It's critical but please get it done as cheap as IMpossible

A nice quote to shove show to people that want softwares to be cheaply done:

What always amazes me is the companies who consider such a piece of software to be "critical" to their company -- but then try to get it done as cheaply as possible. (Chances are that more money was spent on the bathroom facilities in your office than you want to spend developing this program... yet your business success/failure hinges on whether this program is done correctly. Does that sound insane or what? I mean you have 5 employees, and EACH of those employees will cost you MULTIPLE TIMES MORE in a single year than you want/expect to spend developing this critical application -- an application that once completed, could easily make your employees much more efficient & your firm more productive, OR which alternately could cause needless frustration and even reduce their efficiency and productivity.)

The answer is it doesn't work. Those who offer low price are just bidding for any jobs, even the impossible (a very hard and so far unsolved problem quoted for $300-$1000) or ridiculous ones (a clone of eBay for under $500). The old adage still stands, price is a good indicator of goods.

Now, how do you find the excellent companies or programmers? That's a different ball game. Maybe on the next article, maybe.