ThoughtWorks wins big contract on Rails
Posted by David December 21, 2005 @ 06:14 PM
Obie Fernandez has a great story on how ThoughtWorks recently won a $800,000 bid for a critical application against another consultancy. They probably do that all the time, but the interesting part about this particular bid is that they made it powered by Ruby on Rails. The other consultancy bid a million dollars for a Java-based system, but the CIO picked the Rails solution from ThoughtWorks.
So saving $200,000 was obviously a big advantage of the Rails bid, but more interesting is the second-level concerns. Obie writes:
Analysts from Gartner and Forrester and even members of his personal grapevine are all abuzz about Ruby… Ruby may not be a corporate standard (yet), but don’t even get him started on his organization’s dismal track record building J2EE applications… The risk of late delivery is much, much scarier to him than proceeding with a relatively unproven technology that the whole world seems to be talking about as the successor to Java.
This story comes hot on the heels of Stuart Halloway’s exposure of how Rails makes it possible for his consultancy to win accounts over Java solutions due to higher productivity. As he put it:
Developers have more fun, make more money, and customers get better products cheaper and faster.
Indeed.
UPDATE: The story is indeed “fictional”, but with the very deep underlining of “inspired by real events”. Obie has no permission to speak on specific deals of ThoughtWorks, so names have been withheld to protect the real involved parties and the exact figures, estimates, and so on.
I recognize that their proposal is proprietary information but it’d be very helpful to learn how they positioned RoR against J2EE beyond simple price considerations. I ask because getting a corporation to “trust” a new technology is a huge achievement – we face it all the time with government contracts. Any insight?
Don’t worry – I had read Obie’s post. I am just seeking more tangible bits from the proposal rather than just those 4 Consultancy B won! points.
Obie wrote this as a ‘realistic example’, not an actual occurrence.
Unless there is more to this than Obie is letting on, I don’t think you can call this a concrete example of a Rails win.
I want some of that money :)
Yeah this is not a real story. Its a hypothetical example that Obie came up with.
If its not a real story, why did he use the names of real firms? I find that a little confusing.
Also, good article but I find myself incredibly distracted by the dollar figures. $97 an hour and $192 an hour. Are these figures part of the “realistic example”? If so, maybe I need to start looking for a job at one of these consultancies because my income doesn’t even begin to get close to the lowest figure.
@Marc: This $192 an hour resulting in a 800 K bid include the calculation of infrastructure costs of the consultancy, right? The have to pay their cars, their offices, etc. So it has nothing to say about the actual hourly income of one ‘resource’. Specialist lawyers and partners of law-firms bill something like $800 to $1200. Then a work hour may result in more than one billable hour and often is. Not to talk of hourly rates of golf professionals with some decent commercial contracts. If money would be everything, maybe you chose the wrong profession…
I’d say you can call it a win only when the application is delivered on time and on budget, and, most importantly, meets the client’s needs. Getting the contract is only the first step.
When Rails will power projects like the ones described by Rod Johnson in a TSS thread, then you can truly say Rails is mainstream.
http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=38021#194086
I think this post is quite misleading. Anyone could make up a ‘realistic example’, so I should say this is pure speculation.
$97.00/hr is low to average for development agencies offering professional-level work. Perhaps you’re under-valuing your skill-set :)
The story I used in my blog entry is an example with elements drawn from real life experience and conversations. I went back and re-read what I wrote and I don’t think it was misleading.
yeah, but for a fucking web programmer??
?
97 is a little too high not matter what kind of glue you sniff for a web programmer.
You should pull this post off or the RAILs blog!
It will only server as ammo to those claiming that RAILs popularity is due to the community’s self promoting hype.
This will make it more difficult for those of us trying to insert RAILs into real world projects.
@not geof: $97/hr is cheap when you factor in salary, taxes, benefits, facilities, utilities, equipment, supplies, and all the other things you need to employ someone in your business. The programmer doesn’t get $97/hr for his work, the company does.
A rule I once used was to determine billing rates was to find the employee’s hourly rate, and then multiply it by anywhere from 4 to 6. That covers the expenses of the company.
Remember that people in HR, Admin Assisstants, and the cleaning crew (among others) don’t produce billable time, so it’s up to those actual employees who create products/value for customers to pull in money to pay for the supporting staff.
Thanks for the feedback Sean & Jan. I’m certainly not in the business for money reasons, I love what I do and that’s why I do it. I just want to make sure I’m not being undervalued for the services I provide.
I realize that working for a company, your hourly rate is going to be way below what they would charge a customer for your hourly services. Benefits and other business costs make up a huge portion of the cost of doing business.
So taking that into consideration, I’m curious if most people think that a range of $25 to $50 an hour is a reasonable and typical wage for programmers, depending on the usual factors of education, skill set, and experience?
Could it be that the bid was won not because Rails is used, but because ThoughtWorks is handling it ?
Great going for ThoughtWorks, they are really placing Ruby and Rails in the enterprise.
On another note though, I really wouldn’t trust Obie Fernandez for his claims. He has built itself the image of a FUD spreader.
Sniff glue? Grow up. That kind of attitude will keep you at the bottom by default.
I work with independent contractors, programmers very much included, whose charge-out rate is base $100/hr. I’m not referring to low-level programmers who charge $25/hr – if they’re really good and consider themselves true professionals, then they need to get with reality and charge what they’re actually worth. Just because you write code doesn’t make you a monkey – if you don’t feel you’re worth anymore, get a job washing dishes. Perhaps that will boost your self-confidence.
I personally feel that a reputable, high intermediate level programmer should be charging at least $60/hr. Of course that amount is quite subjective, but it gets you in the ballpark.
The better overall you are, the more professional you are (high quality invoicing, scheduling, personal management and project communications) the more $$ you are able to command. At least in my world. Maybe not in yours.
Thanks for the feedback Geof!