves me with a headache.

I would like to retain development expertise in house for reasons of
maintenance. However, we are not experienced in Java, and we want to
re-write
our Oracle forms application suite on this platform.

I would take on someone who has experience with RDBs and Java straight
away, then let him appraise the options (and take on extra contractors
as necessary).

Does anybody have any insights, practical experience of the pros of
cons
of outsourcing Vs bringing in an external consultant and trying to
build
a team. If so, what kind of time constraints were they were working
under
and costs etc..

I don't have experience from the "customer" side of that unfortunately.

In addition, does anybody have any practical experience of converting
a
relational database structure to fit the Java Object Orientated model.

Yes, use Entity EJBs and J2EE. You can approach this in a more hacky
fashion if you need quick results and less of a shift in your
application's model by using more procedural techniques and SQL.

 

[Andy Fish]

Hi,

I'm a software manager of a small firm in Cambridgeshire in the UK.
The commercial wolves within the company are closing in with their
limited chequebooks and saying they want a medium sized product
offering out by
first quarter 2005.

This leaves me with a headache.

I would like to retain development expertise in house for reasons of
maintenance. However, we are not experienced in Java, and we want to
re-write
our Oracle forms application suite on this platform.

Does anybody have any insights, practical experience of the pros of
cons
of outsourcing Vs bringing in an external consultant and trying to
build
a team. If so, what kind of time constraints were they were working
under
and costs etc..

I don't have practical experience of this scenario but my gut instincts tell
me you should steer of outsourcing in the short term. Unless you have
someone "on the inside" who knows how to achieve the migration to java, any
attempt to outsource the port is bound to go off the rails.

I would say get in a consultant who understands java enough to architect the
migration. Then you and he can decide whether to outsource, retrain, or
whatever.

 

[iksrazal]

Hi,

I'm a software manager of a small firm in Cambridgeshire in the UK.
The commercial wolves within the company are closing in with their
limited chequebooks and saying they want a medium sized product
offering out by
first quarter 2005.

This leaves me with a headache.

I would like to retain development expertise in house for reasons of
maintenance. However, we are not experienced in Java, and we want to
re-write
our Oracle forms application suite on this platform.

Does anybody have any insights, practical experience of the pros of
cons
of outsourcing Vs bringing in an external consultant and trying to
build
a team. If so, what kind of time constraints were they were working
under
and costs etc..

For a shameless plug you could get some frank advice on the subject
from my site at http://www.braziloutsource.com/ - a small mom-n-pop
software consultancy specializing in international development.
Outsourcing is not a panacea, and just like any project there are
successes and failures. People often overlook not only the language
barriers but cultural differences and time zone differences as well. I
like this article because it lists the minuses as well as the plusses.
http://www.cio.com/archive/090103/money.html . In short, I'd say
contract for skill first and then see if they fit your budget. I think
where people sometimes go wrong is looking at the money issues first.
Programming is often not rocket science and there are plenty of
skilled people out there - regardless of location.

In addition, does anybody have any practical experience of converting
a
relational database structure to fit the Java Object Orientated model.

In my case only limited exposure to hibernate and a few conversations
with developers who after doing JDO and such remain unconvinced. I'd
be interested in hearing a few success stories to get some balance.

iksrazal

 

[steve]

Hi,

I'm a software manager of a small firm in Cambridgeshire in the UK.
The commercial wolves within the company are closing in with their
limited chequebooks and saying they want a medium sized product
offering out by
first quarter 2005.

This leaves me with a headache.

I would like to retain development expertise in house for reasons of
maintenance. However, we are not experienced in Java, and we want to
re-write
our Oracle forms application suite on this platform.

Does anybody have any insights, practical experience of the pros of
cons
of outsourcing Vs bringing in an external consultant and trying to
build
a team. If so, what kind of time constraints were they were working
under
and costs etc..

In addition, does anybody have any practical experience of converting
a
relational database structure to fit the Java Object Orientated model.

TIA

Graham Lucas

I do a fair amount of java client to oracle 9i programming.
Try pulling Jdeveloper 10g from the oracle web site.

Allocate a week to see if it fits your needs, & if you can re-tool your in
house programmers. if not outsource.

You will see from jdeveloper that you can develop with models, in some
cases it is simple drag & drop then link the modules together, in the
graphical interface.

steve

 

[shay]

If your developers come from an Oracle Forms background and you want
to get them up to speed with Java, then Oracle JDeveloper should be
your choice.
Especially look at the BC4J framework (now called ADF Business
Components in 10g) it offers - it has some things that will remind you
of the Forms blocks. And it takes care of the Object/Relational
mapping for you - so you won't need to change your DB.
Get it from - http://otn.oracle.com/products/jdev/index.html

There are even some companies that will convert your exisitng Forms to
JDeveloper and BC4J.
Check out http://otn.oracle.com/products/forms/htdocs/10g/FormsJavaSOD.html