Gemini Systems-SPb and Gemini Systems-NY overlap office hours every day for 4 hours minimum. Gemini Systems-SPb office hours are from 12pm to 8 pm local time. This overlaps the office hours in New York from 8AM EST to 12PM EST. St. Petersburg favors late start business days as a norm. Many enterprises begin at 10 or 11am local time.

Gemini Systems-Chennai and Gemini Systems-New York overlap office hours every day for 3 hours minimum. Gemini Systems-Chennai overlaps hours in New York from 9AM EST to 12PM EST. Late shifts are the norm in India for offshore development companies.

The heavy reliance on formal, written specifications promoted by other offshore development centers is out of necessity. Since it is difficult to have constant communication among the business users, analysts, technical leads, designers and developers, it is necessary to document every detail in voluminous specifications so that developers can work effectively without the ability to ask a simple question in real-time. The expectation that static documentation, regardless of the amount of effort, certainly with diminishing returns, can replace real-time interaction is unattainable. Throughout the development process, opportunities are discovered and hurdles arise which must be dealt with by extensive communication and robust collaboration among all parties. Software development remains a highly intellectual pursuit. Each of the millions of lines of code in a software module are unique. New development methodologies such as rapid prototyping and Extreme Programming offer many advantages, but are very difficult to achieve without the availability of continuous user-developer collaboration.

Broadband internet connectivity is changing the world. Like the telephone in the early 20th century, the world is undergoing a new paradigm shift. Leveraging high-bandwidth connectivity, technology allows Gemini Systems to leverage the capability of an always-on, real-time video / audio / whiteboard / instant-messaging / application-sharing environment every day during the synchronous operating hours of the offices. "Virtual St. Petersburg" and "Virtual Chennai" are actually conference rooms in our New York office where staff members can walk in and see the office in the other city as if they were there, without special prior arrangements. The psychology of the SVO intends to create in the minds of everyone that Gemini Systems is a single operating company.

VPN, audio/video communications, Lotus Sametime and Terminal Services allow all offices to share the same development/version-control/test/QA technical infrastructure. This significantly simplifies the development environment and reduces system migration and integration pains. Many old-fashioned offshore enterprises have up to half a dozen duplicated environments where developed code needs to be deployed repeatedly due to a completely arbitrary infrastructure mandated by the asynchronous ODC model.