 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.com
phone: +7(383) 3303469 ext. 226
address: room 241,
4, pr. Koptyuga
Novosibirsk, 630090 Russia
phone: +7 (383) 330-34-69.
EST: +11
GMT: +6
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