[kls]

If you can do remote well the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. I have built and worked in / with remote teams (primarily US based) for 5 years in that time I have found the primary killer of productivity is isolation. A lot of developers are introverts and if allowed they will work alone with little collaboration.

We do a few things to help solve that issue, first and foremost we use tools. We use a collaboration platform called Sococo, to be honest I hated it at first it's kind of hokey with a virtual office map and rooms and everything, but it does a few things right the first of which is it makes it very easy to se voice communication, there is no dialing or ringing like a phone, you just pop into someones office and click the mic button. People can lock their office to avoid the popping in but the point is, it seems to jump the psychological barrier of making a phone call and emulates more naturally the "hey I just popped in for a quick chat".

The next one that we do, is we try to hire developers in common locations. While we will hire the best developers available in the market we do try to lean on our developers to build our network and hire in their locations. If we hit a critical mass of developers in a location we let them find a space they agree on and incentives them to move to an office culture in that area. So satellite locations grow organically and tend to follow the ebb and flow of market strengths.

Remote development has been proven, and if done right it works well. Personally I don't understand decisions like the one Yahoo made a while back as it seems short sighted to me to limit the market you can draw from for talent. Especially in a market that is so under staffed with truly talented people.

My contact info is in my profile if you want to chat about it, I have done remote for a long time. I can get you down the right path if you decide it is the route for you.