Interesting discussion. One thing I'd like to add is that you might want to inquire of your potential customers about their requirement for you to hold insurance.
Some governments require that you hold a significant amount (from memory, enough insurance for a $20m claim) and this was a major expense for someone I know who runs a small management consultancy. My experience is that the contractors who do the same work as I do are significantly better off than I am. I'm not sure if that's because companies expect to pay contractors more or if the financial arrangements are superior. Where they seem to be slightly worse off than me is in the superannuation. The industry super schemes seem to be a lot, lot better. So it might be worthwhile checking if you can contract but still contribute to a industry scheme. I originally chose to be an employee as I had a young family and wanted a more secure job. With WorkChoices I doubt that my job security is any greater than that of a contractor. What I would look out for is recruiting firms. I had one that placed me once, into a job I wasn't particularly suited to. They took 15% from the employer for that. Some time after I was chatting with them and they said "oh, if we'd known you were a networking person we could have got you a lot more" -- ie, they hadn't even read my CV for their 15% and they were really working for the employer, not for me. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
