CIO Magazine On Offshore IT 732
lpq wrote to us with a reference to the cover article from this month's CIO Magazine that talks about the off-shore movement of IT from its traditional bulwarks to the developing world. A selection from the article:"
Think again. There are real costs associated with shipping your IT department (or a portion of it) overseas. Our Special Report covers the Backlash from a growing political storm as well as the Hidden Costs you should be aware of before you join the stampede overseas. "
Get used to it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Americans (Score:3, Insightful)
It's about time. (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, no wonder the economy fell flat on its face. The CEOs didn't notice their shoelaces were tied together.
Screw free trade (Score:5, Insightful)
favorite quote (Score:5, Insightful)
The strategy was not embraced by employees about to get laid off? Ummmm.... how stupid are you if you think people will embrace being laid off to save the company a couple of bucks? (which then goes into an executive bonus, no doubt)
Remember Sammy Jankis. (Score:5, Insightful)
So they're finally realizing that you can't skip the analysis of an action, just because it's the hot new thing all the management consultants are raving about?
Nope. They're realizing that the current Offshore IT fad is over-rated. Come the next fad they'll be praising it to high heaven as if there had never been any other fads. The IT industry has no long term memory at all.The fault in our economic system (Score:5, Insightful)
For me, jobs going offshore exposes the fault in our economic system, and shows how in many ways it is very primitive.
At the turn of the last century people imagined a time when everyone would live in luxury and not have to work. Machines would be able to do the work, and the majority of people could just relax and have a good time. The idea is even more possible today - we can create machines to do most jobs these days, and we should all be living in a work-free time of abundancy. So why aren't we? The simple answer is that our economic system won't allow it - in our system, in order to be able to have stuff, you need money, and to get money you have to work. They crazyness of this situation is highlighted by the fact that periods of adundance now actually cause recession - things become "too cheap", defalation occurs, people can't make money, everybody looses when things are plentiful.
How does this relate to offshore IT? For me it is exactly the same situation. If someone is willing to do my job in another country, then great, I should be able to put my feet up and relax. But of course it doesn't work like that - I loose my job and have no money.
People say that our current economic system is the best system because "it works" but I don't buy that. In many ways it is fairly crude. I think if an alien came from an advanced planet and looked at us today it would think, "look at those idiots working most of their lives when they've already most of the tools to live a life of luxury!"
Bad Comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
"A good American programmer will push back and say, What you're asking for doesn't make sense, you idiot," Zupnick says. "Indian programmers have been known to say, This doesn't make sense, but this is the way the client wants it."
What a bad comparison: compare a "good" local worker to a generic "bad" offshore worker, rather than comparing good-good or bad-bad. I look around and see plenty of local programmers who adopt the "build-to-specs-regardless" stance without hesitation. Similarly, many of the projects here that involve overseas development involve far more communications meetings to work out the details prior to building applications.
There is no shortage of poor programmers here. Blanket statements like the above only steer people toward looking for poor qualities in foreign developers, while ignoring those around them.
Re:Get used to it (Score:5, Insightful)
Does it lower cost in the short-term? Yes.
Does it improve the quality of support? Arguably no.
Does it improve the quality and tightness of the product? Arguably no.
Does it strengthen the company from within? No.
Does it lower cost in a reasonably reached fashion that increases internal productivity and doesn't make the other 10,000 workers in your company pray every night that their job (that required $20,000 of schooling according to your posted job requirements two years ago) isn't going to be shipped overseas to someone else? Likely not.
I don't know if you call this "working", but I don't.
Hidden agenda? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Remember Sammy Jankis. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Get used to it (Score:1, Insightful)
-------------
Well, yeah.. if America were capitalist at all, it would work that way. The Americanist way of doing things, is arguing about it, getting some special lobbying done.. putting all sorts of special taxes in place to "level playing fields" and accomodate for the differences in exchange rates, and everything else.
Taiwanese memory makers were penalized in this way a few years ago for their American counterparts inability to match them in terms of performace & price. It's pretty sad, but it's true, and it's getting worse.
Besides, if you work in a call center, maybe it's time you started looking for a better job anyway. <g>
Fixes on the fly have been a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunatly, these delays and lack of knowledge by the corp has made us look incompetent and word is getting out to other potential customers.
It will cost even more ... (Score:4, Insightful)
In addition, the in-house employee will be quite pissed for being forced to train his replacement, and will not do so as a result.
Get an IT job in a non-IT industry (Score:5, Insightful)
Marketing Hyperbole (Score:4, Insightful)
Reminds me of ads in trade journals for various database products, showing a picture of a non-geek executive getting amazing results from the product, with a slogan that amounts to "Simple Yet Powerful!"
If it's that simple, it's not powerful.
If it's powerful, it's not simple. (Furthermore, it's not really powerful if you can't hurt yourself with it. A power saw that won't saw your arm off isn't much of a power saw; same as power-tool software.)
If offshoring is so simple
UGh (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Pay Indians to learn your business. 2) Profit?? (Score:5, Insightful)
One hidden cost is you are paying Indian programmers to learn your business. After they learn well enough, Indians will certainly begin to compete against you.
They will cut out the middleman and the middleman is you. Indian global banking services, anyone?
For Outsourcing to Work... (Score:5, Insightful)
Certain things can be outsourced, but the key it seems is for the item to be extremely well spec'd and self contained. If project A depends on project B being completed, and project A is done in house... project B should not be outsourced. The ideal things that can be moved over seas, are projects that can be completely managed at the other end, and have few dependancies on this end. In other words... all the design specing, etc... has been established already... the people doing the work will have *NO* questions as to what needs to be done, and what their deadlines/goals/etc... are.
Where an outsourced project seems to breakdown are:
Improperly defined specication for work needed or misunderstanding of said work
Dependancies on projects/information else
Poor communication structure between parent company, and outsourced branch
Lack of understanding of parent companies needs or function
No understanda engrish ( this one is bigger then you think )
Where I am at now, we are a manufacturing environment that is expanding. Now, we dont exactly outsource, we build new plants in other countries. As it stands now... *EVERY* time we set up a new plant... it was always a communication breakdown that was the primary problem. Also, setting up the infrastructure between China, US, Canada, etc... isnt even slightly cheap. Every new faucility costs a wack of cash. That said... not one of the expansion plants we have built overseas ( including Europe ), has approached the success level of the ones we have in North America. Additionally, local laws have all but resulted in closure of one remote faucility... and work ethic of one certain European country, is soon to result in another.
There are alot of hidden costs in dealing with countries outside of North America. Until you go down that road, you are going to be shocked to find out, just how many. ( For example... probrably 1000 man hours, atleast... and 100 cross continental flights... just for initial training/setup ).
MOD PARENT UP (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a ridiculous double standard, that needs to be remedied immediately. Either drop all import tariffs or enforce tariffs on exported jobs. The government is by the people, of the people, and for the people, so let's start acting like it.
Hidden problems with offshoring (Score:5, Insightful)
I send out a spec to my carefully chosen offshore vendor and they dutifully develop the application at a lower TCO than I think I can do it for.
While they're developing it, they have a secret 'shadow' team - maybe in a completely separate company - that takes my spec and produces an enhanced version 2.0 of my application. Now they can bypass me and market directly to my customers, competing with my (now out of date) v1.0.
Oh, they can't steal my Intellectual Property like that? Think again. And you think you're actually SAVING money???
Lovely ethics these folks have (Score:4, Insightful)
But later on he says:
So here he is, richer and better educated than most of the humans who ever lived and he can't even handle basic moral action! He doesn't think something is right, but either can't be bothered or doesn't have the power to say or do anything about it. This makes him either a coward or a slave, neither of which is particularly admirable.
Re:The fault in our economic system (Score:5, Insightful)
this is a good quote! (Score:3, Insightful)
But what you do not reliaze is that your legislators have ben bought and paid for by most of these groups that are doing this! it is a sad reality.
going off on a tangent (core issue)
This is why we need to build into these public offices accountablilty (remember who you are working for?), fiscal accountablilty, and a REAL campain finance reform. NO SPECIAL INTREST, or PAC groups! NONE, GONE, BYE, BYE.... those are the real threat to american freedoms, and jobs.......
madd is a tool of the devil
riaa is a tool of the devil
statistics are a tool of the devil
john ashcroft is a tool of the devil
Let's see some stats there (Score:5, Insightful)
These last two are almost certainly true, but it's how they compare to the first that matters. The engineers always want to make the best product, and understandably so if they take pride in their work. But management has to consider the possibility of making the second-best product if it's a damn sight cheaper. It can certainly be a good move.
Does it strengthen the company from within? No.
That's pretty nebulous, and doesn't really translate effectively to the company's bottom line. Strengthening the company by reducing costs might be worth more. And it's questionable how a company would strengthen itself by keeping overpaid, underskilled, non-management-material American coders on the payroll.
Does it lower cost in a reasonably reached fashion that increases internal productivity and doesn't make the other 10,000 workers in your company pray every night that their job isn't going to be shipped overseas to someone else? Likely not.
Like hell. First, the most motivated worker is the one whose job is on the line, like it or not. It may not be pretty, it's the truth. Hell, remember the dot com boom? Where was the employee loyalty to the company then when employees were shopping themselves to the highest bidder? That shows how taking a hit for a "stronger company" gets the company nothing. Why should they take that cost hit for nothing when their employees leave anyway when the economy gets good?
Face it, today neither labor nor the company has any loyalty to the other side, as neither has earned it. Bottom line is if your job can be performed by an Indian almost as well as you do it for 20% of the cost, that's what they'll do.
If anyone has any actual numbers to counter this, I'd like to hear it. All I know is that the American auto industry strengthened itself immeasurably after moving manufacturing jobs overseas. For one, it actually became profitable again and stopped hemorraging market share to foreign manufacturers.
And that's the kind of jobs we're talking about here. We're not talking about people on mission-critical projects fearing for their jobs. We're talking about code monkeys, the equivalent of the assembly-line bolt-turner of the auto industry. That under-educated person has never had security in any other industry, and I fail to see why the code monkey should expect anything different.
What it means is that the economy will no longer guarantee $60,000 a year and job security to someone who can only write mediocre code with no other skills. Most other people are probably safe.
Re:More proof that common sense isn't common (Score:1, Insightful)
Where we are going (Score:3, Insightful)
While a few were rich, most people seldom even had enough to eat. The 20th century was incredible. We acquired the ability to produce food and goods to satisfy the needs of everyone on earth, though we did not make them available to everyone.
We have had two major power struggles during the 20th century. At the beginning, production was 'difficult', so those who could produce were able to 'call the shots'. WW II was a war of production and it was won by the side that was able to produce the most bombs and bullets.
Since then, productivity has continued to improve. Production is no longer the 'hard part'. The challenge during the past few decades has been to convince people to buy. Hence marketing has become king. Between 3rd world labor and automation, production costs have fallen dramatically. For most products, the major costs are Marketing & Distribution and R&D.
But the smart folks have recognized that the 21st century will be even more unsettling than the 20th century. Computer controlled extraction of natural resources and production (including nanotechnology) can drive manufacturing costs to almost zero. (Go read 'A for Anything' , by Damon Knight) With the Internet, we will be able to distribute the knowledge of how to produce. This will eliminate most of the challenges associated with distribution (since it will be possible to do most production locally) so there will be little money to be made there either, unless artificial controls and impediments are implemented.
This is why there's such a fight for intellectual property rights. Only by controlling the knowledge of how and what to produce can power be maintained by those who value it. By the middle of the 21st century, the major cost of any material item will be the 'intellectual property' charge.
With production automated, almost everyone who is employed will be working in service jobs by 2050. And then it gets more interesting.
As AI research progresses, we will be able to build robots capable of doing service jobs. The health care crisis will be 'solved' during the second half of the 21st century. Robots will replace, not only orderlies and nurses, but physicians and surgeons, too. The cost of producing these robots will be minimal. The valuable commodity will be the knowledge of how to program them to do what you want them to do.
By the end of the 21st century, creativity -- the creation of intellectual property -- will be the only currently known role that will still be the domain of us humans. And the control of that creativity is what is being fought for now.
That's the power struggle going on now. It's just started.
One more thing. By the end of the 21st century, molecular genetics will have progressed to the point where most people will be able to live almost forever. Imagine living forever in a world where production and services basically cost nothing. The only thing of value will be control of the intellectual property behind it all. Imagine a world where material items sell for a dollar each and services are provided for ten cents an hour. It could be paradise if you have the money to pay for what you want. But if you don't, how do you compete against such prices?
The challenge as we approach the 22nd century will be to rethink the issues of access. How will we reward innovation while making it possible for most people to survive and live reasonably good lives?
Because, if most people cannot pay for those goods and services, there will be a revolution. If that revolution succeeds, those who were on top will be gone. If the revolution fails, the whole economic system will collapse from lack of customers.
Hang onto your hat. It's going to be a wild ride.
Re:Get used to it (Score:2, Insightful)
So, if you want corporations to make different decisions, you need to create a profit motive in one of the following ways:
1) Loss of sales, because consumers do not wish to support a company that is not supporting IT growth in the U.S.
2) Loss of sales, because consumers are not getting 'value' from the off-shore IT support.
3) Financial penalties imposed on companies by the Governement (Taxes, tarrifs and etc.) because they are not employing U.S. IT workers and damaging the economy.
4) Fear of potential loss of sales, because of bad PR resulting from the cutting of jobs in the U.S. while moving IT positions overseas.
This fear could motivate by affecting the companies stock price, or by causing the decisions makers to believe that any of the above are likely to take place as a result of the decision.
Because of widespread apathy, it is unlikely that any of these factors will come into play.
Unfortunately, we in the U.S. like to complain about how companies are taking our jobs away...but it does not seem to affect our purchasing decisions.
Why is that? If we really do care, then our wallets should send the message. But we tend to do anything to save a buck, even if it costs a few jobs.
Things will not change unless we make them change. Don't complain about the current environment if you are not willing to DO something about it.
As an example....if you buy a DELL computer...you are supporting the trend of sending U.S. jobs off-shore.
Answer: Stop buying DELL computers,
recommend that your workplace stop buying DELL computers,
don't recommend that anyone buy a DELL computer.
But, if you buy one because the price is great! You have no right to whine.
If people really did care, there would be multiple websites listing every company which does and does not support the U.S. IT workforce.
Offenders would notice that their sales drop when they are added to the list of companies are added to the list....prompting them to correct the situation.
If such sites do exist...I am not aware of them. Are you?
Just keep in mind that companies are very predictable. If you talk with your wallet, they listen to you!
**NOTE**I have never worked for DELL, so I am not a disgruntled former employee.
You get what you pay for. (Score:5, Insightful)
There were tens of thousands of lines of code like this. So what are we suppose to do? Spend a senior programmer's hours to do code reviews of the H1B code? Where's the cost savings then?
The project was $270k over budget and a year late. That's the cost of three senior programmers at $90k per year for a full year. And we havn't even touched on the cost of maintaining this mess. Do you really think that the situation will get better if the programmer is 10,000 miles away?
Why can't management understand THAT side of the equation?
Why Free trade is good. (Score:5, Insightful)
But then the US supply is limited (which is why there is a huge trade deficit), so the US suppliers jack up their price.
The consumer has to either pay the inflated US price, or buy the imported goods with the tarrif.
The end consumer ends up paying more for the same goods, and the market loses competition.
This is a basic econ topic, along with why minimum wage kills jobs and such.
Interesting... (Score:2, Insightful)
IMHO in the last couple decades, most US companies have *not* looked at long-term investment or paybacks - only the short term profits. This should be a wake-up call to all those CEO/CIO's!
Terry
Re:Bad Comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
When you farm out your work (doesn't matter where), the people you are farming it to lose any and all context. While build-to-spec without question can be a problem with local workers, it's a HUGE problem with farmed out work because often the only context those workers have is the specs.
As an example, the company I work for produces billing software. We farmed (and are still farming) work out to India, and the stuff we got back was, for the most part, crap. Not because of bad programmers, but because it was blindly build to spec. The developers were working in a black hole -- specs go in, code comes out -- and any decent developer will tell you that's a sure-fire way to guarentee crap code.
It was never about money savings... (Score:5, Insightful)
All of this outsourcing is a thinly veiled attempted to commodidize not just IT, but IT services. Look at every stinking product coming down the pipeline. It's all designed for a chimpanzee to use. Sure it can't do half of what the previous version did, but it uses MicroSoft's backend, costs 3 times as much, and we can hire a teenager to feed it.
So what if all these rosy assumptions explode and take our customer service with it. We sure showed those IT people who was boss. Who needs them...
Good point (Score:4, Insightful)
That's actually a really, really good point. While I personally am not a good candidate for outsourcing (writing process control software that for now requires me to be on-site), my morale and loyalty to the company would be greatly depleted if my company were to send hundreds of IT jobs offshore.
Why? Well, regardless of my necessity at current, I'm always going to be working with one foot out the door if I know that I'm really only around until they can figure out how to pay someone else less for what I'm doing now.
Re:Get used to it (Score:1, Insightful)
You've been indoctrinated.
Missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Shit programmers exist everywhere. There are shit hot people in India, there are crap people in the US. The trick is to meld the good people in both areas to create decent teams as the client needs to speak NOW to someone, and that person HAS to be in the US. But the basic work can be done by top quality people in India.
It does work, and I for one have had good experiences of it, and I'll tell you one thing. Its a damned sight easier to get rid of the shit person on your project in India than it is in the US.
Cheaper Salary? (Score:4, Insightful)
I seem to recall how some celebrity (Martha Stewart, somebody else?) was in a scandal because her clothing line was alleged to be made overseas by child labor. Illegal here, perfectly legal there.
I'm sure there are many inconvenient labor laws here which can be avoided simply by sending the work overseas.
Point is, some people insist on the notion of free global trade, and open competition between all the participants in the world economy. However, until everyone has to play by the same set of laws, labor and otherwise, some countries will have an unfair advantage in this competition.
And until then, countries which have this unfair advantage, should be penalized with tariffs and anything else to balance out any advantages, real or perceived, that outsourcing would provide.
Re:More proof that common sense isn't common (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the idea behind a MBA is greed, greed, greed and more GREED. MBAs are about extremely short-sighted profit-maximizing though any means possible, including disreputable, unethical, slimy and illegal ones.
Re:The fault in our economic system - not only (Score:3, Insightful)
There is more than cost savings when moving work offshore. Companies also gain a lot of relief from litigation. They don't have to worry about lawsuits for discrimination, sexual harassment, or wrongful termination.
It's similar to when manufacturing plants went offshore. Corporations loved the relief from unions, OHSA, environmental and child labor laws.
It's a race to the bottom....
The old saying still stands true (Score:4, Insightful)
Although in truth it doesn't always apply to highly paid workers (some are still lazy buggers), but quite often is the truth when dealing with attempts to save money by outsourcing.
Seriously, I doubt that anyone thinks that you can get 100% quality for 60% cost, but I'm sure many companies find the quality/cost ratio they end up with is well below what they expect.
Hmmm .... management chimps again. (Score:2, Insightful)
Most project I've worked on seem to fall down in those two areas. Clearly both areas are a management responsability to kick off.
Might they have saved half their problems getting these right in the first place?
seems risky for 20% savings (Score:3, Insightful)
A terrorist strike in one of these regions and you could see the company stock plunge because 80% of your IT development is done there. Seems if I were a terrorist this might be a good way to strike US economic interests.
Let's say your "partner" overseas decides to take the money and run. Do you then track them down and sue them in Indian/Chinese/whatever legal system? How successful will you be?
If something does happen to your partner, how long will it take you to recover? How much does it cost to have a standby?
How about exposure to other political instability? Don't India and Pakistan stare each other down with nuclear weapons at the ready every year or so? Isn't there a crazy little dude with funky hair in North Korea making missiles that can reach a lot of these regions?
How about all of the pissed off in-house talent who leaves? You've turned your real partners into adversaries. All that accumulated knowledge has left and you're now trying to rebuild it half way around the world? Does this make sense?
20% doesn't sound like all that much. You might be able to save that much by working on better managing your in-house resources.
This isn't to say that there isn't danger and uncertainty here in America, but overall it seems to be about the most stable environment to conduct business.
Re:You get what you pay for. (Score:1, Insightful)
ZipCode zip = new ZipCode(req.getParameter("ZIP"));
userBean.setZi
userBean.setZip1(zip.getZ
Rename the methods whatever you like (if you don't like the PartOne/PartTwo naming), put a nice clean algorithm inside your ZipCode object. I could suggest even more, but I'd need more knowledge about the application. Now that you have encapsulated the behavior of how to split a zip code into the ZipCode object, any code anywhere can use it, and if you want to improve the algorithm, you only have to do it in one place (Can you imagine if this code was copy/pasted all over the app?!?!)
- An American Programmer
Re:For Outsourcing to Work... (Score:3, Insightful)
Software specs universally suck. Software specs are primitive compared to mechanical drawings, architectural blueprints or electronic schematics. Those things are much easier to outsource. Mostly, you get back what you asked for and it works. From my experience, outsourced software projects fail. And most porjects were not even offshore.
The majority of offshore software development projects will fail, but not before corporations show huge short term savings on their quarterly reports. By the time they have to expense money to fix their mess, it will be many months down the road. WTF do they care about the stock price next year. It's this quarter that matters.
Short term thinking is what is driving this mess...
It was *always* about money savings... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you lost a job to an Indian IT worker, I suggest you *compete* instead of *whine*. (Glad I had karma to burn on this. I can't believe it got modded insightful.)
Re:It was never about money savings... (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems conspiratorial, but I can't help believe it. I had a debate with my wife (who is a high-level marketing exec) about the wages of engineers vs. marketing staff, who ultimately end up dominating corporate management. The crux of her argument came down to: engineering salaries should never be more than marketing salaries, as marketing is "more important" than engineering -- never mind that without engineering you wouldn't have products to market, or with shoddy engineering you're working harder to sell shoddy products.
I think this cultural aspect is quite telling, and I think there are a lot of "suits" who think the same way. Whether or not IT salaries during the dot-bomb era were too high for economic reasons is immaterial, they had become too high for socio-cultural reasons ("Why is the IT guy driving a better BMW than ME?!?!"), and rather than see their businesses dominated by IT people, they sought to "control" this phenomenon by various means -- outsourcing, H1-Bs, lower quality packaged software, and so on.
The cultural explanation may not be the only reason, but I think its a significant one.
Re:It was *always* about money savings... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget onshore worker immigration (Score:3, Insightful)
While it's true the vast majority, if not all, of these immigrants are unskilled and will not be taking over IT jobs, they are taking over many jobs that would be filled by low income workers while driving down the wage categories at the same time.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~116
Re:Screw free trade (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this a joke? Do you really want the USA to stagnate in its little corner of the world while everyone else just rolls their eyes and laughs at us while progressing far beyond us in every respect?
Free trade is the long-term normalizer of the world. It levels the playing field so THE TRUTH and the FREE MARKET runs business, not some politically contrived fantasy of keeping the jobs at home.
Your statement reeks of isolationism, culturalism, racism, and a whole bunch of other -isms that are simply inappropriate for members of a FREE COUNTRY to speak of lest they put them into practice.
You have more than 2 choices (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you have many, you are only presenting two.
Minor training of unemployed US programmers to fill the missing roles would have been the best option.
You're ignoring all the out of work US programmers.
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:4, Insightful)
Then, drop the tarriffs, albeit slowly, so the markets have time to react. Eventually--given appropriate time--the lack of tarriffs will only bolster international trade making the USA better off for it.
Re:It was never about money savings... (Score:3, Insightful)
World's largest banking software comes from India (Score:2, Insightful)
What you don't know is that the world's best selling wholesale banking software comes from India - Flex-Cube [iflexsolutions.com]. I used to work for this company (it is part owned by citigroup). BTW, it is not the largest selling banking s/w in India
Let me assure you - knowing how banks work (even in and out) does not help you build a bank. Moreover, some Indian banks are as old as CitiBank and know banking very well, they don't need to first build a banking s/w to learn that. Anyway the knowledge alone does not help them become a global bank, simply because even the biggest Indian bank is very small in global terms. Afterall, you can't build another Microsoft if you know how to build an OS.
My first project was writing an application for treasury - forex, money markets. No, that didn't help me become a Forex dealer, because judging the next move of the market has nothing to do with the knowledge of how to process the deal, once it is made.
There is a lot more to building successful businesses than just learning enough to write software for them. Competing against entrenched businesses is very even tougher. It is naive to think otherwise.
Re:It was *always* about money savings... (Score:5, Insightful)
Compete? Excuse me? I was laid off as an Intern at $12/hour so the company could move to Singapore. I lucked out, I could move back in with my parents. The other engineers have families and mortgages.
Your pop and swap mentality flies completely in the face of reality. People, get this, actually require steady paychecks. You start talking about universal health care, free meals, and housing guarentees, then we can talk about us all being interchangable.
But we aren't talking about that. We are talking about workers having to be self-sufficient with no guarentee of work. And it's not even unskilled workers anymore. You have hard-working college educated people who are now competing for the unskilled shit jobs of the world, bumping the unskilled people even further down the hole.
Ask the French sometime about what happens when the Middle Class goes into a toilet-bowl spiral while the Upper Crust get fabulously wealthy. Better yet, ask the Russians.
Re:It was *always* about money savings... (Score:4, Insightful)
So me, with college bills, with a higher standard and thus a more expensive standard of living, am supposed to compete against a country with no minimum wage, no real labor laws of any kind? How? Those indian IT workers are making less than your average burger king employee ($10,000 a year is considered good there - here, you would have to go on welfare to survive at that level.)
Re:It was *always* about money savings... (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't this exactly what Slashdot likes to tell the RIAA? That new technology enables new business models and kills old ones. That Internet distribution will kill the CD, and they better get on with it or face extinction.
Well, new technology enabled a less expensive worker to do your job. Are you more entitled to an income on your old "business model" than the RIAA?
Yes, the human cost is terrible. I have lost work, and I empathize. However, what do you propose US businesses do?
Re:It was *always* about money savings... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's real cute...maybe I can pay my half of the $1600/month in rent i was paying on the $10,000 a year an indian worker gets. Wait though, I can't even afford the half of the $800/month in rent I am paying now that I have been forced to move after more than a year of unemployment on that kind of money.
As far as H1b's, I'll take whatever they're surviving on in this country...sign me up...I'll report for work as soon as my no-benefits contract ends.
Re:It was *always* about money savings... (Score:4, Insightful)
What do I suggest? Wake up, smell the coffee, and stop chasing each other to the bottom. Computer companies are like the airlines, they are trying to starve each other out. Look at the air industry, and tell me with a straight face that sort of behavior is healthy.
It must really be nice under Chapter 11 bankrupcy protection. They constantly operate there. I just wish the Gubment would stop bailing them out, let them die, and let a new set of players take their place.
Re:Common Sense is Tricky:Outsourcing but NO to H- (Score:3, Insightful)
We have a lot of Americans out of work, displaced by workers from other countries who in some cases are not even legal to work here. They send money back home which does not stimulate our economy. So you now have two problems: Americans out of work have no money to spend and those who have come here and taken some of our jobs, have money, but choose not to spend it which causes businesses here to dwindle and fail because nobody is spending money in their establishments.
Lets hire more US workers, not less. Lets figure out ways to get the US workers additional training if they are under-qualified. We need CEO's of some major companies to step up the plate and decide to hire Americans and only Americans and do what it takes to find and hire those who are qualified. If we keep going the way we are, the CEO's may end up very wealthy, but what will they do with their money when our country has collapsed around them?
How can this be "insightful" ? (Score:4, Insightful)
And since you are speaking of protectionism, how about tarif on US farmer product, US biogenetic seeds, Tarifs on everything the US product and export everywhere. You might have a trade imbalance deficit, but once other country follow you, you WILL feel the pain. Do not ask for more that you wish.
Best of breed - get ready for tough love (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want to believe that Americans are losing their jobs to inferior non-U.S. programmers, you have your head in the sand. Their work is not inferior. Not by a long shot. In fact, I have to say that in my experience working with a LOT of Korean, Chinese, and Indian programmers, that very few - VERY few - American programmers have any real skills by comparison. For every great American programmer, I can name 5 Indian programmers of equal or nearly equal skill. If I can count that up, you can bet that CIOs can count it up as well.
The U.S. created much of the technology in use around the world today, but Indian and Chinese shops are filled with very hungry workers who are busting their butts to be better programmers than any American programmer. Theirs is not a luxury of choosing the best benefits package, people. Some workers in China are fined if they leave their work chair slightly askew.
American IT love to be arrogant, bent on condescending attitudes and poor communication skills. Those will be the first to lost their jobs. And, they will be very vocal about it. But they will either have to adapt or move on.
I have no excuses for myself in the face of such competition. The profile of J. Random Hacker [astrian.net] is accurate in the idea that I.T. is embraced as a form of mental kung-fu, and while I respect those I face in competition, only by working even harder to be of greater value to corporations will I remain employed.
I have always admired the hunger shown by immigrant and non-U.S. workers and vowed long ago that I would not fall into the trap of so many of my fellow Americans by taking my citizenship and opportunity for granted. No excuses allowed. Too many people came before me and died so that I could have the opportunity offered me, and I'm certainly not going to go down putting out half-ass code.
Welcome to the real world, kids. Adapt or die, but stop whining and name calling, because it won't get you your job back.
Re:The company I work for just announced.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It was *always* about money savings... (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's see Finance, going offshore... Engineering, going offshore... Architecture, going offshore...
See a pattern?
Why I said nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
But I feel real, real bad about it now. I'm sorry.
Re:It was *always* about money savings... (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree. The fortunes of US workers have nothing to do with the fortunes of multinational corporations nominally called "US Corporations." Imagine a future where the US has 60% unemployment. IBM has no US employees except for Sales and Field Service. All engineering and corporate management is distributed across India, China and Korea. IBM still gives to US political campaigns, and the US will defend IBM's interests anywhere in the world. The US has the best military, funded by taxes from "US Corporations". US Corporations hold most of the intellectual property such as patents, making them the world technology leaders. It doesn't matter where in the world the engineering talent is; it matters who owns the patents.
Re:Common Sense is Tricky:Outsourcing but NO to H- (Score:2, Insightful)
If nothing is done to stem the bleeding of America's IT, it's probably true that American tech will not disappear entirely, but it will be reduced to that of other countries. While those countries we've chosen over others, to gain hard-earned tech experience in our place, will rise and surpass their teacher. This may very well result in an economical reversal of roles. Corporations will move labor (IT/management/research/scientists) from cheap country to cheaper country (causing economic crises is less stable economies as jobs leave) until corporations find themselves hiring IT in an economically unrecognizable United States; an America probably still significant in IT (otherwise the IT jobs wouldn't come back), but as a country no more the super power than Canada is now. This may take anywhere from a few short years to decades, but companies will manage to get cheap labor that by happenstance also speaks English (assuming that English is still the language of business).
If there was a person of middle-eastern ethnicity who could at the flip of a switch cause America to lose its IT workers, we (knowing all the benefits of even HAVING an IT capability) would've called it an act of terrorism and gone to war. If an American citizen were able to intentionally cause a massive disruption that resulted in the loss of the American IT to a foreign power, we (understanding the economic and security capabilities one gains from having IT capability at home) would declare the citizen a traitor. When an American company does this to America, what do we call it? Sun's Scott McNealy calls [sfgate.com] it an "international company". If the Chief Executive Officer of Sun no longer considers Sun an American company, it should be treated as such. Otherwise, it is given an unfair advantage over other foreign companies that don't have the luxury of pretending to be an American company and all the benefits of allowing it to operate in America as an American company. The pretense should be dropped in fairness to others if fairness can be attributed to a libertarian, and to allow the status of being an American company reserved for those that really are American. I don't think McNealy (despite his complaints of taxes, employee benefits...etc) would consider the idea either profitable or plausible. I wonder why? I don't mean to single out Sun. I consider McNealy's attitude inimical towards American citizens, but not a dangerous one when acting alone. It is when many companies as a whole start considering themselves as "international", but behave in unfair self-interest that specifically hurts American citizens, that I co
Common reasons why outsourcing is considered bad (Score:2, Insightful)
From the postings, some common reasons why people think outsourcing is bad :
You will find shitty programmers all over the world just as you will find good programmers. One guy gave an example of code to check the zip code. Any vendor that has even a half-good QA will ensure that such code will never be shipped. Ditch the vendor. Look for another one.
To some extent thats true. But all good vendors have onsite co-ordinators who are in touch with the clients continously & act as an interface between the clients & the developers. And lets face it; you don't generally find clients and developers chatting together near the coffee machine and discussing changes in the system.
Its easy to say this when you have many years of economic development behind you. For a developing country where much of the population lives in abject poverty, such policies are very difficult to implement. They are leveraging their only advantage (cheap labor) to boost their economy.
Move up the food chain. Become a PHP and spend your life doing powerpoint presentations