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Microsoft to Invest $1.7 billion in India
piyushranjan writes "Bill Gates has announced that Microsoft will invest $1.7 billion in India over the next four years to expand its operations. The fund would also be spent in making India a major hub of Microsoft's research, product and application development, services and technical support for both global and domestic companies. Microsoft plans to create 3000 more jobs at India, taking it's headcount at India to 7000."
...as my right hand takes your wallet.
Cue the debate about US job losses and globalisation. The real issue IMO is the Microsoft tactics of using trade pressure to lobby for anti-competition legislation. "Yes, I'll invest 1.8bn, but only if you ban free software and enable software patents".
The truth is that India is capable of doing a lot better without this kind of "help". I encourage Indian politicians to reject any such pressure. Indian IT can compete securely on the open market, without favours or protectionism. Software patents, and other anti-competitive laws will only hurt India in the medium and long term.
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I expect Microsoft will be making similar investments in China too.
I see this as partly a defensive move - they know India and China are potentially two big markets for the future, and they don't want them considering OSS alternatives. They will use these investments to twist the governments arms. Although I don't think it will work with the Chinese, it might work in India.
The key markets for information technology in the next few decades are not the US, Western Europe or Japan. The key markets key, as in where the majority of goods will be purchsed and consumed-- are Mainlaind China, India, Eastern Europe and South America.
Where do I get that idea? Easy, hardware manufacturers. People in the wealthy nations often have a hard time imagining how hardware can get any cheaper and still remain profitable and yet it does relentlessly continue to decline in price. The answer to how it remains profitable is simple, volume. And that volume cannot and will not exist in the highly profitable and yet relatively sparsely populated wealthy countries. There simply are not enough consumers.
So, as a manufacturer, you simply enter new markets by lowering your costs until the real masses, the billions, can afford your products. And you can bet that WiMax is going to be one of the enabling technolgies that is going to make this push into the "third world" happen all that much faster.
Which means it makes perfect sense for Microsoft to have a real presence in these markets. In fact, you could argue they're moving too slowly.
But none of that has the slightest thing to do with "outsourcing". It's just the reality of where IT is going.
And Microsoft wonders why there are less and less people going into Computer Science and other Computer programs here in the States?
Having worked with a software development group in India for 3 years now, I can honestly say I am not impressed. Many of the engineers there are well educated on paper, but in reality lacked creativity and the ability to work independently. They were definitely cheaper, but the price we paid for that was a huge cut in productivity. We needed 2-3x more of them to get the job of one engineer done here.
On the flip side, I also work with many Indians here in the US on my team. The differences are startling compared to their counterparts in India. They are much stronger in all aspects of engineering, whether its creativity or pure coding knowledge. It appears that the issues are somewhat cultural and will improve with time.
Good luck to Microsoft and the others, but we are scaling back our staff in India. It's just not worth it yet.
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/Microsoft I can see...Not like they're error free to begin with.
But Intel? Didn't they learn anything?
Time to buy some more AMD stock.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Microsoft (or any American company) investing overseas is not news. It's foolish to assume that there is such a thing as American protectionism, pride, etc anymore. Whether or not this is a good move will depend on how it effects future software. If we get better Microsoft software that's great they need the help. If not they wasted their money big deal. I'd love to say Microsoft is betraying it's American roots but quite frankly there's nothing left to betray.
Yeah, I'm sure this has nothing to do with India's move to open source software. And I'm sure Microsoft's investment will in no way affect the government's decision. No sir.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
If that headline doesn't send MA a message on switching to OpenDoc nothing will
All the other crap about why MA should switch to OpenDoc I did not agree with. Totally did not (got modded down a bunch for my views also)...this reason, is a great reason why MA should drop office for OpenDoc. No reason to send our money to India...and what better way to penalize a gigantic business then by cutting off their gov't contracts.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
it is a smart move for microsoft, look at their neibour, china.
With the skilled workforce of india and low cost and then less restrictive laws as such countries as china it would make perfect sense to be based in india for the middleeast and asia market.
my 2jiao
You could use the same blanket statement about the US. I refer you to this little tidbit: Poverty in India. And I quote: "India still has the world's largest number of poor people in a single country. Of its nearly 1 billion inhabitants, an estimated 350-400 million are below the poverty line, 75 per cent of them in the rural areas."
When I was travelling in Mumbai I met some people who had been working as software engineers in San Francisco but returned to India because they said the standard of living was better for a software engineer.Or perhaps because they knew their US jobs would soon be shipped there. And when you live amongst that much poverty, of course your standard of living is better.
GDP is just an economist's smokescreen. They trot those numbers out like somehow that money is making it's way into everyone's pockets, when in fact the poor are still getting poorer, the rich are still getting richer, and the middle class is still footing the bill.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Partly true, but then economics is a funny beast. Does the value of the economy of the USA suddenly drop when the dollar drops? Of course not. That is why GDP (PPP) is used rather than straight GDP. Both figures are in some ways misleading, but GDP (PPP) is felt to be the less misleading of the two, which I expect is why it is the figure the CIA world factbook uses it.
No the story should read: "Microsoft outsources to India: Press Paid-off to show in Positive Light".
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF