Prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain, any suggestion that the USSR had something to offer the West in terms of cost-effective quality software would probably have been met with the response that MI6 should despatch James Bond to capture the know-how.

Over the past decade, Russia has been dipping its IT toes into the brash world of capitalism. While one advantage of working in a command economy is that good documentation skills are the norm, has its business culture developed sufficiently to take on the likes of India and Malta?

John Elsden, chairman of trouble-shooters Allied Powers, believes that the acid test is still good project management.

"India cracked it by having its own people handle all the local management issues," he explained. "This meant that sites did not usually have to send UK people over, which can be very expensive.

"This helps build up trust, but there has to be UK management in place at the client site to ensure that all the systems fit together and work the way the clients want them to before going live.

"UK management will need to lay down the law on questions such as documentation standards, quality assurance, ISO 9002 for example, and what development methodologies will be acceptable, such as Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology.

"One of my firms, The Electric Software Co, proved during year 2000 compliance that sites aren't really bothered where the developers are based, their age, sex, and so on, as long as they deliver the code and documentation to the required standards."

The first Russian offshore developer to make its presence felt in the UK is Moscow-based iDeveloper Network. Its UK office is at Maidenhead but all software development is carried out in the Russian provinces.

The cheaper option

Managing director Yuri Shalimov admits that many offshore companies were only interested in offering cut-price software, rather than quality. How does he think he has resolved this contradiction?

"All of our developers are based in the Russian provinces," he said. "We bill out at £15 to £22 an hour, compared with UK rates of £30 to £50 an hour.

"The difference between us and other offshore developers is that we are paying our staff Moscow salaries, which are about two or three times higher than in the rest of Russia.

"We also have a strong documentation and quality culture which is built into the development methodology and reporting structure.

"All our developers either work in our local offices or from home, whichever is more efficient for them. They all come under a local team leader who is responsible for enforcing quality and documentation standards. If the code isn't up to standard, we send it back to the developer."

Geoff Petherick is a spokesman for the IT parliamentary pressure group Eurim and the IBM Computer Users Association. He believes there is still a lot of resistance to taking work overseas and that resolving cultural differences, as well as management issues, are key to the success of any project sent abroad.

"Many developers will promise you anything just to get the work or to avoid being seen as offensive," he explained. "You need to assure your own management that the project is going to a safe pair of hands and that the offshore developers are as good as they say they are."

So how does iDeveloper Network select its staff and avoid employing 'Oblomovs'?

Testing times

"We use rigorous internal aptitude tests and test problems to code. This, plus our quality assurance and documentation standards, quickly weeds out poor developers," said Shalimov.

Are there any types of job the company would refuse to take on? Would this include sorting out bad projects and/or bad code?

"We always refuse projects where we don't believe that we have the expertise in-house," claimed iDeveloper Network's technical director Andrey Grinenko.

"We have found that many projects crash because the systems haven't met customers' requirements or have the wrong structures. It is not always possible to fix bad projects, but we have been successful at turning poor code into good 00 structures."

Petherick suggested that a small group from the offshore developer should visit the UK site to be fully conversant with the project. The developer should also be able to pin-point a pilot scheme which will prove competence and provide a return on investment.

"Initially we would do a pilot scheme to prove that we can deliver the quality required," said Shalimov. "We have not found language differences to be a barrier as all our developers have high level English reading and writing skills.

"We pay a lot of attention to software quality and testing. All our software goes through three stages of testing before it is handed over to the client: intermediate, system and integration. This testing programme has been exported to US and European sites."

Security first

Elsden maintained that all remote software developers, whether they are in the UK, India or Russia, need to deliver the code securely in a form acceptable to the client site.

Grinenko said that the main form of communication between his firm and the client is a secure internet connection. He was surprised at how much traffic in the West is sent over unsecured connections.

Both directors suggested that there is a reluctance in the former Eastern Bloc to use popular US security products because of concerns over whether the US Government could unlock them.

Given Russia's lead in pure mathematics, it is not surprising to learn that iDeveloper Network is aiming to use its in-house algorithm skills for tasks such as database tuning, library optimisation and maximising server I/O.

"We offer C++ skills for applications development and Java for the web," said Grinenko. "We have the skills to work with popular databases such as Oracle and Sybase, and are taking a serious approach to database development."