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Hi Rex,
I'm currently in a similar position as you are, with an awful lot of contract work. However, part of my vision as a company is to get some work in the US, mainly so that my future customers can benefit from the folowing advantages:
1. Lower costs. Definitely, software development in Mexico is much cheaper than in the United States.
2. Culture, geographic location and timezone. As you mention, there are very few cultural differences between the US and Mexico, and we are close enough to make travelling practical.
I'm not American, but I don't think my English is that bad, and I comply with the other four points, so I guess I qualify for your interest. 
We currently have a lot of work (we are fully booked for the next two or three months), but anyway I'm very interested in making this alliance that could benefit us both (and anyone else who wants to join).
You'll get my email address on the notification message you receive from this post. I will be out of town for the weekend, starting tomorrow, so I might not reply immediately. I look forward to hearing from you soon, and I hope we can work something out together!
Luis Alonso Ramos
Intelectix
Chihuahua, Mexico Not much here: My CP Blog!
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Me too. I think I'm going to create a domain on my ASP .Net server where those that are interested can sign-in and we can discuss things. I was thinking of using a PHPBB message board so we could have a place to chat stuff out. Let everyone be admins and we can create groups and stuff based upon events.
Soon as I get more responses I'll follow up by email. ![Rose | [Rose]](https://codeproject.freetls.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
The enemy's gate is down.
Welcome to CP in your language. Post the unicode version in My CP Blog [ ^ ] now.
People who don't understand how awesome Firefox is have never used CPhog. The act of using CPhog alone doesn't make Firefox cool. It opens your eyes to the possibilities and then you start looking for other things like CPhog and your eyes are suddenly open to all sorts of useful things all through Firefox. - (Self Quote)
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Luis Alonso Ramos wrote: Lower costs. Definitely, software development in Mexico is much cheaper than in the United States.
Lower than here in Indonesia. How much per hour does the rate in US dollars? I think people around here will gladly take $2/hour work.
<italic>Work hard, Work effectively.
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No, I don't think the rate here is lower than in Indonesia. Here in Mexico it probably costs $25-35 (US dollars) per hour of work.
However, our main advantage with US customers over India/Indonesia/anything-around-you is that our culture is very similar, the time zone is the same (I'm in Mountain time), and that traveling is actually practical, since a 1:30 hr flight will put me in Houston/Dallas and from there I can fly to anywhere in the US.
Luis Alonso Ramos
Intelectix
Chihuahua, Mexico Not much here: My CP Blog!
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code-frog wrote: DISCLAIMER: I'm not anti-indian developer at all. I had to work with 3 of them for years at my old company and language and cultural differences are very hard to work around. That's my only reason
for excluding Indian developers.
Thanks for excluding a few million developers based on your experiences with a staggering THREE of them. Indians form the second largest group on Codeproject and the largest membership count on Java User Group.
What about Indians who have a valid residency in the USA (aka green card)? If you are excluding them - you are discriminating based on national origin.
code-frog, I must say I really didnt see this coming from you.
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I thought the strike throughs were enough. Let me add more.![Rose | [Rose]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
The enemy's gate is down.
Welcome to CP in your language. Post the unicode version in My CP Blog [ ^ ] now.
People who don't understand how awesome Firefox is have never used CPhog. The act of using CPhog alone doesn't make Firefox cool. It opens your eyes to the possibilities and then you start looking for other things like CPhog and your eyes are suddenly open to all sorts of useful things all through Firefox. - (Self Quote)
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Vivek Rajan wrote: code-frog, I must say I really didnt see this coming from you.
Yeah, I was kinda taken aback too! Though, at least he was honest about it.
Regards,
Nish
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote: Yeah, I was kinda taken aback too! Though, at least he was honest about it.
Me thinks, I came across all wrong. Made a major mistake and am truly sorry for that. I was very tired, over-worked and should have thought more about *what* I was saying.
My *very* sincere apologies and yes I was being honest but not in the way I intended (or should ever have).
The enemy's gate is down.
Welcome to CP in your language. Post the unicode version in My CP Blog [ ^ ] now.
People who don't understand how awesome Firefox is have never used CPhog. The act of using CPhog alone doesn't make Firefox cool. It opens your eyes to the possibilities and then you start looking for other things like CPhog and your eyes are suddenly open to all sorts of useful things all through Firefox. - (Self Quote)
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code-frog wrote: My *very* sincere apologies and yes I was being honest but not in the way I intended (or should ever have).
Hey Rex,
I posted that before I read your other posts about Wipro. If you look at the time-stamps, it was my first post in this thread. I now understand what you were trying to say, but when I made this specific post, I did feel a little taken aback. It's all okay now though
Regards,
Nish
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code-frog wrote: I'm not anti-indian developer at all.
Thats ok, Everyone is entitled to have an opinion but some people might say....
Opinions are like a**holes everybody's got one but most of them stinks 
DISCLAIMER: I'm not anti code-frog at all, i'm just not that crazy about frogs
Master.. Master.. where are the dreams that i've been after...
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I modified my post a bit more. I left the original stuff in there but it's state has changed a bit.
Please be careful judging me regarding this issue. You have to understand that I and my former company had a nightmare experience with WIPRO and I admit it's not fair of me to apply that to all Indian contractors.
The enemy's gate is down.
Welcome to CP in your language. Post the unicode version in My CP Blog [ ^ ] now.
People who don't understand how awesome Firefox is have never used CPhog. The act of using CPhog alone doesn't make Firefox cool. It opens your eyes to the possibilities and then you start looking for other things like CPhog and your eyes are suddenly open to all sorts of useful things all through Firefox. - (Self Quote)
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Relax Rex, i was just messin with ya
i know you are alright anyone can have a bad experience with anyone.
But since wipro is a big company here i am curious what happened?
Master.. Master.. where's the dreams that i've been after...
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Oh Geez!!! You want me to write a book eh?
Well, I'll be brief at first and you can dig with more questions where you might be interested.
I used to work for Micron Technology, Inc. I was on the team that worked directly with WIPRO and WIPRO was writing are new manufacturing project management system. It was huge with terrabyte databases in memory (using perl), C++ middleware and VB 6.0 front-ends. My job was to qualify all the code coming in from WIPRO and sign-off that it was ready to go into our manufacturing system for production. Keep in mind 1 hour of downtime in 1 facility = $1 million in loss and that's on the conservative side.
So to begin with their production system V 1.0 had no error handlers in any of the code anywhere. None. I reported this and they sent the VB 6.0 code back in less than 1 hour and they had put this in every sub/method/function
On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
ErrorHandler:
ResumeNext
That was how things started. Well not really. My boss and I had been battling it out with them for months because of differences in what Americans (us) felt was quality software that was well written and what WIPRO (them) felt was well-written quality software. We wanted a minimum of 2 levels of redundancy in non MFG critical code and 3 or 4 levels in MFG critical code. WIPRO was reluctant to provide even 1 level even though in the analysis and requirements document that we received from them multiple levels of redundancy were spelled out in clear terms.
It just went back and forth like that. We had to fight tooth and nail for every feature. Then when they released the code to us I found issues in every single release from the PERL, C++ and VB none of it was done right every. So we'd ship it back and say it was wrong. Fight with them on why. I cannot count the times I had to stay up late in the night and haggle it out with OFFSHORE over why something wasn't going to work. In some cases they would ship code that would not work at all with their other code. We'd explain this and they'd say well we cannot release our beta code that we've upgraded to it's not ready. So they would claim they met the release on time but really they didn't the other half of the system wasn't done but because the frontend was they they felt they met their deadline.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!
It was so tedious to work with them. I spent more time fixing their code then I spent writing my own. Here's the final kicker. I wrote Microns memory build and hot-lot tracking system it was a world-wide application and in the 3 years I owned it my downtime due to my code was less than .0001%. WIPRO took it over after I left and in 6 months downtime in that system was up to 20%. That really sealed it for me. Then I talked with my peers at Albertsons who also had to work with WIPRO and their story was identical. Junk, garbage, worthless stuff coming from WIPRO.
So I decided then and there to wash my hands of anything to do with WIPRO ever again.
- Rex
The enemy's gate is down.
Welcome to CP in your language. Post the unicode version in My CP Blog [ ^ ] now.
People who don't understand how awesome Firefox is have never used CPhog. The act of using CPhog alone doesn't make Firefox cool. It opens your eyes to the possibilities and then you start looking for other things like CPhog and your eyes are suddenly open to all sorts of useful things all through Firefox. - (Self Quote)
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code-frog wrote: On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
ErrorHandler:
ResumeNext
hahahahahaha..., thats bad really bad, i have seen VB programmers do that a lot On Error resume next
i think they ripped you guys off, there is no explaination for this kind of behaviour, think what would have happened if you were not checking the code from them  and what ever they sent was installed (millions of dollors in losses)
well if i see a guy from wipro i will surely convey your regards
Master.. Master.. where's the dreams that i've been after...
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That was just it though. They didn't think there was a problem at all. They thought I was the problem. This was during a time when buffer attacks were huge. They were not checking string lengths in anything they had no security code at all. If someone wanted to use the system maliciously boy could they ever. Prior to working with WIPRO I thought nothing could be worse than the 3 years I spent working in SAP R/3 and their nightmare ABAP programming language. WIPRO convinced me otherwise and in short order...
The enemy's gate is down.
Welcome to CP in your language. Post the unicode version in My CP Blog [ ^ ] now.
People who don't understand how awesome Firefox is have never used CPhog. The act of using CPhog alone doesn't make Firefox cool. It opens your eyes to the possibilities and then you start looking for other things like CPhog and your eyes are suddenly open to all sorts of useful things all through Firefox. - (Self Quote)
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That must have been painful. I am not very surprised though. Big companies like Wipro hire 1000s every month without doing a proper quality check on the candidate. And you also had to pick the VB6 team - yeah, that sure made things better for you, didn't it? 
Wipro is such a large company that I am sure they must have some good teams too. But their best people are probably reserved for on-client-site work in the US and the UK. When you have work completely done in India, you can be pretty sure that it's the 2nd layer of coders who are working on it.
Regards,
Nish
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This project was enormous. We had a dozen of their top designers on site at all times and these guys would ship the requirements off-shore to India. I don't recall the exact number of developers but I was lead to believe it was a pile. It wasn't just VB either. The project in it's entire scope was SAP R/3, VB 6.0, VC++ 6.0, ATL, MTS, PERL, Python, HTML and it worked against Sybase, SQL Server, Oracle and SAP.
The crux in all of it was that WIPRO was way out of their depth on it. I don't know the end outcome of the system but I know at one point in time my former company was considering killing the project and bringing it to our Plant Operations division which believed it could author the same system (much better, in less time and for less money). The only people who didn't believe them were WIPRO and our top-level managers every developer involved knew that Plant Operations was the correct way to go and that WIPRO should have been flushed but anyhow...
It stunk!!!
The enemy's gate is down.
Welcome to CP in your language. Post the unicode version in My CP Blog [ ^ ] now.
People who don't understand how awesome Firefox is have never used CPhog. The act of using CPhog alone doesn't make Firefox cool. It opens your eyes to the possibilities and then you start looking for other things like CPhog and your eyes are suddenly open to all sorts of useful things all through Firefox. - (Self Quote)
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code-frog wrote: It stunk!!!
From your descriptions, I can imagine that it must have.
But I still disagree with your attitude that all Indian developers would be bad at development and would not be able to communicate fluently in English. Of course it's probably my patriotism at work there too.
Also, since your mind-set is fixed thus, against Indians, it may be a bad idea for you to ever again interact professionally with Indian developers. With this sort of prejudice, things would surely go wrong very fast. So it's probably a good thing that you clearly specify that you will not accept work from people of Indian origin (even if they are Green Card holders or citizens in the States).
Good luck in future with American developers though.
Regards,
Nish
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code-frog wrote: I didn't want to because it's *so* hard to understand many of them who have such thick English accents.
I understand. My accent is probably pretty bad too, and I know there are lots of Indians with even stronger (thicker) accents. So I can imagine it must be pretty tough for you.
Regards,
Nish
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You could avoid the sentence
DISCLAIMER: I'm not anti-indian developer at all. I had to work with 3 of them for years at my old company and language and cultural differences are very hard to work around. That's my only reason
for excluding Indian developers. So please don't take this the wrong way. After 3 years of it I had my fill.
In case someone send mail regarding this contract work, you may ignore it…
We hope that CP is common place
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I modified my post.
The enemy's gate is down.
Welcome to CP in your language. Post the unicode version in My CP Blog [ ^ ] now.
People who don't understand how awesome Firefox is have never used CPhog. The act of using CPhog alone doesn't make Firefox cool. It opens your eyes to the possibilities and then you start looking for other things like CPhog and your eyes are suddenly open to all sorts of useful things all through Firefox. - (Self Quote)
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Rex - would be interested in discussing with you - Matthew Wilson (Author of "Imperfect C++", previous column/article writer for CUJ) and I were thinking about same sort of thing .. Matthew is looking at going to US for a while to work for Bloomberg's (New York)
Will send further email to 'the other address'
'g'
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Wow! ... tell me are you hiring a Journalist or a computer programmer? ... I mean how much do you talk? ... infact are you just full of it?
Anyways ... lets say
1. A negro (American born and bred) from downsouth Starkville,MS wants to work with you
OR heck
2. Some "White Trash" from Arkansas/Louisiana etc. (your typical American thorough bred again) wants to work for you ...
would you still consider these candidates?... I wonder!
If you do then you are a sucker for local labor and hate offshoring ... if you don't you are either a racist bastard or just plain nutjob with no "life"
Timing is Everything
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S.R. Tiruvan wrote: Wow! ... tell me are you hiring a Journalist or a computer programmer? ... I mean how much do you talk?
My current clients and other developers call me quite a bit. The last project I just finished had about 500 hours in phone calls to other developers.
S.R. Tiruvan wrote: infact are you just full of it?
Look I appreciate your comments but please don't waste my time. I'm an adult running a *very* succesful business with depth in several technologies. Cut the nonsense.
S.R. Tiruvan wrote: Anyways ... lets say
1. A negro (American born and bred) from downsouth Starkville,MS wants to work with you
OR heck
2. Some "White Trash" from Arkansas/Louisiana etc. (your typical American thorough bred again) wants to work for you ...
You should read the conversation Nishant Sivakumar and I were having. Might help you to see where I was coming from.
S.R. Tiruvan wrote: would you still consider these candidates?... I wonder!
If I never spoke with them I wouldn't no differently. I'd expect resumes and examples of a proven track record in development. Aside from that keep wondering.
S.R. Tiruvan wrote: If you do then you are a sucker for local labor and hate offshoring ... if you don't you are either a racist bastard or just plain nutjob with no "life"
I will always pick local labor first and no that does not make me a sucker. You're close minded to think so. I buy groceries from local grocers, gas from local gas stations, computers from local vendors, etc... It's called supporting your local economy.
Your second comment hints at your own short-comings. Please refrain from these comments in the future if you expect any replies from me. Have a good day.
- Rex
The enemy's gate is down.
Welcome to CP in your language. Post the unicode version in My CP Blog [ ^ ] now.
People who don't understand how awesome Firefox is have never used CPhog. The act of using CPhog alone doesn't make Firefox cool. It opens your eyes to the possibilities and then you start looking for other things like CPhog and your eyes are suddenly open to all sorts of useful things all through Firefox. - (Self Quote)
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