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March 7, 2004
To
Whom It May Concern:
I
have been working with PSSPL for more than five years. I have been
amazed at how easy it has been to collaborate with a programming team
half a world away. When I
began I had the impression that Indian programmers would be technically
competent, but lacking in creativity.
I started out with very tightly written specs and deep testing of
their work. During the first year, they demonstrated over and over that
their competencies went beyond just delivering a software program to my
specifications.
The
first surprise was when they came up with a brilliant idea to
dramatically improve the performance of my database through a
reengineering of the data structure. As they became more familiar with
the intent of the program they began to suggest improvements to the
functionality and interface. Some of their suggestions covered areas
that I had simply overlooked; others were interface enhancements that
did a better job solving user requirements than the spec I had proposed.
I consider myself to be a highly competent designer of program
interfaces, so I was particularly impressed when they began to
contribute in this area.
These
days I only need to set broad goals and feature definitions. Nimish and
Nilangini will come up with detailed specifications and the schedules to
achieve them. They have built a big trust reserve with me by delivering
detailed daily status reports so I do not have to worry about what they
are doing each day. Nimish is an especially brilliant engineer. I could
not possibly afford someone at his level in the States.
After
two years, I transferred all of my program development to PSSPL. I have
also transferred all my deep technical support to them. They have put
ingenious logging code into the program that captures all install
variables and the full state of the program when it encounters an error.
It is safe to say that these logs allow them to diagnose a problem
faster from India than would ever be possible from a state-side tech
support person who did not have these tools. Thus the dealing with the
challenges of tech support via email has yielded improved service to my
customers. Their emails to me and my customers have been unfailingly
polite, gracious and professional.
My
company is utterly dependent on the services of people that I have never
met. As strange as this may sound, we have actually never spoken by
phone in all the time we have worked together. You might think that this
would make collaboration difficult when dealing with ambiguous specs. In
my experience, email has helped to clarify our ideas before we spend
time and money on implementation. Whenever my specs are ambivalent,
Nimish or Nilangini will patiently write out alternate interpretations
for me to choose from.
The
time difference has not been a problem. They don’t need supervision.
We agree on the specs and they deliver according to an agreed-upon
schedule. They have also built test suites to run in India so I now only
do minimal testing when the program is delivered. When we are running
under a tight deadline they work very early and late so we can
communicate in relative real-time via email.
I
could not have afforded to do my project if I did not have such a
brilliant, efficient team working at such great rates. The bulk of the
development work is now done. I feel so much gratitude to Nimish and
Nilangini for so many years of great service that I will gladly accept
phone calls from organizations who are considering outsourcing
programming to PSSPL. As you can tell from this letter, I highly
recommend the experience.
Sincerely,
Mark McDonough
President,
AstroDatabank Company
978-526-8064
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