Siebel Systems (SEBL) - strong buy? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : Siebel Systems (SEBL) - strong buy?

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To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (6724)	5/21/2003 3:09:36 PM
From: Scott Meyer	Read Replies (1) of 6974

Herein lies the problem with offshore development. Actually it is a problem with the way people want to think about software development... It isn't a top down activity. Some things are just assumed when you work with strong people locally. Otoh when you are working with some offshore facility, it is like trying to explain changing a tire on a car to a blind man, this is a huge strain on your tech leads who have to watch these offshore devt teams constantly so they don't make huge mistakes like this. If it takes your tech leads 100% of their time to police these people offshore, then it is actually MORE expensive working this way vs. what can be done here. At a certain point, specification becomes unworkable. You might as well write the code yourself... The problem has nothing to do with offshore or onshore. Projects fail this way in SV too. The best development teams are dynamic, reactive and flexible in pursuit of a large-scale goal. Ideas get tried and discarded. Sometimes you find a bit of software to buy. Sometimes a partner comes up with a new interface. Good developers adapt and bad ones deliver a product that is already obsolete. The problem is that detailed specification and the business relationship that goes along with outsourcing criple your ability to respond to changes in the world. The benefits of responsiveness far outweigh saving 50% on your labor costs. Now to relate this back to SEBL. I interviewed with them when they were still back in Menlo Park and they had the most amazingly detailed product specification I'd ever seen. On the one hand, I was pretty sure they were going to do really well for the first few years, but I wondered a bit how things would work out after their product had been in the market for a few years and everyone had the chance to copy the important features. At that point, roughly where we are now, the first mover advantages are all gone and all the players are playing the software development game on the same field. And... ?

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