In a development that gives new meaning to the term “offshoring”, the Boston Globe reports on SeaCode, a floating software design vessel:
Roger Green is a software entrepreneur. David Cook was once a supertanker skipper who spent 15 years hauling crude oil through the world’s sea lanes. Now the two men have announced a remarkable venture called SeaCode, a company that plans to hire 600 superb software designers from every corner of the world and house them in a luxury cruise ship just out of reach of US immigration law — but close enough to bid on multimillion-dollar US software contracts.
Not surprisingly, it’s mostly about the money. The WSJ reports online today in “Work in Progress” (in non-linkable fashion even for registered subscribers like me):
By setting up a team of engineers just offshore, executives will be able to check up on their projects without “killer flights to India.” SeaCode plans to pay its employees roughly three times what they’d earn in Bangalore, but still much less than a comparable American engineer’s salary. Workers will do four-month stints on the floating software factory, where room, board and laundry will be free.
Hmm… How long before lawyers from Mumbai trained in the English legal system are bouncing in the waves a short distance from Lady Liberty?
I don’t think this would ever be tried first by a law firm. An interesting discussion on that sort of innovation is going on between Ron Friedmann and Jeff Beard.
Time will tell if SeaCode ever sails. But there may just be a few icebergs on the horizon for those in the legal community who think that not innovating is really controlling risk.