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IBM Moving Developer Jobs Overseas
helixcode123 writes "According to the New York Times (also on Yahoo News), IBM is planning on moving a substantial number of high level jobs overseas to 'India and other countries.' IBM argues, in essence, that they need to do this to stay competitive. The article
quotes that Forrester Research '...estimated that 450,000 computer industry jobs could be transferred abroad in the next 12 years, representing 8 percent of the nation's computer jobs.'"
Two or five or 10 years from now, India and Pakistan get into a fight. Where is your code? Who will be maintaining it? What happens when your packaged software is suddenly competing with a product nearly identical from another country, but at half the price? Sue them? Where?
Being a consultant I see company after company making the move to get $20/hour developers off-shore. Some make it work by playing with the numbers. Some make it work by comparing only salary. US Developer $60k, Indian developer $35k. Few ever cost justify the entire structure and impact. They don't want to know as most will be gone before the long term impact is seen.
As for the language, time zone, etc. Those are all minor issues that most of the sale people brush aside as trivial. Giving polished presentations on cost savings and how developers have become a major corporate "expense." They are talking to your CIOs, CTOs, and CEOs telling them how to save millions on development and support costs.
Your leadership will come out and tell you how we are going to work "hand in hand" with our overseas "team." Then after the transition, your position is no longer as valuable, or necessary. If you don't have a specialty niche, where being on-site is a major requirement, look for significant impact to you. Even if, as someone put it, you are the remaining 92%, your value will be driven by the going rate.
Programmers are the stupidest people on the planet.
First they create tons of free software applications and then they complain when it's hard to find tech jobs.
Well, half the market has been eroded by your own software, stupid! You should've used your skills to make a living, not to destroy your own employment market!
Will code a sig generator for food
This is something that has been bothering me for a long time now: the United States has payed to educate many of the people that will now be our competitors. This doesn't seem right.
I've seen NSF grants given to faculty and grad students -- all Indian -- who will then take their results and education back to India to use in competition against us. I just completed an undergraduate course in where this was the case.
I asked the TA/GA: "So, what are you going to do after you graduate?"
He said, "Go back to India".
The fact is that Education spending and Science research dollars are being used to Educate and train our competitors. We're being taxed to cut our own throats.
The logic behind public education is this: people that get educated can take that education somewhere else, so it doesn't make sense for a business to invest all that money is someone who will go elsewhere. So we get everyone to share paying for education. This way, one company doesn't get stuck with the bill with the others reap the rewards.
This doesn't work when the companies in places like India don't have to help pay for that education through taxes.
We also are forced to pay for other expenses of foreign student that default on debt. A very popular way right now to pay for food, housing etc, is to run up credit card debt, then leave the country with your shining new degree -- never to return.