Archive for September, 2009

What do you want to see in your ideal smartphone?

Friday, September 25th, 2009

iphone_jokeMany of us are Smartphone owners, some use Windows Mobile, others prefer such OS as iPhone or Android. But we all need different additional applications to personalize our high-tech “friend”. Mobile application developers released thousands of programs for smartphones, but users always want more.

So let’s review the list of functions, which you may wish to add in your future ideal smartphone, so called “can do anything” device. Of course we will be realistic and will not add such functions as “to make coffee”. :)

Wish # 1: RSS reader, Twitter client, mail client with voice synthesizer and voice control. Such functions will be very useful on the way to work. For example, you can read news headlines, and then give a voice command to read the full version. Many users say that existing applications for voice control are far from the ideal, so there is a lot of work for mobile programs developers.

Wish # 2: Built-in FM transmitter. Many of us save a lot of music files on our smarts (iPhones), and it would be nice to listen to it in a car (a car radio) without awkward adapters and cables. Of course, we must admit that such features somehow have been already implemented on the basis of Bluetooth.

To be continued…

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Posted in Mobile Development | 1 Comment »

Nearshoring vs. offshore IT outsourcing

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Belarus gets the 5th place in the list of the best exporters of IT services

At first sight it seems that nearshore and offshore IT outsourcing are the same models of software development. Nevertheless some principles of nearshore partnerships can play a key part in successful cooperation with foreign specialists.

So, fists of all a customer gets the work done by people in neighboring countries. It means that geographic nearness allows easier and less expensive traveling and communications. Moreover there are some commonalities between the cultures, so business partners can avoid misunderstandings that can appear between people who are separated not only by thousands of kilometers but also by completely different cultural patterns.

The second corner stone is statistics. Experts can tell you about cultural differences and other intangible things as much as they want, but some figures will explain you everything much better. This year Outsourcing Association in the counties of Central and Eastern Europe announced Belarus the fifth country in the list of the best exporters of IT services in CEE. Here is the Top-10 of CEEOA:

1. Ukraine – $ 530 millions,
2. Romania – $ 410 millions,
3. Hungary – $ 375 millions,
4. Poland – $ 350 millions,
5. Belarus – $ 310 millions,
6. Czech Republic – $ 300 millions,
7. Bulgaria – $ 250 millions,
8. Serbia – $ 157 millions,
9. Estonia – $ 105 millions,
10. Slovakia – $ 90 millions.

So, now European countries have two significant reasons to choose Belarus (outsourcing to Belarus) as the main nearshore partner to provide IT services.

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Posted in IT World, Software Development, Unknown about Belarus | 5 Comments »