Hi I am hoping someone can help. I am having a flatmate share website built by an offshore programmer. The quotes I received from offshore suppliers were a lot cheaper than those I received locally. My concern is that the offshore programmers make their money in another way - eg ongoing costs, maintenance etc. Is there a way that a programmer can build in something into this type of site that means they would be the only person who could perform maintenance? If anyone can help me with any tips or advice that I should be asking it would be HUGELY appreciated. I don't want to end up spending less on a site initially only to end up with it costing me more in the long run! Hoping you can help!
If you get good quality code and they do not encode it, anyone should be able to work on it, however you should take into account that a lot of programmers hate other peoples code and will charge a higher price than usual for maintenance of it, I would try to come up with some yearly agreement for the support of the suite, either that or ensure they do not encode any of it.
I'd pay the extra for local work. You can sit down face to face and discuss the project, there's no issues with different timezones and if there is a problem it should a lot easier to chase up than someone half way round the world.