Microsoft Outsourcing High-Level Work

philistine writes "The Seattle Times reports
A Seattle labor group said it has new evidence that Microsoft is shifting high-level work to foreign contractors, including work on the next version of Windows. The evidence is a cache of Microsoft contracts with Indian technology vendors that were leaked to the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, an AFL-CIO affiliate that has focused on outsourcing in its effort to organize tech workers."

Comments

saying-good-bye-to-the-middle-class dept.

[Kunta Kinte]

saying-good-bye-to-the-middle-class dept.

Forget the many economist that make arguments like this one, stating that outsourcing will ultimately benefit consumers...

Forget government data that downplays the significance of offshore work...

Forget the fact that companies like Microsoft sell millions of dollars worth of software to foreign countries around the world...

...and just jump to the conclusion that the entire US middle class is doomed.

Nice!

Well that means even more bugs and security holes

[JustNiz]

I'a a 25-year veteran of working as a software developer as both a permie and a consultant.

I know the politically-correct policy is to consider that programmers from countries such as India do reasonable work, but my experience is that it is just not true. I keep finding that the resultant source-code from outsourcing is abysmal.

I've worked on projects for several different companies where programming has been outsourced to India and Russia, and it has always cost way more money to put it right than outsourcing the project has saved.

I expect Microsoft will also find this out the hard way, and to the end-users disadvantage.