Software Business in the Middle East

We would like to make a new web site for our company and all the products we have – any recommendations for an experienced freelancer doing web 2.0 sites? Your story telling about the experience working with her or him is very well appreciated. Thanks!

Recently I talked to a developer who left our project for about 15 months ago to work in a larger company. He told about many strange things happening in that company at the moment.

Last year they employed ex-military guy to work as a manager. The guy thought that company source code was in danger and implemented a few source code protection “smart” ideas:

• None of developer computer has Internet connection at the moment. There is only one machine having Internet access, but that machine is not in a company computer network.

• USB sockets are disconnected.

• There are plenty of video cameras in the office; all top managers can see what anybody does any time.

I had really hard time to believe it is all true. But the fact is, within a few months the company got 60% of its staff only – I can imagine it is not easy task to motivate yourself working in this environment.

Generally speaking, I think that the problem of source code stealing is a kind of assumed problem. To make your product successful, you need something else besides the source code. In our drug database the stealing of source code is simply useless – the main point is in drug information. Even if drug information is stolen, you need to make sure the updates are coming regularly; otherwise you can not safely use the software. It is similar to licensing your software – those who want to steal will steal anyway. But you will spend a lot of time and efforts making more advanced protection. And potentially you might make troubles for your paying customers who got issues activating the product.

What do you think – the problem of stealing source code is real and serious, or it is just a fake used by certain managers for total control over the company staff?