Carvechi Technology near shore development center based in Costa Rica recently opened servicing client in the Americas. North America companies have been looking for low cost alternatives than US and not the long time differences that India and other off-shore development centers. Our current center has 45 developers with a focus on Java, .NET, Middleware, SQL, and slowing developing our Oracle and SAP practice. We are impressed with the growth and development in Latin America and now Uruguay is becoming a technology center for development. We found a great article that we wanted to share with you on the country and IT buying.
It’s not often that Uruguay is mentioned in the same breath as major Latin American software innovation hubs – such as Santiago, Guadalaraja or Sao Paulo. The country doesn’t have the same brand recognition of those locations, but Uruguay is appearing to perfect the ‘slow and steady’ approach to becoming a top tier player in software development methodologies, e-commerce and Web app development. Recent mergers and takeovers have led industry players to keep a watchful eye on what happens in the place formerly known as “the Switzerland of the Americas.” Uruguay earned the nickname for being the first welfare state in Latin America, with a solid democratic tradition, advanced education and a social security system.
The country also has stayed more affluent than most of its South American neighbors. Its software industry generates over US $600 million every year, with exports to over 50 countries. Uruguay’s government provides free laptop computers to every child attending school and 99 percent of the population has broadband access. Tech-savvy young people will populate the future labor pool. There are also attractive tax breaks to encourage the development of the IT industry.
IT Buying Spree
That’s probably part of what lured New Context into buying the 20-person Uruguay-based Ruby on Rails development team that Twitter architect Ewan Henshaw-Plath created a few years ago. Or the reason why business software suite titan NetSuite took over Uruguayan based Gproxy and SuiteCommerce in the past few months.
What New Context found most appealing about Uruguay’s Cubox was the company’s expertise in working with lean startup clients and the fact that the team was able to offer “customer development as a service,” focusing on test-driven development, short release cycles and open source contributions. Henshaw-Plath explained that “building a startup isn’t just about creating its code, you need to have a better process around building the business.”