After a lot of meditation, I realized some important things but in order to understand, you have to step back and think about to a very similar business: cloud computing. If we apply the analogy, we (contractors) are the resources. Crossover acts as the cloud provider (like Amazon, Google, e.t.c.) and the client is the one who make a deal with crossover. Well, everything looks shine until you think a little bit about resources:
- In order to sustain usability spikes, a cloud provider should overprovision resources (they need them
in a pool but held shut down). This is EXACTLY what is happening with us, contractors for crossover. The aquisition price for resources are the tournaments that they sustain in cities around the globe. Sadly this comes with a reality: the chance that you will have a contract is low. How low? I would say around 50% of your time. I don't know but let me say this: I have a friend which is in their market place as a .net software architect for a full year but he still didn't get a job. Me, I am still waiting (and there are more then 2 weeks since I wait)
- Okay this is more delicate: Think about how resources are treated in the cloud. When the client does not need anymore a resource or he wants an upgrade, he just dispose the current resource and he replace it with the new one. Well, that hurts ... But you will tell me this: the income is high enough and you afford to live in your "downtimes" when you are in the marketplace. Sadly this is not true. To be honest, the correct price (if they want me fully dedicated) should be at least 50% above the average price that a person with my experience earn in the market. This is a fair price to pay as a customer that use the cloud if you want the luxury to say goodbye to anyone, anytime you want. To have an analogy, In Amazon, if you use a resouce full time, in the end will be much more expensive than the on premises version. The trick is that the client cuts the costs by using the machine only when needed. But in that case the customer pays the right price.
- Thirdly, think about obsolete resources: you will be disposed from the "cloud" once they consider you obsolete in their marketplace :)
