Outsourced!

Par for the course for code wannabe. But it is a good thing. After a brief search, I'd resigned myself to my current position for personal reasons; now I must get a better job.

The decision of my employer to outsource the system I maintain seems a no-brainer to me. I could speak all day about the flaws (despite the fact that it does, in fact, work). The most logical reasons are these

1) The system needed a re-write (as much as many of the current developers would disagree). It makes more sense to do it over with fresh blood.
2) The third party company already handles analogous systems for competitors. It's inevitable that we would follow suit so our customers (who are actually middle men) can come to a central location when comparing.
3) Most importantly, my employer's core business isn't software and the industry has somewhat of a reputation for crappy (mostly internal) software. It makes sense to keep the focus on those employees who deal directly with the core business and outsource software to a company who has software as it's core business.

Point #3 begs the question that I've heard (read) asked many times. How much of a focus on business knowledge (of a particular vertical market) should a code monkey devote, and how much on software development itself? Subject for another post.