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.'"

Comments

I have a plan...

[nother_nix_hacker]

...I'll move to India. That'll fuck em' over!

Re:I have a plan...

[vsprintf]

Programming is simply a commodity. I oughta know, I am a programmer. My job will go overseas sometime soon. I'm just trying to make as much money as possible beforehand, in the opes that I am prepared.

I'm a programmer too, and I find little logic in your comment. Why should a company which is based in the U.S. be allowed to benefit from the infrastructure here while offshoring jobs? Why should the company get a free ride when their employees no longer pay U.S. taxes or pay into Social Security, and the company no longer pays the mandatory matching contribution? Sure, the company might make more money in the short run (and shareholders in whatever country make a few pennies), but it is at the expense of the American taxpayer. Companies that offshore their labor should do the right thing and offshore their headquarters and management as well, so they can adequately supervise their operations.

Since U.S. executive compensation is so horribly out of whack compared to the average worker's in comparison to the rest of the world (over 500:1 at last count), why aren't the executives' jobs offshored first? That would be the most logical place to start cutting costs and improving profits. And if managerial brains are not a commodity, what is? IBM's position is: "Ooh, ooh, other companies are doing it, so we gotta do it too." I liked the old IBM better. Then they had real management that appreciated the fact that the current employees made the company what it was.

Re:I have a plan...

[tbradshaw]

Actually, sugar cane is still grown in Hawaii. Surprisingly, sugar is the one of the most subsidised industries in the US. We pay over five times the "world price" for sugar.

Originally it was just to protect sugar growers, but after corn syrup became the number one sugar substitute, it's now used to keep domestic sugar prices higher than corn.

Why would this be that important? Well because the first political primary is in Iowa, of course, corn capital of the world. Historians will look back at the US and wonder why in the hell corn farmers had such a huge impact on the policies of the most powerful nation in the world.

reduce costs?

[linuxislandsucks]

so its okay to outsource jobs to reduce costs but not okay to lower salaries of the top management to reduce costs?

Re:reduce costs?

[mcgroarty]

Someone [who the board believes to be] capable of driving a company isn't a commodity worker. Pretty much everybody in the middle class in the US is a commodity worker however.

Thanks to globalization, the middle class will find themselves increasingly distanced from the wealthy. The IBM situation is merely one example of this.

Re:reduce costs?

[Ooblek]

Yeah, and it would be a real turn off to the customers to have some lard-ass, ex-geek sticking his greasy-haired head under the soda fountain and guzzling Coke every 10 minutes for his "fix."

I'm sure that someone with a higher IQ than the next 10 average customers in line combined wouldn't be good. I had a hard enough time dealing with idiot customers who couldn't figure out how to articulate their order when I worked there as a kid. I can imagine now:

Customer: I want 3 happy meals and 2 big mac meal deals.
Me: What kind of happy meals?
Customer: What kind are there?
Me: Its on the menu. The same place its been since I was 17 years old and working at this joint.
Customer: Hmm...lets see...where is it?
Me: *sigh* in the corner...hamburger, cheesburger, or mcnuggets?
Customer: All hamburger.
Me: Ok, what kind of drink with those?
Customer: With what?
Me: What were we just talking about? Wasn't it happy meals? What kind of drink with the happy meals?
Customer: oh, orange sprite (the list of drinks would have sprite follow orange on the menu, so it was common to have people order "orange sprite")
Me: No, its either orange or its sprite. Which one?
Customer: But it says orange sprite right there.
Me: Oh, so you couldn't find the damn happy meal, but can find the one spot on the menu where the order in which the choices of drink flavor are enumerated is a little ambiguous? It also appears to say diet coke ice-tea there too, but you know that would taste like shit and wouldn't order that. So, no orange-sprite, just orange or sprite. They are mutually exclusive, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?!?
Customer: ok, orange. I also want ketchup only on one of the happy meals, pickles only on one, and cheese only on one.
Me: Ok, first, why the hell didn't you specify the toppings were something other than the default back when we were standing on the imaginary circle in the imaginary state diagram that everyone in the world except you seems to follow when ordering fast food? And there is no CHEESE on a HAMBURGER you fucktard! Sorry, state token has expired, YOU EAT THE DEFAULT BIATCH!
Customer: You're rude, I want to speak with your manager!
Manager: What seems to be the problem here?
Customer: I was just trying to order some happy meals and your employee here was being rude and won't give me orange sprite.
Manager: Orange sprite? We don't have orange sprite.
Customer: It says so right there on the menu.
Manager: Hmmm....I see all the drinks, but I don't see orange sprite.
Me: She thinks because orange is next to sprite that it means orange sprite numnutz.
Manager: Oh, we're not allowed to mix drinks.
Me: Can we get this over with please?
Manager: Patience my young padawan burger flipper.
Me: Ok, thats it....where is the nearest sharp instrument? Or would you prefer to be stuffed into the ice machine?

Ah, to be young again....

in the future

[ralico]

We'll be telling our grandkids that the US actually had an H1B visa program to encourage tech workers from other countries to work here, not the other way around. And they'll say
"Grandpa, you're pulling my leg!"

well.... it works like this

[lylum]

Welcome to capitalism. You must be new here?

Admit it...

[JoeLinux]

As an Electrical Engineer, I'm thoroughly convinced that defense jobs are the only ones that are going to stay in-country. Might as well jump on the band-wagon now. Viva le Tomahawk!

The meek might inheret the earth, but they'll be in India.

Oh my god!

[autopr0n]

You mean to tell me that International Business Machines might employ people in other countries!!!?!?!!112@

That's just so wrong!

Re:Oh my god!

[Tablizer]

You mean to tell me that International Business Machines might employ people in other countries!?

I hear they are going to change their name to Indian Business Machines :-P

Re:I guess...

[Xerithane]

My only question is, if you have questions with the code, aren't you going to need a translator for the comments?

English is the international language for software development. Most companies that have overseas work, or open operations will have business-level English speakers at hand for this stuff. We have 3 Indians here, all of whom speak excellent English (although one has an accent exactly like Apu) just for that reason.

And what's a network function variable?

Get off your ass and learn.

[Dr. Bent]

I'm an American. I lead a lifestyle that is substantially better than most of the people on the planet. Outsourcing of IT jobs to countries like China, Russia and India is threatening that lifestyle, and if I'm not careful it could all go right down the drain.

I say: Good. It's about damn time.

Why does America deserve to have all the wealth that it has? If someone in India can do my job at 1/10th the cost, why exactly should anyone pay me to do it? Simply to support my American way of life? No. The American way of life is not a birthright. It has to be earned. You earn it by doing what those guys in India and China and Russia can't do. You earn it by innovating, and by taking risks. You earn it by seizing on oppertunities that those guys simply do not have access to.

It's time to wake up people. Being able to sling a little code, set up a webserver and talk your way around a design meeting is not going to cut it anymore. You need to get off your ass, put the time in on the weekends and:

1) Identify what it is that you can do that cannot be done by anyone else (or at least, anyone who is willing to work for your salary)

2) Train yourself to do it well.

Otherwise you will not have a job. Simple as that. Just like during the manufacturing boom in the 50's and 60's, America (and Western Civilization in general) had gotten fat and lazy in the last few years. Now there is simply no reason why you are worth 10 times more than the rest of the world. So you had better come up with a reason, or move to China.

Re:this is becoming too repetitive now!

[Colonel Panic]

Stop Cribbing, Guys! Get your skills upto date....there is no dearth of jobs for quality workers.

That's like saying "Learn to swim better guys, you can out swim this tsunami!" as the tidal wave breaks over your head.

You think they don't have quality workers in India? You think the USA is the only place which has quality workers?

Now the game is all about price anyway, and we're way overpriced compared to quality workers in India. Time to learn how to fix cars or teeth.

best Indian engineers come to US

[dyj]

While it is true that many technical jobs have been moved to India, the best Indian engineers actual come to the US to have jobs here.

CBS's 60 Minutes had a segment on students of the ultra-competitive Indian Institute of Technology a while ago. And apparently all the graduates from IIT want to come to the US.

Therefore, I have the thesis that technical jobs in the US are simply getting more and more advanced, whlie "easier" technical jobs are being moved overseas.

Re:I'm going to go down for this.

[darkov]

Exactly. This is what happens in an efficient (global) economy. A product becomes popular (computer technology) it becomes a commodity and gets cheaper, margins shrink and you look to save on costs.

The solution isn't to weep and wail and whinge, but to innovate. That's how the US got where it is in the first place. But you should understand it never stops. Free your mind and get rich!

Saying this on /. may be suicide but..

[k98sven]

In my opinion, computer programming should no longer be considered a "high-tech" job.

Sure, there is science in the mix (mostly logic, math), but how many programmers actually make use of this stuff on a daily basis? Most programming that is done in industry is relatively routine stuff;
Code, Run, Debug, Repeat.

Only a lucky few are developing completely new algorithms, and doing what can really be called 'research'. The rest are just engineering jobs, if that.

Now the former, research-related stuff, will stay in the country. Our universities and research are still much better.

The latter type of programming, which unfortunately is what most people are doing, like writing VB programs to solve relatively simple tasks and such, cannot compete.
There is no reason to keep those jobs in the country if someone else can do the same thing cheaper.

And that's just fine with me. For nations like India, it's still one step up on the ladder of technology, and for us, it's a motivation to keep pushing upwards towards the new areas that really are "high-tech".

Re:Saying this on /. may be suicide but..

[LaCosaNostradamus]

I appreciate your perspective and admire your boldness in posting such a thing on /., but I am compelled to speak the truth and to counter misconceptions where I see them. You have missed some critical features of professional work.

There are many instances in every job where a level of commonality is reached. In this level, a "trained monkey" could do the job. But that doesn't cast the entirety of the profession onto the manual-labor streetcorner.

I have wormed my way back into IT (serendipity played a large part of that, however), and I find myself writing a lot of procedures for others to follow. The procedures are for even the lay person to follow, since time is always of the essence. But it took my little skilled self to not only write them, but to come up with the need to have them written in the first place. Corporate memory arises from Human action, and those acts are skilled ones.

Added to this is the sad, sad truth that too many people cannot even construct logical thought processes necessary to be an effective professional. IT work is brutally logical and missing details leads to almost catastrophic results. IT is laboring under the weight of that old song or poem about For The Want of a Nail. The need for disciplined thinking alone puts such work into realm of "uncommonality".

In summary, yes, you are broadly correct that pushing VB routines around is more of a commodity skill and as such can be priced down to minima. However, programming itself is a profession requiring years of dedicated practice and study, and you will be hard pressed to demand a 4-year degree for a 4-year career, or a 16-yr-old's wages.

From Central European perspective...

[Przepla]

...it's very good think. I live in Poland, where unemployment rate is as high as 20%, 50% of university graduates are unemployed, and where I work as a system administrator for about 1000 zlotys (less than 300 USD) monthly and last payment was from March.
I have a Masters Degree in Physics, and I am finishing my Masters thesis in Law. I'm 25 and still living with my parents in a flat (let's just say, that renting one room flat costs over 500 zlotys (half of my pay)) and I consider myself very lucky having a place to live, a job, and at least some perspectives.
So whenever some US corp. is moving out of US, we people from underdeveloped countries, are rather happy, as this means better future for us.

Re:Any thoughts on another line of work?

[Abalamahalamatandra]

Easy. Don't be a developer.

Get involved in infrastructure work - all the suits left here aren't going to be communicating with the slave labor over there via the US Mail - they'll still need computing infrastructure here, like Internet access, email, and decision support systems.

I would say that you should look at computer security, but over the years I've tried to train a lot of people in it (my field) and I've become convinced that it just takes a certain kind of person to do it - you're pretty much always interested in it, or you're not and can't get that way by training.

I've got some karma to spend, so I'll say it - a certain amount of this will be good for the industry as a whole. A lot of the people getting weeded out by this outsourcing are the ones who took their classes to become a developer and "make the big bucks". Over time we'll realize that IT in the US will be left with the people who think up the cool stuff to do and leave it to the overseas grunts to actually execute.

That said, I also want to say that I'll be the first to laugh when one of these countries (probably not India, though) becomes the next Iraq and some US companies get put in a serious bind.

As for those saying that this will redistribute the wealth globally - get real! We're creating a new overseas worker class, not new overseas companies. The jobs are going there because the people will work for peanuts, not because they have great skills and deserve huge salaries.