SeaCode - Shipping Software From A Ship

Have you ever heard of the phrases “Let’s Ship This Code” or “Let’s Ship This Release“. If you work for the Software Industry then these terms would certainly be a part of your daily lingo. The terms mentioned here are basically software parlance for saying “Let’s Deliver Whatever The Customer Wanted“. Seacode however is an organization which seems to have taken the above terms literally.

SeaCode presents Hybrid-Sourcing an innovative engineering service which creates high-end software engineering jobs in the U.S. while still providing lower overall costs for its clients. So how exactly does SeaCode go about doing this. Well, as the name suggests the company actually operates from a cruise ship moored three miles off the California coast thus undercutting U.S. wage rates and circumventing local labor rules. The ship’s location just outside the three-mile limit exempts it from California labor and environmental regulations, but not international maritime labor rules or federal regulations forbidding the dumping of fuel, trash and sewage. Because the ship is registered under the Bahamian flag or another foreign registry, the workers don’t need H-1B visas, unlike foreign employees housed temporarily on U.S. territory.

SeaCode was founded in the year 2005 by Roger Green and David Cook who were harsh crtics of the outsourcing trend which was and still is a strong trend among American Software Companies. Apparently they didn’t quite like the idea of work being outsourced to companies in other low cost countries especially India and so they decided to do something about it. So how exactly is SeaCode doing today. After 3 years of it’s announced launch not much is known about the company, something which is quite evident from it’s single page website.

However, it must be said that the ambitions of Mr.Green and Mr. Cook were very noble and very much in the interest of the american people, and it was probably the implementation of their idea which proved to be the major stumbling block. Well guys, you would be delighted to know that many Indian companies are now opening their development centers at cost-effective near shore locations like Mexico, so that american clients can get direct supervision of the projects and no one has to work at odd hours to compensate for the time difference.

Tags: mexico, america, C , sea, code, coding, software, ships, engineering

Rate This Post

posted by krisdhingra in Tech |