Uncertainty and risk weigh in the decision to outsource, or not to outsource. In this article, Jay Boyle provides useful information and tips for knowing when to outsource and making the right decision when selecting an outsource vendor.

This paper discusses the factors involved in determining the cost of a 24x7 e-commerce or internal Web site going offline for any length of time. After determining these costs, and showing a real-life example calculation, the paper then goes into several ways to minimize this risk via hardware architecture, software architecture, and stress testing.

This paper presents data collected on extreme programming (XP) and how this method relates to traditional software engineering practices. The author presents reasons—albeit no scientific proofs—why extreme programming may be harmful to a reliable software development project. The paper also discusses why Extreme Programming fails to provide answers to significant questions that contemporary software development methods have to answer. The Extreme Programming hype, and its variant in the "Agile Methods" packaging, currently dominates the software development scene and should be investigated and evaluated before assuming it is the best method for a particular project. This paper is an attempt to contribute to the discussion.

Yogita works as a QA/testing professional with Mindfire Solutions, and has written a number of articles on QA and testing strategies. Yogita is currently exploring thoughts of beauty as an area of testing and its relation to usability. Her role at Mindfire has been to implement Quality processes throughout the organization and build a dedicated testing team. The team recently published a White Paper “Porting projects: Test techniques,” downloadable from www.mindfiresolutions.com. Yogita can be reached at [email protected].