On 28 December I had a very-very long day. In fact, it started on 27 when at night we had a sound record session for our NY party’s corporate movie. In fact, it was a popular Russian cartoon called ‘Winter in Prostokvashino’, and making the movie implied cutting off some parts and adding our voices and songs. We finished about 1am at night, but it was fun trying to get into rhythm of actors of the cartoon. So next day I started early by interviewing everyone in our company (or tried to get everyone) about last year results. I had prepared a questionnaire and wrote down every answer which was really important... read more →
A few days ago I got a good email from our large customer with big thanks to the team - after a lot of efforts we got a version for a specific platform, and it completed a large development cycle. It’s always good to get respect for our work, but we here in Russia can say ‘your thanks is not gurgling’. You may know Russians like to drink Vodka (and other strong beverages) and gurgle is a sound when you pour out from the bottle… so when you hear something like that it means that good words can be also be supplied with some gift or ‘magarych’. So I tried to explain the customer that the team may deserve something more than just a grateful email. After a day our customer came back and asked me about a few details, and then within an hour we received a good Christmas bonus for everyone of the 8 people from the customer’s project team... read more →
Recent title in Business Week discusses different aspects of outsourcing including software development (it’s what we’re doing). The main idea is that many companies encounter some problems working with India’s companies (there are several reasons). We’d probably know best about our competitors when we receive an unfinished project started by vendors from India and then did a lot of hard work improving ugly code (drop me a note, I’ll show you best examples). The summary of this title points that customers are looking to other possibilities like Russia and other countries with better approach to get-project-done. Take a look at our benefits – may be we’re a better choice for your project... read more →
Sergey Markov Sibers CEO has become member of the Organization of Independent Software Vendors.... read more →
Today (shortly after DevDays), we’ve become a Microsoft Partner Registered Member, taking a start in the program of getting a status of Microsoft Empower ISV. At the moment, 20% of Sibers are working on projects that use Microsoft technologies.... read more →
Today seven of us (all came in one FunCargo) took part in Microsoft DevDays here in Novosibirsk. The conference was mainly about new products for software development for Microsoft platform. We’ve also got notepads, pens, some questionnaires and 2 booklets about Windows 2003 Embedded. We’ve got shown Vista and in the moment of demonstration of its protection against demanding applications, the computer rebooted. Other speakers showed VSTS DBPRO, WCF|Indigo, talked about WPF, security and CardSpaces. Halleluiah, no BSOD any more... read more →
We are using Microsoft Project for routine projects and resource planning, and it’s usual to see it in the windows taskbar. Most of our managers use laptops, so they can be in touch with customers and team members from anywhere. As one of good approaches for daily work, we use ‘stand-by’, ‘suspend-to-ram’ or hibernate options provided by Windows. It allows starting work immediately when you receive an urgent call or resume your work – no time to spend on Windows startup. Some managers have several weeks uptime on their laptops. But sometimes you need to pause (go for a meeting or the last-minute train), and usually there is a shortcut (my Acer has Fn+F4) to suspend your computer... read more →