Slashdot Mirror
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."
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."
Linux will be free off all those foreign contributions.
Does this mean that MS Windows is now a security threat threat too? Because afterall, we could now have terrorists embedding code into Windows that is malicious!
Are they outsourcing high-level work, or work on Windoze?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Are these new jobs, or taking away from current jobs in the states? Maybe this will speed development up on Longhorn... or maybe not..
Boxing Equipment Reviews
I was going to say something about the government taking issue with Microsoft outsourcing Windows code to non-Americans... how it might make it possible to introduce dangerous code, backdoors, security exceptions and all sorts of potential disasters.... ...and then I realized, well, how much worse could it be?
Are these outsourced workers going to be working on the same Windows code that Microsoft claimed would be a national security risk if it was ever exposed? Anyone else remember that?
Here's what I don't get. If you take the URL for this article, replace it. with games. you get the games color scheme.
/. could be.
In other words, all that matters is slashdot.org, the "section" only adds the shitty color scheme.
So why not let users pick a scheme they like in user prefs? Personally I'd rather never see the games. or it. again, though it. is particularly crap-tastic, I honestly thought the games. was as ugly as
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The key to not getting bumped as a tech wage slave by outsourced labor is to not just learn a TECHNOLOGY, but learn a BUSINESS alongside it. Then your value will lie in the combination of business knowledge and tech know-how that you have. The kind of work value that this results in is not nearly so easily exported.
I want to outsource my liver functions to India, that way I could drink all day and all night and my own liver would be fine.
How to Download YouTube Videos
It's bad for MSFT et all to outsource programming work to cheaper labor markets.
It's good for corporations to expect Open Source zealots to write it all for free.
Cheap software takes away more jobs than free software?
I thought the whole point of the OS movement was to make the programmer completely irrelevant.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I'll say it until people understand it or refute it: you cannot be both for free trade and against outsourcing. They are the same thing. There is no difference between importing computer hardware and importing software services (outsourcing) except in the particular sector affected.
Perhaps the ranters should send back all their hardware to Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, etc. and buy American!!
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
hmm... that is interesting. if you just drop the "it." from the front, the color scheme disappears and you get the normal slashdot colors.
Casual Games/Downloads
You know, the strangest thing that struck me about outsourcing is that a lot of the companies doing so are doing well BEFORE outsourcing. They do so in order to save money and increase profits. In turn, that translates to "growth" and better eyecandy for investors.
Not a lot of these companies are hurting for cash. They outsource for more money. I wonder if people would support such companies if they knew where the workers were from. I mean sure, the consumer saves a buck or so because of the cheaper labor...but will they be willing to pay that extra buck knowing they're supporting a competing but an absolutely "Made in the (insert country here)" product?
Here's the god awful color again. How tough it this to change? Who decided on this horrible, horrible, horrible color scheme?
Color scheme decisions got outsourced.
The evidence is a cache of Microsoft contracts with Indian technology vendors
Isn't it strange how Slashdot's outsourcing stories are always about India and China?
They're never talking about shocking evidence of contracts with e.g. Canadian or Irish technology vendors.
Not that I'm suggesting that this is barely veiled racism. You can get modded down for being honest about that.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
Simply change your DNS records to resolve it.slashdot, games.slashdot, or whatever colour (yes, I'm British) scheme you don't like, and Robert's your proverbial uncle...
Personally, I've done so, except of apple.slashdot, which I quite like...
> If you took Joe Six-pack and actually took the time to educate him on the fact that he can't mess with the chips in *HIS* playstation 2 legally because of some weird-ass law called the DCMA...
You have a strange idea of who "Joe Six-Pack" is. Joe six-pack is shooting squirrels with his 12-gauge while he spits chewing-tobacco into a coffee can which is overflowing onto his shoes, staining them the color of this god-awful Slashdot section.
I don't think he has had much luck soldering hacked chips into any consumer electronics lately, and he surely isn't worried about the DCMA.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
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!
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
They "outsourced" cars too... Or would you rather be driving a Pinto? The company's profits go to the owners of the company, shareholders. You know, the people getting $75B in dividends from Microsoft (Bill Gates once famously said $640K should be enough dividends for any company). Now, I disagree with the DMCA because it is anti-capitalist. But capitalism in itself isn't cruel. It sucks for some people, but it's better than socialism, where it sucks for everybody.
(This is gonna get me modded down for sure).
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
> Outsourcing is not evil. Outsourcing is the only logical result of
> overregulation and overtaxation in the US.
Overregulation in the US is the only reason you don't work 21 hour days in a sweatshop with no breaks, no safety
equipment and only getting paid in credits good at the company store. That is the only logical result of
underregulation by the US. Think, dovich!
Read "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, please
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
Actually it can be. Here are some of the advantages:
- Lower Cost of Living, I bought a house in Austin for $100k
- More space
- Nobody looks strange at you when you date your sister or cousin
- You can date your farm animals
- With such a low average intelligence, you are much smarter than anyone else.
But there is one disadvantage: You are in Texas.Fight Spammers!
India is a country of 1bn people. If Microsoft wants equal access to the Indian market, it seems only fair that they have proportional numbers of developers in India, which means that you would expect 3x as many Microsoft developers in India than in the US.
I think you've got John Kerry's next hunting story there. "There's nothing Theresa and I enjoy more than crawling around on our bellies shooting squirrels with a 12-gauge! As you can see, you hillbilly morons and I are a lot alike."
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Yes, because not wanting Microsoft to unethically exploit foreign contractors, who would be charging more money for their services if their countries didn't lack labour-protection laws, is so racist. As is demanding investment in foreign countries that helps them build their own economies, instead of just stripping them of their resources.
Why should a company's profit be at the expense of an individuals welfare? /. are probably stockholders in some form (mutual funds, 401k, individual stock investments, etc). Most of them would also prefer to invest so their money gets a 10% rate of return than 1%. If your stock is underperfoming then you sell it and get one that gives you a better rate.
I find it amusing how people feel companies are some nebulous single entity.
Stockholders are the ones who own the company, and I would bet most people on
As consumers you look to maximize your money when you spend. You would prefer to spend $50 on a new cell phone from company A than to spend $100 on the same cell phone from company B.
So basically we are telling companies, make more money for us, but we want to spend less on the stuff you sell. How can companies respond? Reducing costs, like materials and LABOR. Outsourcing isn't something new, its been done for decades in other industries like manufacturing. People in IT have been benifiting from reduced costs on items and increases in stocks they own because of outsourcing in other industries, now that it's their job in jeapordy they complain.
If you want to know what drives corporate greed, just look in the mirror.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
"But there is a certain "nationalism" which one expects a company to have."
Typed the geek using his computer built in and/or have components made in Taiwan, China, Malaysia, etc.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Outsourcing is a problem only because we have a slavery system. Our livelihood depends on working for others so we can pay our taxes. The reason that we have to work for others is that 99% of people have been deprived of an inheritance in the wealth of the land. Income property is owned by a few and the state. The others are slaves. Artists, programmers and inventors depend on their work to make a living. Can we blame them? We all depend on our labor because we are all slaves. So now we are swimming in a ocean of laws and rules that take away our remaining liberties, one by one.
Let's face it, if you cannot put a fence around it or put chains on it, it does not belong to you. Makes no difference whether it is ideas, writings, software, music or what have you. Once you've released it, like the air, it belongs to nobody and everybody.
Intellectual property owners (such as Microsoft and the music industry) will fight freedom with everything they've got. Right now they have two formidable weapons: IP laws and powerful police states to enforce them. But those who yearn to be free also have a formidable weapon, the internet.
The internet and other communication technologies (e.g., file sharing systems) are the first major kinks in the armor of a sick system. As technology progresses, the system will eventually collapse. What will happen to a slave-based economy when robots and advanced artificial intelligences replace everybody, i. e., when human labor, knowledge and expertise become worthless? It will be orders of magnitude worse than outsourcing.
And don't think for a minute this won't happen in your lifetime. The internet is the latest giant leap in human communication. Before that came mass telecommunication technologies and before that was the movable press. If history is any indication, we can expect a giant leap in technological progress and scientific knowledge. In fact, it is happening before our very eyes.
We should all demand a system where everybody is guaranteed income property, a piece of the pie, an estate if you will. There is plenty for everybody.
Communism confiscates all property and enslaves everybody. Capitalism gives property to a few and enslaves the rest. It's sad. The land should not be divided for a price. It should be an inheritance for us and our children and their children. It's the only way to guarantee freedom and a truly free market in a world where human labor is about to go the way of the dinosaurs. Demand liberty! Nothing less.
Since when did the law of averages have anything to do with programming ability? I would say that Indians generally are not only better programmers, on average, but better theoretical computer scientists, too.
Go look up some of the premier computer science departments in the country (or even around the world) and take a hard look at the number of Indians (and Chinese) PhD students. Then go look at the average quantitative GRE scores of Asians and compare them to other races. Seeing anything interesting?
The reality is that the education system in India is generally more rigorous, especially when it comes to math. I doubt that Microsoft's primary motive for outsourcing is money -- they're not hurting for cash -- but instead is simply an effort to try and find a large number of great computer scientists. Unless we start increasing the effectiveness of our own elementary and secondary school systems, we're going to be slowly left behind.
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.
I will assume you're just joking, but in case you're not, then I have to mention that your description of Joe Sixpack is way off base.
Joe Sixpack is the guy that does manual labor. Like welding. And soldering. Hell, he even knows how to pronounce the word. He can change his own oil and he does so. Consumer electronics are more likely to be soldered in his home because he knows how (unlike most geeks and anyone that wears a tie to work). He may be an electrician, even. Or a plumber. Or a machinist. Or any of the millions of other non-IT, non-service jobs in the US.
He is mad about the chips in his car's engine because he is not allowed to buy the tools to work on them. He may not own a Playstation, but, as the grandparent said, he'll be pissed when he finds out there is a law against modding it. He didn't have a Playstation when he grew up but he modded everything from his bike (with playing cards and clothespins) to his cars.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
happen to a slave-based economy when robots and advanced artificial intelligences replace everybody, i. e., when human labor, knowledge and expertise become worthless? It will be orders of magnitude worse than outsourcing.
Then it will be time for the great robot war!
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
That's not what he's getting at, and your suggestion that it is is unreasonable.
Ignoring the history of Microsoft's product security at large the simple point he makes is a good one: opening the source for inspection is not the same as the source actually being inspected. In fact it takes some time and skill to inspect source for vulnerabilities, and it's a distinctly unglamourous job. And that's why the "it's open source, it must be secure" mantra rings plenty hollow -- very few people are interested enough to take the time.
Or did you never have to compile a new version of Apache, OpenSSH or OpenSSL to fix a security problem?
My experience is that it does not matter to where you outsource it. Any job outsourced to another company can result in bad quality code.
Remember that every company will tell you how good the quality of their programmers is, how good their methodology is, etc. But in the end they just allocate a bunch of programmers to your job, and every time a new (= always more important) job comes in, the best people are moved to there and a new load of trainees continues on your work.
This can happen when you outsource to India, but it may just as well happen when you outsource to a reputable company in your own country.
I'll give you two hints:
Have a look at the number of Chinese and Indians in the world. And second, have another look at the average GRE scores of Non-US citizens.
Yes, a more rigorous education system could be the cause. Yes, the US education system could be improved.
But taking your arguments from that data doesn't help your cause.
Non-US citizens taking the GRE are already a subset of the Non-US population, and probably not the dumber one. Chinese and Indians are 1/3 of the world population, so they are represented accordingly. Especially when you consider that those major CS departments are well funded and aren't discriminating in respect to nationality.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Believe it or now, majority of millionaires in US are first generation millionaires. The reason being is that the children of millionaires tend to be spoiled and are more likely to blow their money away.
How about have the government provide a guaranteed income property, why don't you stop pissing away your money on stupid crap and use the money saved to buy your income property? Do you really want to government to chose your investment for you since they did such a great job with Social Security?
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
No. Why? Because both locations are subject to the same labor laws. You know, the ones that specify what minimum wage must be paid, what overtime must be paid, etc.
Offshoring to locations which aren't subject to such labor laws is the problem, because now suddenly you have a group of people (the one you're in) who are living in a system that provides certain protections competing against people who could easily be slaves in the real sense of the word. When your competition is slave labor, and the only variable that can be tweaked to make you competitive is your own standard of living, what exactly do you think is going to happen? Do you really think your standard of living isn't going to drop to match that of the slave? Only a total moron would believe that.
I have no problem with offshoring work as long as the people doing the work are operating under labor laws at least as protective as our own. Otherwise it quickly degenerates into a race to the bottom for the people doing the real work, with the only real variable being the standard of living of those workers. And guess what? Even the things we take for granted right now, like electricity and running water, are things that cost money and are thus subject to being reduced or eliminated in order to make the labor pool cheaper and thus more competitive.
Remember: the cheapest labor is a slave who gets barely enough to eat.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Companies do not, have not and never will outsource because it results in good quality work. That's merely a lie to placate their customers. They outsource because it cuts costs and lower costs means higher stock price. Now given that most company directors have bonuses tied to rises in stock price, and the damage the outsourcing causes won't become apparent for a few years; it's pretty obvious why outsourcing is occuring.