FAQ
What differentiates Novosoft from its competitors?
- Having more than 10 years experience, we provide
quality@Novosoft: quality@cost;
quality@management;
quality@speed
with over 400 talented, professional, and skilled developers,
under well organized management; with a software process quality
control system; with English speaking professionals; and with
availability to you 24 hours a day.
- Over 400 projects (800,000+ man-hours) successfully
completed in a variety of IT areas.
- We are one of the largest software companies
in Russia.
- We are located in the Novosibirsk Scientific
Center where the most intelligent and educated people from eastern
Russia are concentrated.
- By choosing Novosoft, you reap the benefits
of using some of the finest software programming minds in the
world. It is hard to find equals of our Russian professionals.
These individuals embody the outstanding standards of the scientific
centers of Siberia and Novosibirsk State University - the MIT
of Russia.
- Strong integration into and sponsorship of the
local Novosibirsk scientific community and cooperation with Novosibirsk
State University ensures easy access to qualified IT resources.
Such resources allow us to guarantee stable and reliable services
to our customers.
- In contrast with Asian offshore companies, Russian-run
companies are more similar in culture and way of thinking to Europeans
and Americans.
- Some of the strongest points of Russian developers
are flexibility, a customer-centered focus, creativity, and problem-solving
skills. We are deliberate in providing solutions and utilize many
approaches to tackle problems. The key to our success is considering
problems from various points of view and methodological analysis
of the best way to overcome such problems. Our customers will
never be left with unresolved tasks!
- Novosoft uses contemporary management approaches.
Our production process is based on the quality methodologies of
Rational
Unified Process and CMM
Level 2 and 3. The combination of creative, experienced Russian
programming resources and western-style management approaches
provide synergetic effects and brings our customers exceptional
added value while cooperating with Novosoft.
- For facilitating management and engineering
processes, Novosoft utilizes a Lotus Notes-based application called
Team Management
System. All development activities are logged, so that project
managers, as well as customers, can obtain information about team
output on a regular basis. Such monitoring enables our projects
to remain true to their predetermined budgets and provides a means
of full control of the projects.
- Novosoft has a reputation for maintaining trustworthy
and mutually beneficial relationships with its customers and partners.
What are the advantages of using offshore programmers?
- Using offshore programmers is more COST-EFFECTIVE
than hiring domestic programmers and project managers. For example,
in the United States you may spend from $80 to $150 an hour for
a programmer's time. Working with Novosoft you can save on average
up to 75% of your cost, and can also gain savings in time, through
using our serves.
- You have IMMEDIATE access to the best developers.
You can have a top-notch PROFESSIONAL team working for you in
no time. This is much FASTER than trying to staff a project in-house.
- You NO LONGER have to pay a massive COMMISSION
to recruitment agencies for recruiting your project team. It is
only necessary to pay for the actual time needed to develop and
code your project.
- You do not have to worry about any staff training.
- You do not need to provide office space, parking,
insurance, or tax-payments for your developers.
- You no longer have to purchase and maintain
hardware and software to support your developers.
- Novosoft is a US registered company that operates
under US law, uses financial services in the US, and pays US taxes.
It is safe to do business with us!
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Is it legal to use offshore programmers?
It is completely legal, and the common choice of
many large development companies today such as IBM, Microsoft, Sun,
Cisco, etc. Nowadays, it became more cost-effective to use talented
professionals especially from the eastern hemisphere as programming
offshore continues to develop.
However, Novosoft is not interested in using only
eastern talent. In fact, Novosoft welcomes anyone from any country
to join our team. While it is true that it is less expensive to
employ people from Siberia, feel reassured they are far from being
mistreated and in fact are very grateful to work with Novosoft.
If you are interesting in joining the Novosoft team
please see "Is Novosoft looking for employees?"
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What can Novosoft do for you?
Our software developers are competent in designing,
developing and implementing wide variety of applications (view our
services at the “services” section of the site). You can find some
examples of the projects we have worked or are currently working
on, at "solutions"
page or “ customers”
page of the Novosoft site.
Some of these applications can be used in several
different professional and personal environments. Novosoft also
has experience developing programs for many different types of business
and entertainment purposes.
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Can Novosoft do web page design and Internet applications?
Web design and Internet applications are some of
the most demanded services in the development industry today. Novosoft
has made a promise to offer you assistance in all the most demanded
areas.
Many of Novosoft's most recent projects have been
designed for the Internet.
Novosoft has developed set of web technologies under
the common codename NWS. This set includes NWS-ShoppingCart SDK,
NWS-Auction, NWS-HomePageCreator, and others. Utilizing these technologies
in your custom projects allows reducing costs of development and
support, making projects less risky, and speeding up time to market.
The latest is one of the most essential criteria for businesses
extending their activities to the Internet.
For further information on recent projects that
Novosoft has been developed, please consult our projects' page.
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How long has Novosoft been doing this?
Since 1992, Novosoft has existed as an international
company offering you access to some of the most talented software
engineers in the world.
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What are Novosoft’s plans for the future?
Novosoft strategy in business is to develop long-term
relationships based on customers’ satisfaction and credibility.
We are continually working on improving quality of our services,
management process, and engineering skills. One of the steps in
this direction is sponsoring talented students at the local educational
institutions, co-operation with Novosibirsk State University on
improving education courses related to Computer Science, Marketing
and Management.
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Who are the programmers and where are they located?
Our core team is talented and skilled software developers
who are located in Novosibirsk city (de-facto capital of Siberia
- eastern part of Russia). Besides we have number of teams in other
cities all over Russia and Ukraine, including Moscow, Omsk, Novokuznetsk,
Rostov, Kiev. Our team includes more than 350 software developers.
See more at about us page of the site.
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How to submit a project request?
It’s easy! You simply have to fill out a project
request. Once you have submitted the form you need to wait for your
project to be accepted. After this it will take a maximum of three
working days to assign programmers and initiate your project.
Anytime during this process you are welcome to contact
Novosoft for an update on the status of your request - get info
on the status of your project on-line…
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Must I first write a complete Spec?
No, your time is too valuable! Please, write a Specification
(Spec) for one component of your project. It does not need to be
detailed. Our developers and analysts can then begin the development
of this component with your help and clarifications and their own
logical abilities. During the development of this component you
may be in the process of writing up a Spec for the next component.
Thus, this allows beginning project development without the necessity
of a complete Spec. This is so called “iterative” development approach,
which proved its effectiveness especially for Internet projects.
From the process point of view initiation of the
projects looks like the following:
- You send us project request with rough specifications
or draft Project Vision document. It is not necessary for you
to provide us with the specs from the engineering point of view.
You are free to provide specs either for full system, or just
for part. Novosoft assigns sales manager to work with you.
- S/he will develop a Vision document presenting
a common point of your and our understanding of the new project.
It is recommended that Vision document should include description
of the business case for the new project. This helps very much
for our developers and analysts to understand your problem more
deeply. Sometime this may lead even to reformulating the problem
statement based on our business recommendations.
- You approve this Vision if you agree that it
is a correct understanding.
- Based on this Vision we make preliminary estimations
for the project and start developing “Requirements”.
- “Requirements” document is detailed understanding
of the system to be developed. “Requirements” include
a. Functional requirements (i.e. description
of functions and user roles to be supported by the developed
system);
b. and Non-functional or Supplementary requirements
(for example, security restrictions, compatibility requirements,
maintenance, third party software like database management systems
to be used)
- You review the Requirements document and approve
them as they become ready.
- Based on this “Requirements” document we make
price estimation and schedule for the project.
- If you agree with the schedule and price estimation
there are two options for further process:
a. Fixed price: “Requirements” are baseline.
This means that all price, schedule and requirements changes
are forbidden from this point. All changes will be allowed only
after the first release or only after mutual agreement of both
sides.
b. Time-and-material (the most common approach):
usually our customers wish to keep the right for proposing changes
during the development. In this case we provide an option for
developing the project on Time-And-Material basis. This is useful
for
 quick
projects, when time to market is crucial;
iterative
projects, when the Customer wants to receive regular often
deliverables and propose changes based on the results of the
previous milestone.
- In this case we recommend you to clarify with
our sales manager process and policy for making changes to the
project. Novosoft has special change management tools accessible
via the web.
- Usually we agree on monthly invoicing.
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Will I be provided with a schedule and time estimate?
You will be provided with a schedule upfront. If
this estimate includes parts that you feel are unnecessary or irrelevant,
you should express your concerns to your programming team and the
schedule shall be amended to meet your needs.
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What if I am not satisfied?
If you are dissatisfied with the quality of the
results or efficiency of developers’ work. Should this ever occur,
you must discuss with your project manager about whether these difficulties
are resolvable or not. If they are resolvable and you choose to
continue cooperation with Novosoft, certain arrangements will be
made.
However, we believe that 99% of problems are solvable.
We respect our customers and value their time and our goal is to
provide quality work, which will satisfy our customers.
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How can I monitor and control project development
progress?
There is a number of approaches for reviewing status
of the project:
- The Internet allows us to communicate with your
as easily as if we were next door. We are able to provide you
direct secure access to our site where you can participate in
your project discussion database, download/upload all relevant
to the project information, send orders and requests.
- We can provide you with regular status reports
based on time reports from our developers.
- Access to Quality and Features Management database
allows you to see status of features and change requests.
- Moreover this allows you to control prioritizing,
and scheduling of the changes. Besides that in many cases we negotiate
that the Customer takes part in choosing best resolution approach
for modification requests. These options are accessible for Time-And-Material
projects.
- Regular updates of the schedule with specified
current status provides upper level view to the state of project.
- You can require us to provide you with regular
deliverables of interim results. This would be done either by
giving you access to our site with interim builds (useful for
Web applications) or by uploading you binary builds.
Based on reviewing these status artifacts you may
propose changes to the project process, features, etc.
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How do I stay in touch with my programmers?
It is now easy and inexpensive to exchange data,
voice, and video over very secure links. The least expensive method
is via the Internet. Phone is often fairly expensive, but costs
can be cut by using voice or video over IP.
Novosoft has set up highly secure servers that enable
you to have near instant communication anytime with high-level encryption.
You can easily review progress or have all work submitted daily
for review over these secure links. Usually, one sets up a schedule
when "meetings" will be held to review progress and any desired
changes.
Once again the most convenient ways are E-mail,
ICQ, MSN messenger, Netmeeting. Lots of tools allow you to talk
directly to your programmer team in real time. It is also possible
to appoint a team leader, if you prefer to have a single point of
contact. You may even arrange them in to groups if you wish. You
can be the project manager.
It is recommended that you contact your developers
daily. However, this is dependant upon your needs and the development
of your project. It is for you contact your developers as often
as is necessary.
Moreover, Novosoft is able to offer to your client
high quality hosting services (24hour most reliable all-fiber-optic
Internet connection at 155 Mbit/second)
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How can I be confident of the quality and reliability?
At Novosoft Quality is a main priority. We do everything
to ensure our customer satisfaction. We have developed and introduced
strict internal Quality Management Control Procedures that has brought
together a number of rigorous quality assurance and testing procedures.
Customer receives Alpha and Beta versions of the code for their
own internal testing and approval.
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How do I protect my Intellectual Property?
Novosoft offers you a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA),
which is signed with your local contact. This allows this contract
to be more easily enforced by all parties.
Not all people need a NDA, but if you interested
you may look at a sample NDA. The decision about signing an NDA
is up to you. Also, you can modify your NDA to meet your needs and
emphasize the issues that are important to you since NDA was created
for your protection.
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Can you supply professional and financial references?
To look at professional references you may visit
the references section of the Novosoft site. Financial references
are supplied on request.
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What is the minimum project period I can pay for?
You can pay for as little as 40 hour. So we encourage
you to begin with a small project, just to get acquainted with your
developers and our system. Then once you know how it works hopefully
you will feel confident enough in our abilities to start serious
project and get all advantages of offshore cooperation. Moreover,
we have a number of discount options for big projects.
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How do I pay?
You will receive an invoice with a breakdown of
the hours spent on each project you are developing. You may look
at a sample invoice.
Information on how to pay in your country could
be obtained from your local contact. Wire transfer of money can
be done from any country. Wire money to:
Account Name: Offshore Programmers, Inc.
Account Number: 0084313610
Routing Number: 113010547
In the United States it is tax deductible. For information
about other countries you could contact our Chief Financial Officer.
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Is Novosoft looking for employees?
Novosoft is always looking for new talents. All
filed applications are kept in potential candidates database for
future contacts. If you would like to apply, please fill out a resume.
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What is Novosoft personnel turnover?
Novosoft as an offshore software development company
with highly professional developers staff has extremely low personnel
turnover. Average professional leak is less than 4%. There was not
a single case when a professional left Novosoft for another software
development company in Russia. People left Novosoft and went abroad,
usually in US, for Microsoft, Siebel, HP, IBM or other outstanding
companies. Novosoft has developed outstanding work environment and
system of appraisal for its employers. Every person at Novosoft
can realize himself and his own mental and creative energies, improve
performance, develop as a professional, be sure in the future and
maintain high living standards to stay in Russia.
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What time zone is Novosoft in?
The Russian programmers are EST +11 and GMT +6.
The exact time of contact is certainly whatever
suits you best, but it is best to make a time at which you can meet
daily. A planned daily meeting makes the development process go
much more smoothly.
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What if my question is not answered on this page?
We cordially invite you to contact Novosoft via
e-mail, phone or fax for more information. Learn how you can join
our growing list of customers who enjoy significant cost savings
for their software development, Web design and computer graphics
projects.
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What is the best way to contact Novosoft?
You can call, fax, and even write if you like. However,
the most convenient way of making contact seems to be via the Internet.
E-mail is a quick way to send information, questions, and comments.
You can reach us by contacting:
Novosoft Sales Dept.
sales@novosoft.us
Address: Address: Lavrentjeva Ave, 6 - 201, Novosibirsk,
630090, Russia
Phone: +7 (3832) 34-11-49.
Toll Free (US only): 1-888-364-6797
EST: +11
GMT: +6
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