Offshore programming idea: floating luxury hotel for developers 3 miles off US coast?

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/04/25/a_plan_to_offshore____just_3_miles_out/

by 1gor • 17 years ago

19 11 17 years ago

boston.com

kqr2• 17 years ago

http://www.sea-code.com/

It looks like they haven't updated their website since 2005.

noonespecial• 17 years ago

Perhaps the "pringles cans pointed at hotels on shore" internet bandwidth plan didn't work out so well.

endtime• 17 years ago

Sounds a bit like the plot of a Bond movie...a bad Bond movie, sure, but it would have more plot than the last one.

I wonder how they would be able to afford 300 staff for 600 programmers? I know they'd be cheap programmers, but still, add on an extra half a salary (of a chef or cleaner or whatever), plus food costs, making sure the boat doesn't sink etc...it seems like it would end up costing quite a lot.

Rod• 17 years ago

Maybe the 300-strong staff will not only attend to the "needs" of the 600 programmers, but also run an offshore casino and an offshore brothel in parallel. After all, 1 staff member for each pair of programmers should leave a lot of the staff idle, right?

gaius• 17 years ago

I wonder how they would be able to afford 300 staff for 600 programmers?

Easily, I expect. You can see this sort of thing in any industrial town. For n workers at the factory, there are n*m employed in jobs ranging from suppliers of components to making sandwiches and babysitting. Usually m>1, if they can do it at 0.5 they're being remarkably efficient.

kneath• 17 years ago

I imagine it's a few fold...

1. They're not bound by any US minimum wage laws, so any wages will work. I expect most of the staff would be people willing to work for food, anything above that is a bonus.

2. They'll be able to pay their workers less since they're taking care of food & housing & health care.

3. Most offices have a lot of overhead... rent, insurance, janitors, etc.

At the end of the day, I think 300 staff being paid barely livable wages would be a small fraction of the cost. The bigger problem I think would be convincing clients this boat operation was a better deal (and not made up).

eru• 17 years ago

Why do you assume that minimum wage laws are the only thing keeping wages up?

ewiethoff• 17 years ago

> I wonder how they would be able to afford 300 staff for 600 programmers?

No minimum wage laws, and if the staff can't leave the ship, say hello to slavery.

herge• 17 years ago

Yeah, this already exists. You might have heard of it, it's called Bermuda.

vaksel• 17 years ago

doesn't the U.S. sovereignty extend to something like 100 miles into the ocean?

And if you are going to float in an ocean...why U.S? Why not float in the middle of Mediterranean?

lliiffee• 17 years ago

So people who live in the US nearby (Bay area?) can visit easily.

Offshore programming idea: floating luxury hotel for developers 3 miles off US coast?

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