CIO Magazine On Offshore IT

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. "

Comments

Re:It was never about money savings...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

You speak with the smugness of one who thinks this is somehow new. Pick up a copy of the Tao Te Ching. It's at least 2000 years old. Can't read Chinese? Not a problem, several folks over the past 100 years have translated the work to English:

Chapter 53

If I have even little sense,
I will walk upon the great path of Tao
and only fear straying from it.
This Great Way is straight and smooth
yet people often prefer the side roads.

The courtyard is well kept
but the fields are full of weeds,
and the granaries stand empty.
Still, there are those of us
who wear elegant clothes, carry sharp swords,
pamper ourselves with food and drink
and have more possessions than we can use.
These are the actions of robbers.

This is certainly far from the Tao.

More Toa

[EvilTwinSkippy]

My last post described the folly of consumer culture. Let's get a little more into human nature:

Chapter 77
The way of heaven is like the bending of a bow.
The high end is pulled down and the low end is raised up.
The excessive is diminished
and the deficient is supplemented.

It is the way of heaven to take where there is too much
in order to give where there is not enough.
The way of people is otherwise.
They take where there is not enough
in order to increase where there is already too much.
Who will take from their own excesses
and give to all under heaven?
Only those who hold to the Tao.

Therefore, the True Person benefits yet expects no reward,
does the work and moves on.
There is no desire to be considered better than others.

Yup, the rich have been getting richer since the dawn of time.

Re:It was never about money savings...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

And finally, people comment that the world gets smaller everyday. What does good old Lao Tsu think about that:

Chapter 80

In a small country with few people;
though there are machines that would increase
production ten to a hundred times
they are not used.
The people take death seriously and do not
travel about.

Though they have boats and carriages no one uses them.
Though they have armor and weapons,
there is no occasion to display them.

The people give up writing
and return to the knotting of cords.
They are satisfied with their food.
They are pleased with their clothes.
They are content with their homes.
They are happy in their simple ways.

Even though they live within sight of another country
and can hear dogs barking and cocks crowing in it,
still the people grow old and die
without ever coming into conflict.

Yup in a perfect world, we would be content with enough without trashing our neighbor's place to grab their stuff. What innovative new-wave thinking that we should all be in global cutthroat competition. Oh no, that's never been done before.

Re:It was never about money savings...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

What's that you say? The guy who takes over the world is going to hold all the keys? That somehow someone by being the richest person in the world is going to rule it.

Ha!

Chapter 29

Whoever wishes to take over the world
will not succeed.
The world is a sacred vessel
and nothing should be done to it.
Whoever tries to tamper with it
will mar it.
Whoever tries to grab it
will lose it.

Hence, there is a time to go ahead
and a time to stay behind.
There is a time to breathe easy
and a time to breathe hard.
There is a time to be vigorous
and a time to be gentle.
There is a time to gather
and a time to release.

Therefore, the True Person avoids extremes,
self-indulgence, and extravagance.

2000 years later, it's still true.

Re:It was never about money savings...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

And of course, people will continue to buy crap from you no matter how bad the followup products are, nor how advanced the competetions may be. Think Cisco.

Re:Where is the fabled USian entrepreneurship?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

And what precisely do you recommend? The IT sector is scarcely 30 years old. The Internet Services sector barely 10. 10 years. That gave someone enough time that, had there been coursework for it, to have gone through school, assuming that they finished in 4 years, had a whopping 6 year career.

Hint for the masses, my school loans are financed for 10 years after I graduated.

So, we can't get Blue Collar jobs because manufacturing fled. We can't get government jobs because of deficit spending. Now we can't even pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, educate ourselves, work hard, and even pay off the debt required to get that far.

I'm sorry, you must have been talking to my deaf ear. I didn't quite understand.