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"Enhance your customer experience, generate new revenue opportunities, achieve higher efficiency and stay ahead of competition with our innovative airlines IT solutions." ref

I'm not sure how extensive they are or if TFA takes this into account, but it should be noted that all the Indian BPO majors have a presence in the Philippines.

"Apache Axis2 is the first piece of middleware that has been largely created in Sri Lanka. This is not outsourcing- this is rock solid innovation all the way from the other side of the world. Apache Axis2 is not a brainded implementation of some JCP specs- in fact, we rejected the JCP specs and created our own way of doing things: not because of arrogance, but because those JCP specs don't quite cut it technically. It is innovation in its rawest form." Source: http://www.bloglines.com/blog/sanjiva?id=128

Citicards, the Credit card division of Citibank, got a new CIO several months ago. Mitchell Habib. He came from GE Medical. Before leaving there, he outsourced about 75% of their IT staff to India. He's currently doing the same at Citi. I worked there as a contractor. Two other contractors on the team and I were unable to get our contracts renewed because it came down from on high that all new contracts had to go thru TCS, Tata Consulting Services. They are the Indian outsourcing company that he used in the past. I recently went back to visit some friends and met my replacement. A nice young Indian guy making a third to a quarter of what I made there.

From what I understand, the standard rate for calculating your budget for contract work went from $70/hr to $22/hr. Of course, I believe they charge around $40/hr for their workers in the states.

Can't compete with that.

Here are some links about Mitchell Habib and TCS:

http://www.rediff.com/money/2003/apr/03tcs.htm?zcc =rl

http://www.tcs.com/0_media_room/releases/200204apr /20020411_ge_medical.htm

You know, Slashdot does have quite a sizeable Indian community, though you might not be aware of it. So you might think about asking the questions here itself!

I am an Indian and currently working for Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., India's largest software company that recently exceeded 1 billion dollars in revenue. Right now I am stationed in South America from where we cater to most of the Latin American countries. I'm pretty much the typical 'target' of most of the American outsourcing anger that gets vented here on /.. Anyway, now that I'm done introducing myself let me see if I can answer some of the highest moderated questions.

How do you feel about the American programmers that are angry they lost their jobs to outsourcing? Do you think they have a right to be angry?

The way most Indians see it, this is mostly American capitalism biting them back in the ass. We do the same thing you do, but we do it at cheaper rates. Sure, we understand that Americans wouldn't be too happy about losing their high-paying jobs, but that is something they will just have to deal with.

Cost of living etc. in India, with emphasis on real estate etc.

Most people who start out in the Indian IT industry do not earn that well. On an average, I would say it is pretty much the same as what one would get after graduating from one of the other engineering disciplines like EE, CE etc. However, with a few years of experience one can get quite a comfortable job. For example, a typical IT worker with 3-4 years of experience can land themselves a job that pays about Rs. 40,000 per month (~ $1000). This is a good income in a country like India where you can have servants in your house for about Rs. 2,000 per month. AFAIK, there has been no study which studies the impact of these new IT jobs on the real estate market, but obviously some effect must be there.

Is the picture there as rosy as painted by the media?

I hate to say this on Slashdot, but it is actually quite good. Students from reputable colleges and universities do not find it difficult to find jobs in the IT sector. However, I would not agree that the degree does not matter. Most companies (the good ones anyway) are quite choosy about the people they pick.

How much experience do most Indian programmers have?

I would say ~5 years on an average. Agreed, there are a LOT of new people coming into the industry, attracted by the 'gold rush', but there are quite a few old veterans here as well. For example, my company is over 35 years old, and it is not uncommon to find people who have been here for the past 7-8 years.

American workers have certain legal protections that drive up the cost of our wages. Do Indians have similar protections in the workplace? Are you allowed to organize into unions? How long is your work week? What are your working conditions like? What kind of benifits do you have? Vacation? Medical? Dental? Profit sharing? Stock options? I find myself wondering, if the playing field were truly level, would your labor still be so inexpensive?

No, the story you hear about 'sweatshops' are not true. Yes, we do have benefits. No, there no unions, yet. A typical week is 40 hours (8x5), but almost always is more than that, depending on the work load. Sometimes people do work for 15 hours straight, but on other days they also go home after putting in their normal 8 hours. We have vacations and medical benefits. TCS itself is not a public company, so there are no stock options here, but other public companies do give the option to their employees. Labour is inexpensive primarily because of two reasons - there are a LOT of people in India, and the cost of living is quite low.

How does it feel to have your skills and knowledge continuously disparaged by people with little or no experience of working with Indian programmers?

Personally, it bothers me

Here are some helpful URLs on growing the company:

Tata Consulting
WiPro

Smaller wage packet requirement: India has a disparate Purchasing power wrt it's currency strength. So people can live on $ 500 per month where $ 2000 would be minimum requirement in US

Hunger for work: Indians would tend to work more hours to better their living conditions. And this is valid for all strata of people not only the lower rung but also the VPs and CEOs
US or Western Companies cannot be stopped from using such advantages to their benefits. All the activities suggested will just make sure that those companies become uncompetitive, and other non-US companies will make sure that they leverage on this fact.

Y'know, you're absolutely bang-on. A lot of Indian programmers are very young (and not very experienced) ... in fact Wipro devs got flamed for being clueless n00bs while working on Gnome and Metacity for Sun.

But the reason Wipro (and a lot of other Indian companies) will succeed is (a) great middle level management and (b) amazing marketing.

In particular, Wipro (and Infosys and Tata Consultancy) have drones working for them at the bottom. Most of them are fresh non-CS engineers (e.g. Mech or EE, not many Indian CS undergrads who love IT/CS would work at jobs like these) or folk with 2-5 years of experience. Nothing to write home about, nothing to get scared about. Except the numbers. Because we're talking about companies which put together have over 80,000 employees. Out of those, they can easily get amazingly talented middle management (project leads, project managers, practice managers, delivery heads) that's tech savvy and not PHB-like. *This* are their hidden backroom strength.

ummm, where did you get the information that i am american, much less racist? besides, i'd say the exact same thing if Bill & Co. wanted to share the source code with Israel. and it really needs to be shared with countries that don't just happen to have an incredible emerging market and a legion of software engineers - why leave out the U.K., Latin America, and South Africa? economics must not overrule prudence, lest we descend into the disasterous downward spiral of letting corporations make decisions without recompense.

besides, you'd be just as incensed if your premier consulting firm suddenly decided to share their project code with North Korea, who has been shipping nuclear delivery methods and materials to many countries, including your beloved neighbors in Paktistan. keep it in perspective here ...

I belong to a company which believes in ISO 9001 and CMM. It is one of the big Indian shops with most of its offshore centers certified under both these management / quality methods. I've personally been involved with both these activities for a long time as a Project Leader and later as a Project Manager, and I found that there are both good and bad aspects of these certifications. The methods are extermely useful in a large (or very large, say 20,000 people) company, with a high turnover rate at it is in this industry. Unless you have properly planned or written down things methodically, you're going to die when your key designer leaves the job. In big projects (with 50 - 100 people), this planning is essential. And these management methods enforce that planning and documentation. And if you are a big organization, this also enforces code and concept reuse. This really increases productivity, which I can personally vouch for. So that is the reason the management wants to implement these methods. However, there is a trap in this. If not properly implemented, this can cause severe problems. People may stop being productive or may leave. But on a whole, I found this to a useful thing. You can compare it with a knife - it is quite useful, but if wrongly used, can cause mayhem.