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Offshoring IT 369

Posted by timothy from the alle-menschen-sind-auslaender-fast-ueberall dept.
prostoalex (Alex Moskalyuk) writes "After the Presidential election process and U.S. foreign policy directions, outsourcing is a topic guaranteed to stir up heated debate. Bill Blunden's Offshoring IT is not a 'how-to' guide, as one might expect from the title. It's a collection of stats, figures and opinions on outsourcing information technology to foreign providers." Read on for the rest of Moskalyuk's review; watch out too for my upcoming review of N. Sivakumar's Debugging Indian Computer Programmers: Dude, did I steal your job?.
Offshoring IT
author Bill Blunden
pages 138
publisher Apress
rating 5/10
reviewer Alex Moskalyuk
ISBN 1590593960
summary The good, the bad and the ugly (but mostly the bad) on IT offshoring

Bill Blunden is the author of Cube Farm - a humorous autobiography and story of author's fruitless employment at Lawson Software. A physics major faced with the grand prospects of waiting tables after college graduation, Blunden is not a newbie in the unemployment world. Offshoring IT promises to give the reader "the good, the bad and the ugly" of IT outsourcing practices.

The book is not very long -- just five chapters -- but it's thorough, as each chapter packs data and statistics from various government and commercial reports. "Setting the stage" talks about general trends in the software industry and cost of education. "Measuring the trend" tells the reader which companies outsource, why they outsource and who's helping them with outsourcing. "The Offshoring Obstacle Course" describes existing outsourcing processes - when exactly should company start thinking about outsourcing, what type of jobs is most likely to go offshore, what's the difference between India, Ireland, Israel, Russia and Mexico. Finally, "Arguments in Favor of Offshoring" made it into the book just because the publisher requested a fair look at the other side's arguments (which shows which "side" Mr. Blunden is biased towards). "Arguments Against Offshoring" is truly the author's work with major myths and excuses about offshoring debunked.

Blunden points out that in order to compete in the global marketplace, countries like India invested in their educational system and constructed high-speed data networks, which provided the foundation for companies popping up with the capability to take over remotely as call centers, software development houses, and R&D departments. Meanwhile, the cost of going to Ivy League schools keeps going up, leaving the fresh graduates with six-digit debt -- debt which the Student Loan Corporation (division of CitiCorp) expects to be promptly paid. The cost of college education for those who choose to go this route stipulates adequate pay requirements after graduation, and in the world where IT is going offshore, the paycheck is often just not there anymore, which leaves the fresh grad owing money and needing immediate retraining or a career switch.

The book delves into specific industries and companies, looking at the outsourcing numbers and potential for jobs to be offshored. Blunden notes that while corporations made their offshoring figures public before, lately the backlash against going offshore has made PR departments suddenly avoid the topic. Blunden refutes the argument that only low-level jobs are being outsourced and points to Intel designing CPUs for wireless devices on campuses in India.

Chapter 3 focuses on reasons for outsourcing. According to Blunden, the more face-to-face interaction and management effort a job requires, the less likely it is to be outsourced. At the same time, many companies are currently exploring offshoring some of their projects, claiming that only non-essentials are going abroad. Outsourcing of small projects allows them to establish the necessary processes and test their service provider, so that when a bigger project comes along, the management can feel safer working with the same offshore provider.

Chapter 4 deals with pro-offshoring arguments. Even though the author states he only had to write this chapter to satisfy the publishers, the arguments he picks are ones that appear in the press quite often - namely, that offshoring means more efficient allocation of resources, better revenue projections, and increased shareholder value. In Chapter 5 Blunded goes on a crusade to discredit these arguments, though, saying that offshoring does not benefit average Americans, that only the top 5% of income earners benefit from increased shareholder values, and that frequently top management receives additional benefits while laying off the proles.

While the first two chapters of the book are filled with data, numbers and statistics, the last three chapters mostly read like an rant on the current state of affairs, which many of us may have gotten for free from the older members of the family at Thanksgiving. Blunden does have some valid arguments about the increased danger to national security and wealth due to offshoring, but you can't help but notice the feeling that the author feels entitled to a job provided by an American corporation, even though corporate America is bad-mouthed in the next sentence. To give Blunden credit, he mentions that sometimes reasons for offshoring include the low popularity of call-center and data-entry positions in the U.S. Americans view doing support for AOL and data entry for Cingular as grunt jobs, just temporary positions on the way to a better life, while for many Indians it is the ultimate career, and are thankful to the provider for giving them the opportunity.

Blunden also does not distinguish between different types of IT workers. The aforementioned AOL support soldier and top NASA scientist, designing microcontrollers for the next space mission would be aggregated into the same "IT worker" category. There's little detailed statistics on what sectors of IT are prone to outsourcing and which are pretty stable to be in. Sometimes the author plays little tricks with the reader to make his points across. On p. 106 he talks to an invisible IT manager: "Sure, you can hire six Indian engineers for the price of an American engineer. But if an American engineer can do the work of six Indian engineers, what's the difference?" Oops. Notice how by the time we get into the second sentence the equality in price gets substituted by equality in productivity. Just because 6 Indian salaries would equal to one American, the author assumes the productivity level is going to stay the same, making the example nonsensical, since why would you outsource if it's the same money and the same productivity?

Overall, it's an interesting book to read, although somewhat depressing, as it provides little pointers into how do the readers stay competitive in this marketplace or what needs to be done on the personal skills level to make oneself more valuable. You can definitely tell which side the author is leaning, but subjective writing makes the reading more interesting. Nevertheless, the title does leave an impression of being one giant complaint about the current state of affairs, and I don't think I will be re-reading it. Perhaps just loan it to my friends, who are in college pursuing IT-related careers.

In an attempt to stay up-to-date with his skills Alex reads and reviews many programming and technology as well as keeps the list of free ones available on the Web. You can purchase Offshoring IT from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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Offshoring IT More

Offshoring IT

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  • outsourcing to India (Score:5, Funny)

    by AlanS2002 ( 580378 ) <sanderal2@PARIShotmail.com minus city> on Monday December 06, 2004 @10:23AM (#11007486) Homepage
    I, for one, would like to welcome our new Indian overlords.

  • Mini Ask Slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)

    by theguywhosaid ( 751709 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @10:25AM (#11007498) Homepage
    I am still in school. I have a mediocre GPA, good skills (IMHO), I am tall, and I am friendly. Will my computer science degree land me a good job in the field, or will I have to teach (respectable, but I would rather not personally), or join the military or something to be doing something that involves my expensive education in a meaningful way?
    • Find jobs that you need to be in front of people. This includes support, Consulting, Networking, and Maintenance of current application. Also try to be in front of your customers Eyes a lot dont lock your self in the office and only comunicate by Email and Telephone. When you are in front of the customer/Employer they feel more connected to you and you are less likly to be outsourced.
      • Sounds to me like you are suggesting U.S workers should stick to the lower paying jobs... support, maintainance etc. While letting other countries have all the high paying hard-core engineering jobs.

      • Re:Mini Ask Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)

        by soxin7 ( 836982 )
        Although I believe that is some sound advise you espouse wrt job security, the trend in offshoring is a macro economic topic. The decision to offshore anyone's job will probably not be affected by how much or little time you spend out front as opposed to hidden away in your office. Rather the decision is made from execs who probably do not even know you work there. They want or need to take advantage of the real (or percevied) benefits of offshoring, namely cost/benefit. Thus if they can find a way to
      • how about plumber, electrician, painter & decorator, mechanic, etc.

        I for one feel that I was lied to growing up and that guys who use their hands rather than their brains make more money and have more opporutinities to get work. Around here it's difficult to get a plumber or plasterer when you want one.
    • Remember that it's not you that gets hired, but your good looks and fancy clothes. Sadly you may have to join the military.
    • From your blog:

      > #
      > Drunk
      > 2004-11-14-02.26.29
      >
      > I am drunk

      Party after you have the job, and don't put "drinking" as a hobby in your CV and you should be all set.

      Seriously, work on getting published or getting industry experience on the side, and start now. Working for free sucks, but in your case it's an investment that will pay off.

    • As long as you can bullshit the HR person and then do well in a technical interview, you should have no problem. Few employers will care about your GPA unless it is really horrible. I was only asked about my grades in maybe 2 out of 10 interviews and only one employer wanted to see transcripts. Being tall and friendly will help more than you would think.
    • Are you asking if your skills match up or did you mistakenly post your info here rather than on a dating site?
    • I was in your boat. I graduated from a near-Ivy (think UNC, Northwestern, Stanford, etc.) with a *very* mediocre GPA (literally, find out the lowest GPA for which they'll give you a degree and add less than 0.1). I've been employed in the field of software engineering for every day of the 10 years since I've graduated.

      Want to know how? It's all about exhibiting a willingness to work hard and take pride in your work. I've worked with guys who were smart, but of course, they thought they were too smart.
      • >It's all about exhibiting a willingness to work hard and take pride in your work.

        Thats what I think that most graduates don't realize. One of the big thing you are suppose to learn from going to school is how to work hard. And that does not mean how to copy someone else's problem set.

        The piece of paper is important, but if thats all you have then why should I hire you vs. the some other guy in your class?
    • Focus on improving your technical skills [*], get some corporate experience and speak to (ie network with) people in the industry. And most of all, don't become despondent just because you've fucked up the first two (or three) years of college; yes, you will have to face up to consequences, but no, that does not mean it's the end of the road. Your numbers might not be good, but you can still get fairly decent careers if you stick at it.

      *- While I don't really recommend you focus on 'learning' a particular

    • Oddly, joining the military will not get you much of a computing job. I would say that all of the software used by the military is written by either contractors or government employees, not actual military personell. That said, there are quite a few jobs available to do military contracting, and those are in no danger of getting outsourced, but you would probably have to move to a largely military area, like Norfolk or Orlando.
    • Is that "Ivy League" mediocre GPA, or "run-of-
      the-mill state uninversity" GPA? The reason I
      ask is because it can make the difference in
      the school loan debt of (perhaps) $80K USD.
      If you are a second year student & not planning
      immediately on that advanced degree, you might
      want to switch out to a blue collar job like
      plumber or electrician -- these jobs will not
      be outsourced overseas (, although they may be
      taken over by the influx of illegal aliens.)

      Many of the CS and IT jobs are going away, more
      or less p
    • The answer's "No, you won't get a job." Not in the business world via resumes and interviews and such.

      You have a choice. You can

      1. do what the old-boys network has always done -- hit up a friend for a contact where you'll be GIVEN a job (not hard, really, depending on who you know), and from there you can learn and get a job elsewhere, as you'll now have experience.

      or

      2. get a job in school. Learn furiously. Meet lots of people much smarter than you (that builds your old-boy network) and get a

  • Mini Review (Score:3, Funny)

    by ferrellcat ( 691126 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @10:27AM (#11007511)
    1. Fire all of your American programmers, call center workers and IT personnel.

    2. Replace them all with people who can almost speak English.

    3 ???.

    4. PROFIT!!!

  • ...Israel? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Penguinisto ( 415985 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @10:27AM (#11007512) Journal
    Politics aside, one would think that storing company trade secrets and/or data in a place that sees way too many explosives going off wouldn't be an obvious first choice.

    Nothing against Israel (I personally support their efforts as one of the only democracies in the region, and they do have the toughest military on the planet), but one would think that the Middle East would be fairly low on the list of places to put one's IT future.

    (Then again, considering the fights over the Kashmir in India, and the Mafia in Russia, etc etc... maybe it wouldn't be nearly as risky? As a guy in the US, The more one looks at it, the less one would sanely want to put their property at risk outside of US or EU borders in the first place...)

    /P

    • I'm more concerned about countries that have inadequate privacy laws and the power to abuse the data... like the United States.
      • Anyone has the power to abuse data. In many outsourcing cases, the country of destination has no privacy laws in place.

        So, aside from simple political polemic, what was the point you were trying to make? ;)

        /P

  • Outsourcing made simple (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HMA2000 ( 728266 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @10:27AM (#11007517)
    Two parties will not willingly engage in a trade unless both parties are better off afterwords than they were before. Discouraging trade to the benefit of a small minority of people (those who will lose their job to outsourcing) while hurting the vast majority of people (those who will receive the outsourced jobs and the consumers that will receive the products produced with more cost effiecent labor) is a recipe for disaster. This works at all levels of economics.
    • Correction: Two parties will not willingly engage in a trade unless each party thinks their party is better off afterwords than they were before. Economics is not what you learned in school.

      • Bingo.

        Many of the arguments for outsourcing have nothing to do with the cost of programming talent:

        • Escape from Government regulation. (Pension rules, overtime rules, health & safety rules)
        • Escape from corporate oversight. (Stockholders, board of directors, top corporate managemnt)
        • Not having to deal directly with programmers, who tend to be ornery cusses.

        There are corresponding non-monetary downsides, of course:

        • Loss of control. (Your supplier delivers a piece of crap. Now what?)
        • Loss of oversi
    • Except you neglect to mention that offshoring isn't trade, it is simply receiving services in exchange for green pieces of paper, and it cannot last(and given the way the dollar has been sliding, will not last). When you talk trade I think of actually trading stuff, ie some programmer in India makes some app, but in return buys some manufactured goods in the US, but ironically despite all the Indians I see on message boards spouting the value of free trade, India's economy is one of the most protectionist
      • I suggest you sign up for some Economics 101.

        Goods and services are both aspects of economic activity that provide the benefits noted by the original poster. The only substantive difference is that it's more difficult for officials to track trade in services since you don't have the same documentation available as when goods pass through Customs.
        • Trades is giving something of a certain perceived value in exchange for something of perceived equal value. Supply and demand curves sets the perceived value (i.e. price). Right now the supply of IT workers is very high the demand is low, thus price must go down. Anyone willing to accept the market price must be making a economic profit at that price else they should invest the resources elsewhere. Now, that which SETS the supply and demand curves are where all the fussing occurs. Things like monetary polic
      • Actually more total money is being insourced than outsourced. In the form of foreigners hiring lawyers, architects, etc. Unless this changes, I'm not worried. Yes this does cost us some jobs, but in total it is simply forcing our shift into the information age. Let the third world enter the industrial age, I say, its about time.
      • Well, a few points here:

        -Trade can also include services. And software is also a good. Also, if Indians aren't buying manufactured goods in exchange for their software/services, they are accepting US Dollars, which is the same.

        -Yes, India is a protectionist economy, but USA is very protectionist too. Yeah, they can sign free trade treaties left and right, but they are full of exceptions, and caveats. Also, whenever some USA's group feels treatened by free trade, they are quick to start lawsuits against th
      • >all the Indians I see on message boards spouting the value of free trade, India's economy is one of the most protectionist on earth

        Being Indian, I have to protest against this. India is a Sovereign , Secular, Socalist country by definition. That spells out to "We won't let other countries screw us" as part of government policy. Thankfully the government seems to be keeping that promise to a large extent.

        From 1950 to 1991 , India was a protectionist economy . In 1991 the globalization initiative (

    • Yes, we have heard this before and you are 100% right if the market is totally free. However, the market is more or less (more in communism, less in capitalism) is government controlled. You cannot apply this simple and logical statement to a distorted market.

      Also, do not forget that outsourcing is the consequence of globalisation and (it is hard to swallow, I know) it just balances the robbery of the past. In the past the West (North Amerika, Europe) robbed the East (India, China, Afrika). A lot of whealt

      • Modest-ish proposal (Score:3, Insightful)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        A key for Americans who need to survive outsourcing is to become as inexpensive (once time and language barrier are considered) as offshore labor.

        In turn, this means reducing cost of living so that the (much) lower income is sufficient. For that, I recommend offshoring the ofshore-ers. That is, We need to skip the American middleman and buy our goods directly from the source for dirt cheap.

        This is how 'the rest of us' can effectively offshore the jobs of the managers who are offshoring our jobs.

        Someh

    • Two parties will not willingly engage in a trade unless both parties are better off afterwords than they were before.

      However, what's good for an individual party is not necessarily good for the nation as a whole. For example, if I dump my used motor oil down the storm sewer, that's good for me because I got rid of my old oil quickly and cheaply. However, it's not good for the well-being of my neighborhood.

      A similar situation holds true for the trend of offshoring all of our manufacturing and engineering

    • You are correct when looking at it from the overall world view, but we're talking about decisions made by the US which affect the US. Right now we have the money and we're quickly giving it away with these huge trade deficits.

      Yes, eliminating outsourcing would hurt the vast majority of people who benefit from outsourcing. Most of those people live in China/India. But it would help the minority of people- those who live in the US. The average US worker does NOT benefit from outsourcing. Sure, the TV he want
    • While I agree that free trade might provide a *net* economic benefit for an economy, it is not guarenteed to be reasonably equal. Capitalism does not guarentee equal distribution of wealth. People involved in management and sales may indeed benefit, but those in manufacturing and "brain jobs" may be screwed by free trade. Statistics seem to show more and more lopsided wealth distribution since WWII, and free trade may be one of the reasons.

      The US wealth distribution has been surprisingly equal (relatively
    • Sorry to sound like some political chowderhead, but this ignores a fundamental principle: capitalism is not perfect.

      The people who make decisions on off-shoring are the top 1%, who personally stand to make hundreds of thousands of dollars for deciding to off-shore some of their work. They are not interested in whether the decision is actually good for either recipients of the off-shoring, nor for those whose jobs were lost to it, nor for that matter, the company itself. In fact, the former two of these a

  • Stop yer bitching (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 06, 2004 @10:28AM (#11007520)
    and get back to work. If you're worried about your job being outsourced, get the fuck off slashdot and do what you're paid to do - don't give them a reason to do it.

  • Unfounded anxiety? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ikn ( 712788 ) <rsmith29@alumniL ... u minus language> on Monday December 06, 2004 @10:29AM (#11007528) Homepage
    To be honest, it's stories like this that make my hesitant to go the IT route now that I'm in college, though I think I'd enjoy it. I wonder if there are others with me, and how big of an effect this might have in the supply of IT workers in coming decades?
    • What does "IT" mean? To some, it means a hardware monkey who re-Ghosts workstations. That's scut work, and doesn't require an advanced certification. To some, it means a Cisco expert. That's more technical, but of an uncertain future, as hardware continues to increase features and speed, and decreases price and complexity. To be perfectly honest, the most important parts of being a good employee is 1) to show up, on time, and 2) finish your work, exceeding expectations whenever possible. The niggly bits ar
    • When I first started in the IT business (many moons ago), wages were excellent and the politics were bearable. Over the decades following, I have seen wages fall in real terms to about 1/3 of what they once were. Meanwhile, the politics in IT departments are about as vicious as any Brussels or Washington back (and front) stabbing operation.

      IMHO, the trend downwards on both counts will continue with outsourcing. I now tell anyone who wants to join the over-stressed lifestyle of IT development world to s

    • To be honest, it's stories like this that make my hesitant to go the IT route now that I'm in college, though I think I'd enjoy it. I wonder if there are others with me, and how big of an effect this might have in the supply of IT workers in coming decades?

      Unfounded. You're better off worrying about how the job market will be about the time you graduate; you want to leave the "decades" part to, I don't know, Gartner analysts. :-)

      Just be the best in whatever you do, have a head above the water, notice wh

  • it is hard for IT people to see the benifits but if you are the company, you want to make money.

    But offshoring does have major drawbacks. I think you are starting to see the threshold of what people are willing to take with offshored call centers. personally i hate calling Compaq and taking to someone in India. I am not trying to be rude but I can't understand them, and it bothers me.

    I think you are going to see people in India, ect pushing for higher prices of pay in a few years, you can only pay them p
    • personally i hate calling Compaq and taking to someone in India. I am not trying to be rude but I can't understand them,

      I read somewhere (probably The Economist or the BBC News site) that Indian call centers have been teaching their employees idiomatic English (or French or whatever) from the regions they will be serving. Clearly, there has been a technical fault and you have been connected to the desk which usually serves Glasgow.

  • Strategic offshoring (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 't is DjiM ( 801555 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @10:31AM (#11007549)
    Offshore development apparently is a hot topic. From well-informed sources I know that certain IT integrators are making strategic investments in offshoring IT development and IT services to India, Mauritius islands, as well as near-shoring to Eastern European countries (Czech Republic in particular).

    I think that this fact speaks for itself: offshore has more advantages than disadvantages for huge projects (Texas unemployment office, anyone?).

    Since Bush won the elections, more and more people are dragged into the offshore development centres and apparently the code quality is not as bad as some people might think.

    The consulting firm I work for actually hires 100 people PER DAY in India alone.

    Like it or not, I guess we better start living with the fact that offshore will stay where it is.
    • Wow, 36,500 people a year, year after year? You must be working on some Monster sized projects to need a staff of programmers that size. The worlds largest IT consulting company is IBM Global Services and they only have about 60K employees Worldwide. Can you even FIND 100 qualified people a day to do IT consulting? Or are you talking staffing call centers ?
    • ...offshore has more advantages than disadvantages for huge projects (Texas unemployment office, anyone?).

      Things must be tough if even the Texas unemployment office is outsourcing to India?!?! Imagine that, some poor Texan who just lost his job to offshoring calls the Texas Unemployment Office's information hotline:

      "Hello, Texas unemployment office, Sanjay in Bangalore speaking. How can I help you ??"

      !!!CRUNCH!!! (Texan crushes telephone handset)
  • "Sure, you can hire six Indian engineers for the price of an American engineer. But if an American engineer can do the work of six Indian engineers, what's the difference?" Oops. Notice how by the time we get into the second sentence the equality in price gets substituted by equality in productivity. Just because 6 Indian salaries would equal to one American, the author assumes the productivity level is going to stay the same, making the example nonsensical, since why would you outsource if it's the same mo

    • Re:You sure about your example? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by shis-ka-bob ( 595298 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @10:45AM (#11007655)
      You are dreaming if you think that the average American IT employee is six time more productive than the average Indian IT worker. As a group, the Indians that I have met are well educated, with significantly better math skills than most US workers. They have excellent English, often with better grammar than us. If we are competing on a 'large coding' contract, it is uncommon to be able to justifly the huge rate difference

      However, the dollar is devaluing. This raises the cost of the Indians relative to the Americans. It also makes the Indians richer. This is how the market is supposed to work. We will reach a more level playing field. But is is one that many Americans won't like. Many economists are becoming increasingly concerned with a 'melt down' in the value of the US dollar. Think about this from the view of a foreign banker. They keep putting reserves into dollars, and we keep driving down the value of dollars. Before long, they are going to prefer Euros and Yen for their reserves . If they walk away from treasury bills, we might see the 'dollar melt down' scenario. As long as we are running trade and budget deficits, we are going to see the dollar devalue. So, in a rather perverse way, the policies of the current administration are reducing the danger of outsorucing.

      • Dude you are seriously underestimating how big US economy is. If US economy collapses it will always take the world down with it.
        And Dollar will never melt down as long as Oil is traded only in Dollars.
        Dollar devalues ->Countries need more dollars to buy same amt of oil -> Countries buy dollars from US -> Dollar corrects itself.
        On top of that most countries have large stock-piles of dollars and would not want to see it devalued.

  • Staying competitive? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kahei ( 466208 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @10:33AM (#11007570) Homepage

    Well, in answer to the reviewer's doubts, the key to staying competitive in the marketplace (as a worker) is to actually know something, like biochemistry or exotic option valuation or how to flatter to auto company executives. IT knowledge is a perfect adjunct to the real skills that get you a job. That's the same as ever.

    In terms of what to do about the increasing concentration of wealth made possible by advances in comms, transport and free trade, though, I dunno.

    If in doubt refer to ancient Rome -- they lost their well-off middle class in a few short decades once the Senate families had gained enough leverage to begin consolidating huge estates. Those Romans who still remained socially mobile (as opposed to the other 95% whose families were plebs forever) did it by going abroad and setting up shop in ever more remote and volatile provinces, often via the armed forces. Note how the age of consolidation of wealth in Rome came at around the same time as the major wars of foreign expansion and the shift from kinda-sorta democracy to straight up God-Emperors.

    In other words, at the same time as Roman wealth became immobile (locked up by the major families that ruled Rome) the increasingly aggressive foreign policy made new, more mobile wealth available. This might happen again.

    As a member of the 'reading slashdot at work' class, I have no ambition to share in it :)

  • Dude, did I steal your job? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Only if you consider any job on this planet to be an American job first. Just another example of American arrogance.
    • Only if you consider any job on this planet to be an American job first. Just another example of American arrogance.

      No, just American jobs should be considered "American first". most other countries (including India) engage in some type of protectionism for their workers. Not only is it for their workers, but it's a matter of national security also. If most of your cars are made overseas, who will make your tanks in a time of war? If most of your technological items are made overseas, who is going to m
    • I assume you're a member of the current US Congress:

      US Congress passes H1-B Visa Hike [indiatimes.com]

      This while I know half a dozen educated, experienced technical professionals who've suffered through the recent poor job market being told they're overqualified...

    • Re:Dude, did I steal your job? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NamShubCMX ( 595740 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @12:08PM (#11008453)
      Although I disagree with the tone of your post, I must add that the indian guy DIDNT STEAL YOUR JOB.

      Your CEO shipped your job to him for the shareholder.

      Can't really blame the other guy now... right?

  • Outsourcing isn't new at all (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TopShelf ( 92521 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @10:38AM (#11007607) Homepage Journal
    Americans view doing support for AOL and data entry for Cingular as grunt jobs, just temporary positions on the way to a better life, while for many Indians it is the ultimate career, and are thankful to the provider for giving them the opportunity.

    The same could well be said for a wide variety of low skill jobs, which have been both outsourced (foreign manufacturing) or relegated to immigrant labor (meat packing, general labor, etc.). America has a strong cultural bias that looks down upon "low-skill" work, which has long provided an opportunity for other countries to fill those gaps in our labor markets. The difference now is that the competition is taking on the white-collar workforce as well. Horror of horrors!

    Give us our cheap foreign-made manufactured goods, but don't you dare let them hammer out code as well!

    Personally, I think it will be interesting to see how the currency trends of the past year (which are likely to continue in the same direction) affect outsourcing. American labor is getting cheaper day by day...

    • Looking down (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kahei ( 466208 )
      America has a strong cultural bias that looks down upon "low-skill" work,

      Pity America tends to look down on academic achievement as well...

      The difference now is that the competition is taking on the white-collar workforce as well. ...whoops.

      • Pity America tends to look down on academic achievement as well...

        I'll buy that statement *only* if you extend it to prospective employers. Of those (including myself) who I've seen struggle in a terrible job market over the last 2-3 years, the majority are math/science educated, experience technical professionals.

        And this brings up an interesting question: since there's very little social respect in technical pursuits, and now that we're letting employers remove much of the economic incentive to be trained in math/science, who's going to pick it as a profession?

        Becoming a suit or tradesman increasingly looks like the wiser choice.
    • America has a strong cultural bias that looks down upon "low-skill" work

      Then why do you play `Hail to the chief' when he walks into the room?

    • Give us our cheap foreign-made manufactured goods, but don't you dare let them hammer out code as well!

      We're not bitching any more than steel workers or any other group of workers. There are extensive laws protecting things like steel. The problem with IT is that we're too stupid to form a union and have some real lobbying power like our blue collar counterparts have been doing for years. I don't know if you've noticed, but union jobs have good pay, good benefits, and quite often a pension. And let's
      • ANY IT job is more stable than ANY steel worker job. The American steel industry has all but collapsed, despite Bush's pathetic attempts at protectionism. Competing with Chinese steel would be difficult for the U.S. producers even if they could pay their workers nothing. And I think it's safe to say that unions made the situation worse, not better. The higher the wages, the easier it is to justify moving the factory overseas.

  • Length (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Peden ( 753161 )
    "The book is not very long -- just five chapters -" Since when was a book's length defined by it's numer of chapters?

  • A Bit on the Racist Side (Score:3, Insightful)

    by boutell ( 5367 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @10:59AM (#11007761) Homepage
    In the finest slashdot tradition, I would like to take this opportunity to suggest that purely on the basis of a quote in a review, the author's views sound a wee bit racist. Specifically, I don't think the reviewer goes far enough in his criticism of that quote about one American engineer doing the work of six Indian engineers. I can see a rationale for one American call-center employee equaling several offshore employees, maybe -- if the Indian call-center employees are not as culturally as well as linguistically fluent in American, so to speak. But that's a tough argument to swallow with engineers; cultural barriers are much less relevant there. And the Indian engineers I've met are no slouches, either.
    • There is value to being local, even in code. The knowledge of what needs to be done is embedded in subject matter experts "in" the business, for the most part. Having the ability to meet, talk ( time zones ) and show progress is enhanced when the developer and the SME are easily accessable. Also, I presume that the author was considering that the local developer had probably been working on the project for some time, giving them the domain knowledge needed to successfully complete the project. Compared

    • Re:A Bit on the Racist Side (Score:4, Insightful)

      by theonetruekeebler ( 60888 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @12:54PM (#11008865) Homepage Journal
      Stop thinking "Indian Engineer" and start thinking "Engineer in India" and you'll find your insinuations much less significant.

      And Racism != Cultural Bias. Relationships between coworkers, between superiors and subordinates, and between employees and customers, all become substantially easier when they share a cultural frame of reference. Granted, engineering and other technical tasks are culture-independent, but (and this is important) only after a fully mutual understanding of the nature, purpose expected results of the work have been established. Cultural barriers can make those a genuine PITA to understand.

      I have worked with many dilligent and extremely competent technical people from all over the globe. One extremely sharp fellow I worked with, when he was fresh off the boat, was given the task of putting together a UI for a set of data tables. His design and aesthetic decisions were appalling---from the point of view of our American customers. So I showed him an existing, well-liked design and told him, "Do it like this." He did, and it was excellent, as was all his subsequent work. Why? He got the cultural clue he needed to respond to his customers.

      Again, race != culture. Cultural difference can cause a huge barrier even when race is totally irrelevant.

  • IT majors entering college now are crazy (Score:4, Informative)

    by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @11:00AM (#11007780)
    I've been in the IT industry for 14 years and it has been extremely lucrative for me. I do not recommend anyone to get into the IT field if they're going to be entering the job market 4 or 5 years from now though. I think that the combination of outsourcing along with the increasing ease of doing complicated tasks with computers will lead to a bleak job future for IT-specialized staff. I think that more and more administrative tasks will be pushed onto what are considered today end users today.

    As for recommendations (which this book reportedly lacks)... Study business. Be the person that's sending jobs overseas or setting up your own plug and play wireless network.

  • It cuts both ways: I work for a company in India (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MarkWatson ( 189759 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @11:16AM (#11007929) Homepage
    Since I live in the mountains of Northern Arizona, almost all of my work is telecommuting. For the last 8 months, I have been working for company in India and it has been working out fairly well. Sure, I don't get the same pay as I did when I worked in an office in San Diego, but flexible hours so I can spend more time with family and friends makes the whole thing work for me.

    With the US economy heading south (foreign central banks finally seems to be dropping the dollar) I think that it is time for us in the US to realign our priorities:

    1. avoid debt like the plague - unless you need to literally borrow to feed your family
    2. consider doubling or tripling the amount of time you spend on "self education" to stay globally competitive
    3. learn to totally appreciate non-material things like love of family and friends

    I think that by and large things will be OK here in the US as long as people adapt to a sliding material life style. (It would also help a lot if everyone tried harder to conserve petroleum products! The patriotic thing to do is to try to help reduce the trade deficit.)

    -Mark
    • >1. avoid debt like the plague - unless you need to literally borrow to feed your family
      >2. consider doubling or tripling the amount of time you spend on "self education" to stay globally competitive
      >3. learn to totally appreciate non-material things like love of family and friends

      I like this but I would put the priorities as 3, 1 and then 2.
  • Then blacks get equal rights,
    What next, outsourcing work instead of starting up sweat shops. Soon they'll even be regsersting patents and stopping Americans from inventing things.
  • As much as this topic interests me, and even though his publisher is mine, I just can't take him seriously if he's actually using the title "Reverend" after filling out a form on a website.
  • India is on the way out, drifting into the Russian sphere of influence, as we start making arms deals with Pakistan (They still haven't found Osama).

    Unless the Pakistanis have radically improved their English language skills, and got more bandwidth, the threat of outsourcing is going down due to the brilliance of our fearless leader.

    Mission Accomplished

  • Built-in outsourcing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 06, 2004 @11:51AM (#11008295)
    I think it is ironic that the law of supply and demand only applies overseas.

    A company in the US sends jobs overseas because it is cheaper. It is cheaper because the cost of living is lower, and there are more people so the cost (salary) for each one is less.

    Yet, here in America, you could have the same thing, but it would take these same companies investing in their own communities first. For example, if a company were to spend money educating the future workforce in its own community, there eventually would be an abundance of qualified people right here at home. More supply = less cost, right?

    And if people would stop shopping at Wal-Mart et al. and endlessly consuming the goods made overseas, we'd eventually have lower cost of living here as well.

    I have no sympathy whatsoever for someone who loses their job due to outsourcing. Losing your job sucks (it happened to me twice in one year, but not because of outsourcing), but my guess is the people losing their jobs are the same people demanding 32" color TVs for $200, DVD players for $40, gallons of pickles for $2.97, and shopping at dollar stores.

    All we do in America is consume. Everything in America is disposable. Why can't jobs be disposable, too?

    You reap what you sow.
  • You gripe about losing jobs:
    Are you walking in shoes made in China?
    Are you wearing clothes from Malaysia?
    Are you driving a car from Japan?
    Do you shop at Walmart?
    Who do you think you will get sympathy from?

  • Let's stop it with all this racism, okay? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dominion ( 3153 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:04PM (#11008961) Homepage
    What we need to understand here is that tech workers have experienced in 4 years what it took 80 years for auto workers to experience.

    Job starts out as highly technical skill relegated to a privileged elite of the working class.

    Job gets automated and simplified, pushing skillset availability to more and more people.

    Job gets outsourced to placed with cheaper labor.

    It's not the fault of the Indians that our tech jobs moved there, just like it's not the fault of the US Southerners that our auto jobs first moved there from the north, or the fault of the Mexicans that they moved there, or the fault of the southeast Asians that they moved there.

    This is how capital works. Whoever can be best exploited gets the contract. Do you have no labor laws, a brutal dictator that puts down unions with bullets and tanks, and a crushed, oppressed populace willing to work for pennies? Well, then, sign up, because you're ready for investment!

    India is getting the US tech jobs. They won't have them for long, because they have a pretty well functioning democracy, strong labor laws, and all the things that corporations prefer not to have to deal with. Plus, these tech centers are usually run like white collar sweatshops, and as soon as people there start to organize and form unions, the outsourcing will high-tail it out of there to somewhere a little less problematic (ie, free).

    That's how things go, and I'm as against free trade as anyone, but the idea that you can stop it with protectionism and a "Buy American! (tm)" attitude is ridiculous. Look at how far that got the auto industry.

    The only way to change the face of outsourcing and globalization is for the AFL-CIO to get off their asses, and stop sending millions to the Democrats (who have sold them out over and over), and start investing money in union movements in the countries where the jobs are going. If corporations are going to move a job somewhere else, we need to make damn sure that the new people they employ will have a good wage, decent hours, a union, and a safe, sane working environment.

    Will the mainstream unions (or tech workers for that matter) ever start supporting overseas labor movements? I hope so, but I don't have much faith. Everybody's too wrapped up in this xenophobic, protectionist BS that won't get us anywhere.

    We also have to look at IT as far less "special" than we thought it was. We are not the gifted wunderkind of the world. We are not the digirati, forever sipping lattes and controling the world from our laptops at the beach. We are nothing more than skilled labor, working folks who will be screwed over by CEO's and their profits, just like everyone else.

    Once we realize that, then we get out of the dream world we've been inhabiting for way too long. And that's when the real fun begins.

  • Outsourcing is rough when your company is dumb (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:13PM (#11009044)
    One month after I started my current job, my new boss informed us they had just hired 12 programmers in India. "Great, I'm toast" I thought.

    5 years later, the guys in India have yet to produce any usable code. My job is very secure for now.

    I went the Bangalore to train some of them to do my job. Before I went I had a preconceived notion that the programmers over there would suck.

    Well, I was wrong.

    I now think they are quite competent. The problem delivering a working project, IMHO, stems from extreme shortsightedness of my company. All the company sees is "12 engineers for the price of 2!" What they don't see is "12 engineers, 13.5 hours out of synch with the US, who need good documentation training on our existing systems & very good requirements documentation".

    The Indians were not hired with a working knowledge of their project (obviously). Since the company wanted only to save money, they didn't explain the project well, or document the requirements. Communication was limited because of the time difference. The project ended up working, but only barely. To the best of my knowledge, it has not been deployed anywhere.

    The guys I trained did a fine enough job, but only because I went to Bangalore and explained things in person. I answered questions, demonstrated some things, and have maintained contact since.

    Once my little project was done, they were moved to a very complicated project. The company should have brought them over for a month or so of in-person training. Instead it was decided to do all training via email. The new project is now entering its 3rd month, with no completion expected soon. In the US office the project would have been done in 2 weeks, tops.

    In short: productivity is slower and software quality is worse, not because the programmers are bad, but because the american company involved wanted to save money without spending any $$ to support the offshore development.

  • End of the dollar (Score:3)

    by mysterious_mark ( 577643 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:55PM (#11009375)
    I appluad the current administration for running horrendous and unsustainable debt, this will invariable lead to a massive devaluation in the dollar, and subsuquently an end to outsourcing. Most international analyst are predicting an Argentina style economic implosion in the US unless significant fiscal changes are made. The current administration however seems determined to 'stay the course' on our path to bankruptcy. One of the few bright spots in the Argentinian economy however, is an outsourcing boom since there wages/currency are so weak on the global market. Mark

  • Uh oh.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by nobodyman ( 90587 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @03:25PM (#11010269) Homepage
    Bill Blunden's Offshoring IT is not a 'how-to' guide, as one might expect from the title.

    IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!

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