[geeks] Advertising status bar in I.E.

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Sandwich Maker <adh at an.bradford.ma.us>
>Date: 2007/05/10 Thu AM 08:29:48 CDT
>To: geeks at sunhelp.org
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Advertising status bar in I.E.

>" From: "Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <gsm at mendelson.com>
>" 
>" 
>" Computer
>" stuff froms from the computer department which no longer exists. It
>" was subcontracted to this company, which is doing so bad a job they are
>" not getting renewed. They know it and don't really care.
>
>i read of a study on outsourcing recently.  they surveyed over 500 cos
>and found that 80% bailed on their outsourcing contracts or defaulted
>on them within 3 years, because costs had risen to higher than they'd
>been in-house.
>
>ah, here it is!
>http://www.itworld.com/Man/2701/070423outsourcing/pfindex.html

Outsourcing dies because companies can't write specifications worth a damn, and when the spec is wrong, the project budget goes through the roof with revisions and corrections.

The best advice I ever read about outsourcing said that you should try it in-house first - send specs to programmers and then don't talk to them until it's done. Well, try not to, and realize that everything you talk about needs to actually be in the spoecification BEFORE you outsource the project, or it will fail.

Of course, this applies to programming work - outsourcing internal IT management is a different beast. The issues remain, but in different clothes.

At previous workplace they had an internal "IT management" contract - projects paid IT to manage servers, and the wording was so bad that they charged low-end server rates for old IPCs used as print servers - over $1K/month to manage! That caused alot of older machines to be "liberated" and print servers to be consolidated toot-sweet!

Lionel