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IBM Snags Leading Indian Outsourcing Firm
theodp writes "In one of the biggest foreign acquisitions in India in the past few years, according to ZDNet, IBM will pay an estimated $150-$200 million to acquire Daksh, India's third-largest back-office services company. The deal will give IBM access to privately held Daksh's 6,000 employees, who mainly offer call center services to 13 clients, including Amazon.com."
A guy from Microsoft, a guy from Apple, and a guy from Sun are at a conference. During a break they all go to the restroom to take a leak.
After they finish, the Microsoft guy washes his hands, takes a whole bunch of paper towels and dries his hands REALLY well. He turns to the others and says,
"At Microsoft, we have to be thorough."
The Apple guy then goes to wash his hands and takes a single paper towel and dries his hands perfectly with it. He smugly says,
"At Apple, we have to be thorough AND efficient."
The Sun guy just walks straight out the door without even washing.
"At Sun, we don't piss on our hands."
In related news, Daksh announced that it would be closing its domestic operations and laying off 5,500 Indian workers, in favor of opening offices overseas, in the developing world. Offices in Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo), Pitcairn Island (South Pacific), Ashgabat (Turkmenistan) and Hickory-Flat (Mississippi, USA) are planned.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
IBM Snags Leading Indian Outsourcing Firm
Just don't call it Leading INDian OutSourcing" and everything will be fine.
Layoffs, or never-hires?
Who do you think is going to be taking calls for IBM's linux initiatives?
RedHat's outsourced already, noone ever mentions it here because you cant deride the almighty linux vendors.
I called Red Hat tech support once a couple years ago, and talked to some guy who barely spoke english who told me he was in the Philippines.
A free-as-in-beer OS needs a cheap-as-in-sweatshop support staff.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I hear the voices of 6,000 worried Indians, afraid that their jobs might be sent to the US because they were bought out by an American company.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Not only has IBM laid off employees but they have a habit of making bad choices that all but nullify their acquisitions of human resource based takeovers. When IBM purchased PriceWaterhouseCooper's consulting firms, everything was all good, until about a month or two ago when these former PWC employees found out they were not going to recieve any of their yearly bonus (~50% of yearly earnings for many of these consultants) because IBM "didn't make enough money" It'll be interesting to see what happens with this one, whether it becomes another PWC or whether they actually take care of the employees.
It seems to me that IBM may be doing this not for the sole reason to outsource, but to gain market share outside the US in terms of government contracts. The Indian Government is fiercely isolationist when it comes to contracting out IT and other services, and IBM acquiring Daksh may just get their foot in the door.
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Amadaeus
The last bastion of Mathie-ism
He was probably confused because it's spelled "waive".
He was wondering if you wanted to take them surfing or what.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Wow, I didn't think too many people remembered that. When I was little I lived in an "IBM town" (there was a local plant that employed abut 25,000). After the first layoffs in the early 90's (?) where at this particular plant two-thirds of the jobs were cut (I think a lot of them were white-collar folks), the entire community changed. In my case, I would say roughly 3/4 of my neighborhood moved out within 3 years. It was interesting afterwards to say the least.
I think before if you got hired by IBM, it was pretty much assumed that you would work there until you retired. How times have changed indeed.
-- Kircle
Daksh is one of the biggest call center operations company in India. It was an early mover and has built up a significant repository of top clients in US. Infact there is an army of employees working for them and you can see many of their ads in the local newspapers every week for hiring new people. Interesting fact is that Citigroup and General Atlantic Partners and Actis hold 2/3rd of the equity in the company. This deal is going to make the Chief Executive and some employees in Daksh and the equity companies millionaire's overnight. Infact they recently opened a center in Philippines so it gives IBM the foot print in India as well as Philippines. IBM snatched a big one here!
I have a -very- smart friend who works in the bowels of IBM: The top management may be back slapping each other about how they're doing financially right now but, they're bleeding talent badly and they don't realize how badly they're actually harming the company's long term prospects (some would say, "don't care"). The capable tech folks left at IBM are as bummed as any of us about outsourcing in general but they're also pretty unhappy with the low quality of the "results" that they're getting from "teams" in India -and- China (not to mention the viruses). We have yet to see what the actual IBM customers will think of all of this but it doesn't yet look like it's going to make for better products.
That's cause RedHat sucks.
Real men roll their own distro and fab their own processors.
Fear me, I am He-Nerd
But on the other hand, IBM is outsourcing your job to India.
But maybe there is consistency here. Linux = free software. India = cheap labor. They both help IBM keep their costs down.
When they finally meet, one is skinny and the other overweight.
The thin one says: "How did you manage? I ate a human just once and they turned out a small army to chase me -- guns, nets, it was terrible. Since then I've been reduced to eating mice, insects, even grass."
The fat one replies: "Well, *I* hid near an IBM office and ate a manager a day. And nobody even noticed!"
See, IBM has had a long tradition of too many chiefs, not enough err... Indians.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
One of my favorite catchphrases is to sarcastically say,"Why shouldn't someone be allowed to do X?" It's a lot of fun to do, especially after completely demolishing someone's perspective by shining a blinding light on reality.
It does no good to ask these questions without taking a serious look at reality. When you do, you will find all the answers that you need. There is no doubt that limiting freedom should not be done in an arbitrary and reckless manner, and that the burden of proof is on those who seek to limit freedom. However, all one has to do is look at the evidence to see that market fundamentalism is a horrible and flawed social policy. No one in their right mind asks questions such as,
"Why shouldn't people be allowed to trade stocks using insider information? Who are we to limit their freedom of speech?"
At least, no one that has studied the Great Depression.
And, if we take a look at what is happening with "Free" trade, we can see that it is being used as a tool to crush the weak. It is placing property rights above all other rights, in fact, it doesn't even recognize such basic things as being able to eat, or have decent healthcare as rights. In the point of view of market fundamentalists, the only things worth protecting are the rights of IBM, and those with property, to enjoy their property, and everyone else can starve and die, since they have no rights. This is all good and well, until one realizes that there is no logical basis for rights at all. Rights are whatever we decide them to be. Therefore, it makes no logical sense to promote IBM's right to their property any more than it does to promote the right of working people to have food, shelter, and decent medical care. We decide what should be a right based on what kind of society we want. If we want a society where IBM can dump a thousand people out on the street on a whim, and those people have no protections, then we can keep going in the direction "free" trade and market fundamentalism. If we want a society that treats each human being with dignity and respect, and gives everyone in it a way of contributing (including the 8-10% that are now unemployed), then we can give more priority to things such as a right to work, right to medical care, etc. There is no logic to it, it's based on what you feel is right. Logic is a tool, and it's application to this kind of problem is severely limited.
The reason why IBM, in my opinion, shouldn't be allowed to do whatever they want with their property is because property rights should be balanced with other desirable social ends. Honoring property rights should not trump all other social policy. If IBM moves their money to some other country, and as a result, thousands of people lose their jobs, the environment of the world takes a turn for the worse as IBM and others take advantage of India's inferior environmental protections, and the overall standard of living takes a nose dive, as IBM pockets the difference in increases profits, then we need to take a serious look at whether IBM's right over their property should come above other's standards of living, the envrionment, etc. These things do not operate in a vacuum, and if you want to understand the issue, it pays to realize that what IBM does affects not only itself, but a large amount of other people. Therefore, IBM should behave with an appropriate amount of responsibility, that is, if we want a society that behaves in a sane manner. My ownership of a 700 watt stereo does not give me the right to turn the volume up any more than IBM's right to it's property should give it absolute power over that property. The same reason why we outlawed slavery can be used as a basis for arguing against free trade. Slavery was outlawed because it was understood that freedom of contract should not take precedence over things such as a minimal standard of living for all. In a society that places freedom of contract, and property rights, above all else, the logical extension is, of course slavery, as those without po