Wasted Work Time

Today I came across the following article that talks about the wasted work Time in U.S.
http://www.salary.com/careers/layoutscripts/crel_display.asp?tab=cre&cat=nocat&ser=Ser414&part=Par632
How much time do we waste here in Egypt?

Sherif Video

This Video has the photos of my lovely son sherif along the amazing Amr Diab song of Kenzy.

Microsoft Acquires Winternals and Sysinternals

Microsoft has aquired Winternals and Sysinternals http://www.winternals.com/Faq.aspx

Outsourcing and Intellectual Property

The outsourcing move in software industry is one of the topics that are always addressed in the media but the covering is always done from the point of view of the client that outsources a part of work to 3rd party in other country. I have spent most of my career in software development so far working on outsourcing projects and I feel like that I need to address the pros and cons of it from the point of view of the entity that do the outsourced work. Generally the pros of outsourced versus local projects are:

• The quality and scale of these project is usually considered better that the available type of projects in the local market.
• The profit margin is better given that the hour rate is usually higher than that in the local market.

On the other side the cons of the working on outsourced project are

• The company doing outsourced projects does not have an intellectual property but in many cases the non disclosure agreements between the clients and the company prevents the disclosure of the clients names or projects. I really wonder what could an outsourcing services company list on the product page of its web site (if it has a web site).
• The Communication problem that results from the different time zones and the fact that in most cases especially in small companies the company owner is the one in charge of dealing with clients and doing deals that could put more pressure on the technical people specially in analysis and requirement part.

Outsourced projects could be good alternative from some point of view but in the new world of Web 2.0 where service oriented applications rises I think that any person responsible for a software company in a country like India, China and Egypt should consider shifting some focus on building it own Intellectual Property of Web 2.0 applications.
Please read the following study from eweek about that the outsourcing boom is over
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1987497,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

I am Joining Microsoft

YES, that is true I have finally succeeded in realizing my dream of joining Microsoft. I can declare now that beginning next October ISA I will be officially a Microsoft employee. I am some how late in declaring this but I thought I should wait till everything is setup and because I do not like to talk about my plans till they are finalized
I will be joining the Visual Studio Team System Product Group as a Software Design Engineer in Test. I am so happy that I will be working for Microsoft, the software company I always dreamt of working in with an exceptional group of people. The people I met in person during the interview all made me feel like a perfect match. I will be working on Visual Studio the development environment I used in 99% of my development so I finally could help make it even better

I would like to thank all the people whom I worked with during the previous period because they all contributed to my experience.

Google on Business Week

I have came on an article on business week discussing Google. It is good to read:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_28/b3992051.htm