WoW! That sounds great- we can get desirable result in about 1.5 month - this is the way one can think of it...
Is it real?
Yes it is. There is no magic here and you don't have to be David Blane to do it. Here is where the trick is. Most companies (including OBS Labs) use Rails in pair with Agile development(SCRUM, eXtreme Programming or whatever). In this approach development divide into series of 2 week iterations. As a result of each iteration clients receive fully-workable and tested code, that includes few (5-10) features for that iteration. After reviewing iteration result features for the next iter. are discussed together with client.
So typically in 6 weeks you can have 3 iteration and from 15-30 featured fully workable application. Isn't it enough for average 1.0 version, prototype or whatever? Well, it definitely should be enough to make client to sign long term contract ;-)
How can OBS Labs beat it?
Well, at first we are not trying to compete with anyone. We are small, experienced at what we are doing for years, do it good and our clients love us for that dedicated approach.
We use same latest Rails technologies, contribute to new open source trendy stuff as well, use same practices for project management, trying to keep quality as our idol.
And when you can buy two similar products you should consider price as a important factor.
Personally i love American cars. I am currently driving 2005 Chevy Tahoe and i am so happy with it. In Europe its quite expensive to have American full size, but i still love it. Those who know a little about this car know that its build on same platform as other GM models like Chevy Silverado, Chevy Suburban, Caddy Escalade and Hummer H2. I dont need to carry bike or logs so i don't need Silverado, i am not Texas farmer with 5 kids so i dont need Suburban, i dont like rap so no need for Caddy, and offroad is not for me so H2 wasn't my choice. For me my Tahoe is just the smart choice between this models. I simply dont want to pay extra $$$ for chrome on wheels and handles while I enjoy full size car, i never had problems with taking additional passenger or bag with me and i am not scared with hard road conditions. The right choice for me.
OBS value for similar project would be as much as about 3 times less than other companies can offer. They will charge you about $120-$150/hour saying that they are the only and the best experts on that market. We normally charge about $50/hour, while paying our developers about the same rate as they do! (Today rates of developers in Russia rising to EU and US ranges, and its not a good way to save just on salaries) How can we handle it? The answer is simple both they and we are using offshore developers , but our developers are all in on office in Russia, we cant afford to invest as much in marketing and advertising, being Formula1 team sponsor pay top $$$ to managers and shareholders(OBS Labs is hold by developers themselves). When you work with OBS Labs the structure of your costs is simple, clear and top efficient!
Sounds good, can you show me some examples?
You are always welcome. We just recently completed and launched social networking application in one man/month, we created ecommerce and mailing application in 2 weeks! Some time ago we did simple CMS system in about 4 weeks? Want some more? I can refer to both clients who work with us for years and clients competed their first goals for less than 6 weeks. Please contact me directly by vlad _at) obsgroup.biz for more information and consultancy on your project.
