A Thoughtful Look at Indian Outsourcing

thefinite writes "This article needs to be read by anyone interested in the outsourcing of IT jobs to India, no matter your opinion of it. It dispels some rumors (for example, if Indian IT companies do such bad work, why are over half of Carnegie Mellon's highest-rated programming companies Indian?). It addresses all of the arguments. Perhaps most importantly, it adds faces to the problem. It not only tells us about the American programmers who are out of jobs, but also about the Indians who are getting them. In the end of it, this is what Free Trade is about: people. This article makes that clear."

Comments

Re:Cannonfodder

[EvilTwinSkippy]

What the hell is that supposed to mean? Let me tell you, prior to WWII the average american was dirt poor. And considering all of my Great Grandparents were poor immigrants, THAT was better than where they were coming from.

Having to pay for college out of pocket, I can't compete with someone who is either a) coming from a state sponsored school or b) from a family of means that absorbed the cost of his/her education.

I wonder if Ireland will take me back...

Re:That's all well and good....

[EvilTwinSkippy]

If you are an Indian with a college education, odds are you come from a family with means.

We aren't hiring the poor destitute dirt farmers. We are hiring the Brahmans.

Boo hoo

[nickgrieve]

I'll shed a tear for the American Programmer the day the American consumer sheds a tear for the sweat shop laborer that made the overprices POS shoes you can afford to pay gross markups for from the likes of Nike.

Your country profits from the exploitation of child labor and people caught in poverty traps... You there, unemployed developer, reading this... reap what you sow.

Re:Cannonfodder

[Breakfast Pants]

No dumbass, take econ 101 and then come back to Slashdot, you little shit. Its not in your country's best interest whatsoever that you be employeed at something for which there is a cheaper alternative just for the sake of keeping you employeed in the field in which you want to be employeed. It is not your country's best interest; it is your best interest. There is a big, big difference. If you ran the country you would pay workers to dig holes and then fill them up with our excess money, its better to be insanely wasteful and keep unemployment down than it is to heaven forbid make some little fuck like yourself a little more competitive in the job market now isn't it? Fuck off.

Re:India

[gabbarsingh]

Let me reply to you with this real life example. A community around Ft. Worth, TX was worried because there wasn't enough work at Lockheed Martin - the primary employer there. They did news programs about how people couldn't go to baseball games etc. Then one day - what stroke of luck! - they got an order for 75 F-16s fighter planes. The community was saved and everything was dandy.

Guess who ordered those F-16s - Israel.

There is something going on between industry and government that you don't understand my friend and that's precisely the reason there won't be any mushroom cloud to begin with. Watching too much CNN caught you by India s/w attack in the first place, didn't think a caste ridden, third world, poverty stricken country could take the IT jobs (that you thought were *so* very difficult, that it needed a BMW Z3 before you could start to do 'em).

Your over simplistic thinking, poor knowledge of world affairs, and even a poorer knowledge of American system (in which you live and work) is really what bothers you, not anything else.

Re:The end of the industry as we know it

[Troed]

Please tell me which nordic countries have legalized prostitution and cannabis.

It's not Sweden, Norway, Denmark or Finland .. and I doubt it's Iceland .. which leaves .. ? /me - Swedish

(I agree that we're a lot more free than the US though)