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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."
...that they are crapping their pants at the state of linux acceptance in india, and the widespread use of the operating system independant programming language java.
Reuters news story on CNet
s t.util.print/
http://news.com.com/2102-1014_3-5985482.html?tag=
how much money they are making in India now. I suspect this is just a reasonable investment for such a big market.
Why worry about H1B Visas when you can just buy India.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
If that headline doesn't send MA a message on switching to OpenDoc nothing will.
From experience of remote call centers.
You'll get more sense out of the dog.
...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.
My blog
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.
Demand will begin to outpace supply in India's IT sector causeing the price of IT skilled labor to increase. If so it will reduce India's competitive advantage and less Indians will see any advantage to coming to the USA.
Meanwhile...
Whisky Tango Foxtrot does that mean? I'm not pedantic about language, but that's just absurd. Perhaps the true impact of this shift will be the reduction of English to verb tense confused propaganda?
Sig under construction since 1998.
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?
Blue screen of dal.
Let's see, population of approximately 1.1 billion... 7,000 total Microsoft jobs. Yes, I can see where that helps immensely!
India is poor, dirt poor. Even with the fairly decent number of jobs we've shipped there, it doesn't even begin to make a dent in the poverty level. And of course these jobs aren't available to the greater majority of the population, especially to the Dalit (formerly known as "untouchable") segment. Gates may be a big Kahuna in Africa but he isn't going to make much of a difference to India.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
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/FTS: "Microsoft plans to create 3000 more jobs at India" (emphasis mine)
India's pretty big, dude. Some even call it a sub-continent (though the Indian subcontinent also includes Bangladesh and parts of other countries).
I don't think MS is adding 3000 workers at India... in India, perhaps, or at MS's India facilities...
Anyway, It's a good move by MS for India, though Indians will be complaining in a few years about some of those jobs going to Africa and the Pac Rim.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Personally I think that this investment is doomed. That is because m$ business strategy simply does not fit with indian people philosophy. They belive in sharing knowledge (and software), those people are philosophically much closer to OSS ideas. That's why piracy is so widespread in asiatic regions - people simply do not agree that something must be paid for more than once, especially knowledge (which they belive is only worth sharing for free). Of course m$ can make there a big outpost, pay people huge amounts of money to get it running. But people will be unhappy and complain about m$'s strategy. And sooner or later it will all collapse.
my bet is that m$ knows all that what I've said. And they siply want to try to kill their philosophy before OSS will grow there strong enough to fully embrace it (and people there - I mean all the folks, not just IT people). This is sad news, as we will be observers of OSS vs. m$ fight on yet another front.
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
Remember: you can get it fast, right, or cheap. Pick Two.
It would appear the Microsoft Doctrine thinks they can achieve all three.
"Success is a lousy teacher. It makes smart people think they can't lose."
William Henry Gates, 3rd
Apu: "Yes, I'm sorry, I do not speak English, okay."
Woman: "But, you were just talking to..."
Apu: "Yes, yes, hot dog, hot dog, yes, sir, no, sir, maybe, okay."
The bad thing is that it will be an improvement over their current tech support...but I digress.
fak3r.com
Yes, it works out to $141k/yr... assuming they work on the side of the road with 2 sticks they cut themselves.
-Daniel
They should have invested in South Korea instead......
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
I actually got the response, "You don't need to know that" once. Sure, it was a relief after waiting almost an hour to get through, to ask a question that SHOULD have been available on the company website (Dell) anyway, and THEN have the individual on the other end tell me that I didn't need to know, but by that point I WANTED to know, and BADLY so I could jsutify the chunk of my life I'd wasted!
I still don't know, by the way. You'd think it'd be easier to figure out what an LED error code meant.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I'd call him a really bad sailor.... no navigation skillz at all, he's way off course...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
According to reports out, India is expected to grow it's current internet user base from 35 million to 100 million...So...a $1.7 billion investment will go a long way if the Gov't clamps down on piracy and Open Source.
It's not exactly the most stable part of the world as it is.
Not exactly the most stable part of the world?
The only real problem that India has is with Pakistan, which is way up north, around the Himalyan mountain range. China, its other neighbor is an economic power in itself, the last thing either countries would do is do something that would affect their economies.
Are there troubles in India? Sure, take any region of a billion people of an astounding mix and variety of religion and culture, and introduce secular democracy - see what you get. Most troubles in India are just that - they are troubles.
That hardly calls forth a strong word like "unstable". Btw, India is a huge country, both in terms of size and in terms of populace. Just because a nation has a pacifist outlook does not mean they are to be underestimated. It would take a whole lot to unsettle, undermine or destabilize India.
Nice troll, though.
Link
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.
Can someone please explain to me why Microsoft feels the need to do this? Okay, application development is something that probably commands a higher salary in the U.S., but customer service?
I have a really big problem with companies that continually fork out technical support overseas. Regardless of location, just about everyone will need to be trained and learn the products that they have to support. Americans are no less capable of this than anywhere else. But keeping tech support in the U.S. has many benefits with respect to customer service that I think outweigh the cost savings.
Obviously, we have language difficulties when outsourcing. The Indian accent can be incredibly thick and very difficult to understand. I'm very adept at deciphering thick accents, but the Indian accent I find to be even more difficult at times than a thick, Scottish brogue. That certainly does not make the customer support experience any more pleasant.
Additionally, technical support nowadays is often nothing more than reading down a checklist of "did you do this?" Yes, I did before I called. "Well, let's try it again." *groan* Fine. "That didn't work either? Then let's try this." Face facts - anyone can do checklists for troubleshooting. Why is that being off-shored?
What's really infuriating about this announcement is that Microsoft is doing this as Louisiana and Mississippi are attempting to rebuild. You hear continual complaints about how companies are not moving back which can make sense from a manufacturing standpoint where large, capital investments of machinery and transportation need to be made; but from a services point-of-view, putting tech support and other business opportunities in Louisiana and Mississippi can still be cost-effective since those areas have incredibly low standards of living relative to the rest of the country. Then of course Microsoft would have the positive PR of (A) helping to rebuild an area that needs to be rebuilt, (B) having people who at least have an easier-to-understand (for the most part) accent on the other end of the line, (C) providing at least some type of jobs to an area that so desperately needs them, particularly now. Yes, I'm sure that hiring workers in LA/MS is still more expensive than India, but there's more to being a stable and respectable company than making the bottom line as large as possible. (I know, I know. Using "respectable" to represent Microsoft left a bad taste in my mouth, too.)
Am I being too idealistic? Well, perhaps. (Hey, at least I admit it.) But it just seems that Microsoft is missing a major opportunity here to do some good right here at home just so save some money that, frankly, it doesn't need to stay afloat. Hell, how large was its profit last year?
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
not to be rude but they could be doing what any other company with the chance would do... invest where they see growth and not have all the eggs in one basket. Just a thought
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
From the comments, it seems the same low-brow ignorant red-neck racists on ZDNet have now infiltrated Slashdot. How sad. There was a time when discussions on Slashdot were mature and based on facts, not ethnocentric racist diatribe.
Why is the parent a troll, especially when it's true?
Haven't you herd. Anything that de-God's Microsoft is a troll, or overrated, or flame bait. Let's just say that unlike the rest of us, some companies have the money to hire a staff to collect karma points, submit, and post BS pro-M$ propaganda all day long on the more visited blog sites. Slashdot should seriously consider a +1 anti-microsoft mod and a -1 pro-microsoft mod.
We want Mars. Venus too.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Good Troll?
Completely Stable?
I think you need to read up on Indian politics, the caste system, their infrastructure, etc;
I'm not bashing India, simply pointing out the obvious, what even the pro-India business community points out...
You need to pull your head out of your ass, and quick, unless of course you've survived, lo all these years, on your own form of methane.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Seems to me that Microsoft plans to enter the operating system market. Expect every one to use MS Khidkiyan in 2006.
Million Dollar Screenshot
I got an e-mail once stating Bill would give me a dollar...
I never got my dollar.
Looks like everyone in India will get $1.55.
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
of india is 3.3 Trillion dollars?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The growth bubble in India has a few years to go before it becomes almost as expensive as Eastern Europeans.
Indonesia is probanly the next company to see a surge in outsourcing dollars, although it lacks that vast educational resources India has, it has workers that are willing to work for HALF as much as Indians will and there is an educated population there willing to do this work. The only hurdles they have to overcome is geographic access and improving their telecom network (GB pushed India into Westernization long ago).
Mexico is already losing factory work to Indonesia and other cheaper south Asian nations... jobs that 10 years ago seemed extremely cheap when the jobs fled the US to Mexico. Mexicans were willing to work for just 2-5 dollars an hour vd $10 in the US... now you can get someone who will work for $0.50 an hour.
It's going to be interesting to see where all these bottom denominators go.
I also saw on 'Front Line', I think it was, on the economic growth of China, that the Chinese banking system is a 'house of cards'. They are over extended and poorly regulated, and if anything starts to go wrong you could see a banking collapse the likes of which the US has not seen since the 30's. It may or may not ripple into the larger global economy but would definitely hurt foreign companies with large investments in China.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
the smart people leave India for the US.
Well, they used to.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
From a purely technical standpoint, there is no benefit. Microsoft's project management doesn't scale as it stands, and won't support thousands more programmers on the projects they have. They know this - if you want to make a late project later, add more people. It's true of almost any organization. The communications overheads of large teams overwhelms the added work that can be done.
No, this is a political move, not a technical one.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I would mod this one funny. If I had mod points.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, For you are crunchy and go well with ketchup.
It has worked so far in the US.
If you are trusting the facts given by these sites:/ in.html
0 5091201.asp
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4436692.stm
http://www.dqindia.com/content/top_stories/2005/1
http://www.x-rates.com/
From the BBC article, it is about 5344 pounds ($9300 US) annual salary for a software engineer in India. Take that money and you can hire about 182,000 workers in India or give every person in the country $1.50 (or a little less than a pound for 1,080,264,388 people.) Otherwise if you hire 3,000 new workers and pay them that avg. $9300 annual salary, you will still have $1.67 billion left over to invest elsewhere.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
There have been some comments posted here about the Indian culture not fitting in well with the MS philosophy. There have also been some comments about how lacking Indian software engineers are in certain aspects of the engineering process. This may all be true at the moement, however, I work with many in Mumbai and I see this changing. Yes, it is a slow process, but we are slowly teaching them how to be just as ruthless, calculating and competitive as the western business minds are. It's all unfortuante in my view. It will end up destroying their culture and moving us one step closer to global corporte hegemony.
http://www.stockmarketgarden.com/
Microsoft is not the first to do this... everyone is looking to increase their number of jobs in India... but not very many of them mention why they don't have to buy any new desks or chairs to make that possible.
" The expanding into Asia and Europe is hardly synonymous with outsourcing."
.
You're right, but the word you are looking for is offshoring, not outsourcing. If the product is being consumed here in the US, but made elsewhere by a company located in the US, that is offshoring. Outsourcing is something totally different, and doesn't apply to this
" The key markets for information technology in the next few decades are not the US, Western Europe or Japan'
You mean, the key emerging markets. IT will still be bigger in the 'western world' + Japan for a while, but it's a lot more developed already, and has less opportunity for an entering player and/or initial sales.
"So, as a manufacturer, you simply enter new markets by lowering your costs until the real masses, the billions, can afford your products."
You mean, you lower your prices. Lowering your costs is not so simple, it doesn't automagically happen as a given over time. But, in essence, you are saying you need to lower your costs so you can lower your prices to be competitive in a poor market while maintaining profitability, right?
"The answer to how it remains profitable is simple, volume."
Again, not so simple. Yes, volume helps, since then fixed costs are diluted with respect to each unit sold. However, your marginal cost of each item sold doesn't change just because you increase your volume -- and labor, raw materials, and energy are not remotely free.
What's really driving the prices of hardware down is a reduction in production cost, based on new manufacturing processes and new designs using cheaper raw materials.
All increasing sales volume does is enable you to remain profitable while pricing your goods at a point closer to your marginal cost of production -- you can pretty much remove the cost of, say, administrative salaries, from your P&L analysis.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
certainly, but there's the possibility that in the coming years they might cut jobs in Europe and the USA and since we're talking about a big firm that would mean alot of people could lose their job.
Because we have not yet initiated the Prime Directive for Earth. Interestingly, nobody ever worries about foreigners contaminating U.S. culture. Well, except for the KKK.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
WTF!? Way to protect the interests of your citizens... NOT!
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Clippy: (in a thick Indian accent)
Ok! Yes? I see you are to be making a letter. Yes? I see. You are wanting to make letter. No? Clippy can help you he can. Yes? Ok! I see. Are you to be needing clippy to help you he can? Yes? Yes? Ok?
Then up pops a dialog box with the options: Ok, Yes and I see.
Such investments are hoped to expand the market these companies and others will be able to access, hopefully generating greater revenue by the emergence.
I'm thinking CSCO..
"It may or may not ripple into the larger global economy but would definitely hurt foreign companies with large investments in China."
Or, say, the US Government, which is dependent on Chinese banks to buy our debt and keep the budget deficit afloat.
Or maybe that's how the US will crush China -- renege on our debt to them and collapse their banking system.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
The growth bubble in India has a few years to go before it becomes almost as expensive as Eastern Europeans.
Ah, therein lies the flaw. India will never become as expensive as Eastern Europe for two reasons:
1. There is a large population in India, and
2. There is a wide and disparate economic strata
So, what will happen is that development costs will go up, but there will be people who would still be willing to do it for cheaper.
For instance, certain Indian companies like Infosys and Wipro have already started investing and outsourcing THEIR work to China. That is only because they are the best, and their costs have gone up.
However, there are still more people who are willing to take up less-profitable markets and areas that these big guys no longer care for.
Indonesia (and other SE Asian countries) do not have two things that India has:
1. Population
2. English Language
Sure, Indian English has a weird accent and is quite British in its written form, but it's still English. It's the language of education and business, which is a big plus - a lot of countries in the SE Asian belt can't boast the same. Now, take a country like Philippines which has good English speaking folks - it does not have enough population to assure a continuous supply of man power. These two together go a long way.
Now, given the fact that India has existing infrastructure, existing business and an alread-penetrated market, it becomes easier for the folks at the lower economic strata to pick up work that others have deemed too cheap.
This is what will sustain India in the long term. And that is where those bottom denominators will go.
A three word troll...and it got an insightful mod! Well done, my friend!
The whole outsourcing to cheaper labor thing gives people like me, freelance web wevelopers, less work. I have had several clients tell me they are outsourcing to India. India's got plenty of people and their own government. I'm sure they can figure out their own infrastructure. And screw you Microsoft for hiring the local Mexican standing in front of Home Depot.
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
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
Right, I'm sure their software development experience would help them run an efficient and profitable commodities business. NOT! Getting into gold, which is currently at a 23 year high (I believe) would be about as smart as my local bread manufacturing company starting up a dot com at the height of the internet bubble. I do agree with you about the large US deficit though.
If Microsoft is trying to influence legislation in India, thus making the market more favorable to itself, how is that a "free market"?
How can you send billions of dollars overseas? How can you do this to us, when we totally bailed you out a few years back? We sold out US consumers so that your money-printing business model could continue to flourish and feed back into our economy. Now you're sending billions overseas? WMD!! WMD on your ass! Threatenin' the homeland! Terrrizing the economy! Condi, go get my bike!
include $sig;
1;
What you dont understand is the purchasing power parity, which is still high.Which means that even though when you convert the amounts to dollars the indian salary might look much lesser but he is able to buy as much or almost as much as an american in his country.
In short the Indian is still earning almost the equivalent of his american counterpart but its not a direct conversion of the currencies involved.This is actually one of the phenomenons which outsourcing(of services and software) is creating for India.Besides earning foreign exchange.
Lord of the Binges.
More companies going to India?
Well, I guess I am going down to McDonalds to pick up some applications -- anybody want me to pick them one up as well?
http://www.eetimes.com/news/design/business/showA
For example, Intel is designing Xeon2 completely in Bangalore, India! That is an entire product line moved to India. This is very similar to Intel's strategy of moving most mobile chip work to Israel (well, they won the internal product war).
This is a well established phenomenon now. Why hire Indians in the US, when you can hire the same folks in India for 1/4th the price. For Indians, why work in the US, when you can work in your homeland and live a very comfortable life (perhaps more so because money goes a longer way in India in terms of domestic help, etc).
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=suSG
From Wikipedia:
"The economy of India is the fourth-largest in the world as measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), with a GDP of US $3.36 trillion. When measured in USD exchange-rate terms, it is the tenth largest in the world, with a GDP of US $691.87 billion (2004)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_India
The $3.3 trillion figure sounded wrong to me, as that would put the per capita income here around $3000 -- I've been in India for the past 6 months, and it certainly seems lower than that. So the real figure is around $600 US per capita.
Believe me, the influx of money from the technology industry has had a major effect in India. New building are going up in droves, land prices are skyrocketing, people are moving from villages into the cities. $1.7 billion is no drop in the bucket here.
One problem with outsourcing to Mississippi or Louisiana is that people CAN't read helpdesk checklists. Here is an example of Toyota picking Canadian workers because training illiterate workers was so difficult for other companies in the south. (http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/050 708/toyota.shtml)
t ml)
India has a large pool of WELL EDUCATED cheap labor. I am from Mississippi. I have friends down there who can't read. My brother works in a car factory in MS and the employee training was done using pictograms because there are so many illiterate workers in the class.
Even before the hurricane Mississippi and Louisiana were education backwaters. One in 3 residents can not read or write. (http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/oct1998/ill-o14.sh
And the sad thing is since so many people "never needed no education" they don't see a reason to "get their kids learnt up neither". So the viscous cycle continues with each generation poorer and with less hope than the last.
Nations that consider education important will always prosper over nations that chose to stagnate. The US has long stigmatized intelligence and this leads to ignorant workers. Until it is sexy to know something we will continue to crank out barely educated frat boys and few scientists and engineers.
How well would you be living in LA if you made 3000$? You must remember, when you adjust GDP/capita for PPP you get the average income of the person as if he were living in the US (if you are using the US as unit PPP).
Yeah but too much out sourcing and bringing money to other places is making America one of those poor regions.
And don't forget the 2 billion stolen by the politicians and other fat cats. The workers will be making minimum wage despite the immense amount of money.
Not most Americans, just those on Slashdot, most of whom tend to have fairly left-liberal views.
/. favors socialist opinions over libertarian/captilalist ones.
Socialism is the fig leaf of losers who don't have the balls to succeed. Ergo, it is not surprising
Those in the Real World (TM) have better things to do, like start their own companies and make money off the process, rather than whine about things they do not even have the basic knowledge of.
That's exactly the point: $1.7 billion dollars goes a lot further in India than in the US.
Moreover, Microsoft is spending $1.7 billion actual US dollars -- not $1.7 billion dollars at Indian purchasing power parity. If you want to compare the purchasing power parity numbers, you should first change the $1.7 billion actual dollars into PPP dollars. Then it's about $8.5 billion as measured by PPP.
I saw Microsoft's facility under construction in Hyderabad about two months ago. It was surrounded by tent cities of construction workers, mostly comprised of construction debris holding up blue tarps absconded from the site. Not to rap Microsoft, it's just the way the construction economy works on any project. Also, the workers are happy for the opportunity just to have a wage. Yet what a contrast to see a modern building as if growing out of a sea of tarps and destitution.
In a land of have-nots, the have-nots don't blame the haves, instead they try to emulate. That was the biggest culture shock for me. I wasn't looked down upon because I have, instead I was admired for success. Success is a role model in India, not a point of contention.
Regarding the good engineers vs. the mediocre ones, the sharp engineers will gravitate toward projects that offer the potential of rotation to the United States. They'll live on Ramam noodles and pocket their perdiem while here, then return home and break the cycle, able to invest in a home perhaps. As for the poor engineers, they won't land such possibilites, and tend to be the ones found when working strictly locally on outsourced projects. If Microsoft rotates workers, they'll get the sharp people. If there is no possilibity of temporary overseas assignments, they'll get the bottom pickings. Simple as that.
It's worth noting that Microsoft LOST 4 billion something on the X-Box. So, in short, Microsoft thinks having a gaming console in the US (and Japan/Europe/Etcetera to a lesser extent) is more important than the entire 1 billion+ population of India.
They're not good for software, and they're not good for America.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Just like IBM, Cisco, and Oracle, they finally figured out how to handle this by putting the whole team over there, hence the large investment to create "centers" in India. I know a lot of senior folks from the states moving to India to run a team of developers and they travel periodically back to the US to talk with corporate and the customers. With the cost of living being 100x less, it's could be a win-win for some folks (e.g. if you can speak the language and tolerate the culture).
It's a better model 2nd time around on outsourcing, though commoditizing the s/w development industry still has a 50/50 chance of stifling innovation permanently.
Don't forget that offshore development implies there is a manager in the US. The success depends heavily on the manager, too. You can't reject the idea of offshoring only because it failed in one case.
The question shouldn't be "if offshore engineering works or not". There won't be a general answer because it will always depend on the type of products you make, people you work with, etc. Of course it will work, in some cases.
The question should be "if offshore works in our case", and "how we can make offshore succeed". There are many things you can do. Frequent communication, commitment from both sides to help each other instead of blaming each other, etc.
Here, you know, in the USA...
Where jobs are getting fewer, wages are getting smaller, and proverty is rising.
But, no - over in India, where labor is cheap, the cost of living is dirt on the dollar, and no one buys your products (since they just pirate everything) - that's the better place to get employees...
When no one is left to buy your products - then what....
R&D to India ? Good Joke! If he has the balls let him reply what kind of R&D is being done in India ? Give me the Business Unit and the Products. Ask him how many Doctorates and well known Researchers are on his payroll in India. Its a different story that Indians run away from Microsoft and thus has a large pool of Open Source Developers.
Didn't you get the memo? Around these parts, looking out for yourself is called GREED. Prosperity = gluttony. Poverty = someone else's fault.
Socialism: A feeling of discontent and resentment caused by a desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
I had the pleasure to talk to support this other week. I needed the lpd name of a Xerox Document Centre 440. I know for a fact that almost all printers who are net enabled do have a lpr que name, its just not printed on todays sorry excuses for manuals. This copier/printer do have a lpr que name.
I spoke to four different people on tech support who at first thought i was talking about something in MS Windows. I tried in vain to explain what i needed to know, why, that their machine did really have an lpr que and no, it was not a Windows application. I further explained that i needed the name to be able to connect the printer to an Novell Open Enterprise. The fast answer was ofcourse "-we dont support open enterprise". Well i didnt want support on OES, all i wanted was the name of the friggin lpr que. Fourth call i called it a day and swore to never ever have anything to do with a Xerox machine of any kind ever again. Looked around a bit and found the lpr que name of every net enabled printer in history on Novells own site. How is it possible that a tech support dont know that lpr even exist? This wasnt just a consumer support, it was the support for big customers.
Support like that are cheap but really worthless for the consumer.
HTTP/1.1 400
Now, they should sponsor the Indian Cricket Team.
Mine was about the same. Had this error with a laptop...Sometimes when you plugged it in, the power LED would start flashing Yellow - Yellow - Green.
All I wanted to know was, what the hell does that mean? Ungrounded outlet? Charger fault? Failing power supply? Battery Error? A production engineer, or a maintenance technician could have told me in a second. A helpful chart could have done the same. I waited 45 minutes on the phone to talk to a person who had no clue, and passed me to a second person, who passed me to a third person, who talked to her manager, and came back with "It's not important, you don't need to know."
WHAT? I demanded to speak to someone who was knowledgable, and I got the dial tone. Apparently the dial tone is the most knowledgable person they've got.
I was pissed at Dell before that, and that was the last damn straw. I dumped my webhost because they used damn Dell computers. As far as I'm concerned buying a Dell is the same as paying someone to screw you over and laugh.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Actually, $1.7b is 0.26% of $650b, unless you're making a different comparison than what I think you're making.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
So, what's the Indian equivalent to the H-1B?
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
>> The only real problem that India has is with Pakistan...
Nice way to minimize coming within a cunt hair a nuclear war. Or does your memory not stretch back to 2000?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
their software will always suck!
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
They speak English in Ireland, not to mention make less money than Americans... but that didn;t stop their jobs from fleeing to other countries now did it?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Do this many people on Slashdot.org not realize the crop of talented IT engineers available in India? Microsoft is not being humanitarian or cheap when they open offices in India. They are looking to capitalize on a vast workforce well-trained in IT, anxious to work, relatively well-versed in english (vs a china or eastern europe or s america) and willing to do at an acceptable price. Yes it will drive american wages down, but compared to the global marketplace american wages are a tad high. And yes the cost of living in the US is higher than india, so that is part of the reason. The same forces that will drive US wages down, such as cheap labor in India - will drive the cost of goods in this country down as well (see wal mart). Read a book by a guy whose initials are TLF and then come back and post.
Within a cunt of nuclear war? Wow, that's an exaggeration if I ever saw one.
India tested nuclear weapons, Pakistan tested nuclear weapons.
Both were in a dick-waving contest - that hardly constitutes a threat of "nuclear war".
You really should try looking up some reliable news sources.
The numbers are viewed with the same distortion.
Bearing in mind that GDP is a measure of how fast money flows within a system, and frequently counts the same money more than once.
example: you spend a dollar at the store, the store spends that dollar to buy goods, the manufacturer uses that dollar to create goods and pay the employee to make the goods, who then spends that dollar at the store. that counts as $4 towards the GDP.
Bill Bryson made the observation that the biggest contributor to the GDP is a "terminal cancer patient going through a costly divorce." (Amazon seearch inside the book tells me it's on page 54 of "I'm a Stranger Here Myself." He is quoting from Atlantic Monthly...) and a page earlier points out that by some estimations, the O.J. Simpson trial alone may have added $200M to the GDP that year.
GDP is simply a speedometer on the cyclical flow of money, not a measure of wealth.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Will the BBC suffice?
s outh_asia/2002/india_pakistan/timeline/2001.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
When I lived in San Francisco a few years ago, the poverty level was figured to be about $45,000 a year.
When I lived in rural Vermont for a bit, the level was closer to $20,000. god knows the rents were cheaper, and surprisingly, so was the gas.
For the same salary, I could go from a poverty statistic to upper middle class.
So which poverty level were they using?
[another interesting tidbit is the number of people who made a bunch of money in the SF bubble period, and then moved to Oregon to spend it because it would go further.]
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Interesting. So what you are saying is the we should be investing more in our schools right here at home. I think that will be hard to do to given all the rhetoric against "liberal intellectual elite" and such. When people who actually bother to get educated get called communists and terrorists and when the president of the country deliberately speaks at a fifth grade level to distance himself from the education he supposedly received at yale you can't expect much investment in education can you?
evil is as evil does
People on Slashdot dislike business because running a business is a career more suited to extroverts. Slashdot is loaded with nerds, who tend to be introverts--they want to be left alone to do the work. In other words, they're the kind of people who make businesses succeed. Running around selling your services, or the services of others, is about as attractive to most of us as sticking pins in our eyes.
And no, socialism is not the fig leaf of losers who don't have the balls to succeed. A lot of the most successful businessmen of all time have thrown their money into what are now considered "socialist" causes. They supported these because they were trying to prevent the formation of a permanent underclass, and establish a standard of living sufficient to provide a market for their goods. They understood that if there was no way for the poor to climb the ladder, the American Dream would fail and capitalism itself would collapse. This is precisely the sort of long term thinking that made them incredibly rich in the first place.
When there is no one left to buy your services at a price that you can live on, you'll become a socialist too, of the worst kind--and trust me, I've seen this happen to people. But by then, it will be too late.
So...why is it our problems they didn't evolve at the same pace the West did when we all started out about at the same level as you alluded to?
Why should we in the west slow down (outsourcing our own jobs) to let them catch up? Is that really our problem?
"I sure wish I could understand the logic of those who think being anti-immigration is racist, but, being anti-outsourcing, isn't"
I don't understand. Who would think being anti-immigration is racist? Why would being anti-outsourcing be racist? The latter is just being more 'nationalistic'...wanting to not only keep your country's place, economically and socially, but, to also strive to keep improving your own standard of living.
While I don't believe in actively blocking someone or some country from trying to better themselves...I do NOT want it at my expense. I especially don't like it when companies in my country are actively trying to give it away....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I missed the four years part.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Microsoft trying to compete with China which is a Linux country.
Sorry, the Chinese will beat the Hindus every time. And the Chinese will end up selling to the Japanese, the Koreans (who already hate you, Bill), the Thais, the Indonesians, the you-name-it-Asians.
You lose, Bill.
Have a nice day.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Hmmmm.... way to care about your fellow humans on this planet. I applaud you.
Wow if only everyone thought the way you do, the world would be SUCH a better place to live in for us all.
The only bone I had to pick with your comment was on the unstable part. I pointed that out, quite explicitly I believe.
The rest of the commentary was on the other related nonsense that folks were spewing forth on this article.
Like I said, I don't like to see anyone held back from helping themselves. The West somehow did it on their own...and I applaud any people that do the same.
I also like to help 'my fellow' man..I give to causes....but, I don't do it till it hurts. Most people don't want to help others to their own detriment. And I give to those I want to...I don't feel I 'need' to help anyone or am obligated to help those...ESPECIALLY those that don't help themselves. I give to those I feel that are deserving by showing a willingness to help themselves. But, again...If I work to make a fortune, I'm not giving away so much to the poor that I become one...nor do an action that would jeopardize my stature. If I did that...I could no longer help others.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Using your own logic. Why should Microsoft, or anyone else for that matter care if you loose your job to someone else and your jobs get outsourced to India? Why should YOU get a job over an Indian if the Indian is willing to do the same job for 1/5th the cost.
Hell even if it takes 4 indians to do the job you do its STILL a better deal.
Its called market forces. If you want the government making decisions and protecting some people over others, you should consider moving to a communist/socialist country. In a free market/capitalist society such as america, "pay me more coz I'm american!" has no place. Either do the job for the same price as the Indian, or let your job get outsourced to where its cheaper.
Also, dont think "American companies, should protect american workers"... American corporations are corporations first, and americans second. If you dont believe that, look at any of America's biggest companies and see how much they favour chinese/Indian/vietnamese/etc. suppliers over American ones.
Being in America and being in the IT field, believe me, I feel your pain. But, if american companies are forced to pay higher salaries to americans just because they are american..... Well I wont say more.. but take a look at General Motors.
Think about it.
- Tempestdata
Hasn't the free market in legislation worked pretty well here in the United States? These days you can get pretty favorable legislation for not too much money, single party control notwithstanding.
Isn't it unfair to deny India the full power of the dark side of the free market? The whole Bhopal disaster shows that the Indian government is fully up to the task of accommodating paying customers.
[Sorry, I'm just too cynical these days.]
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Bill Gates recently went touring a bunch of colleges near me talking about how we need to create more tech. jobs. Somehow, I doubt that the job shortage he was talking about is "forcing" him to outsource, so I have a feeling that he's just trying to play both sides.
Way to go, Bill!
The economic fundamentals are far worse today than in the 80's when gold went to $850/oz. - which is $2000-$4000/oz today adjusted for inflation.
If gold gets and stays over $530, then it starts to act as a competitive option to the dollar as a defacto international trade currency. That would cause the remonitization of gold which would cause a massive decline in the dollar, a nuclear explosion in the gold market, and a super-nova in the silver market.
There are fundamental reasons why gold went from 420 only a few months ago to 510 as of the other day. The risks of the dollar going the way of confederate money have been suverely understated. This is not the time to be betting against precious metals.
How many of these jobs that will be created in India will be lost in America?
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
You mean MS declares financial war on yet another 3rd world country.....
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
And live there for a couple of years.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Well considering that, in India, citizens are now celebrating American holidays such as valentines day, halloween, Christmas, etc. which, I might add, are all about generating income for corporations. I mean really, how stupid/selfish is it that we have to set aside one day out of the year to show that we love someone when it should be continious. Now, the citizens of India are slowly losing their natural heiritage by participating in these holidays perpetuated by American corporations. These are the holidays that help companies get out of the red and into the black, so naturally they are going to promote them. Oh but there is no influence you say...
The last time I checked, Bill Gates, Larry Page and Sergey Brin weren't particularly extroverted. And I would say that they were quite nerdy, too - wouldn't you?
No, Slashdot is loaded with people who just practice arm-chair-socialism. They would not want to do a thing, but yet would argue a point without knowing half a thing about it. Neither are they folks who are proactive. For the most part, they would rather whine on a forum than do something. The real nerd of your description is too busy working at a national lab doing cool things to be bothered about this stuff. The ones that frequent Slashdot are the self-described kind who are neither the real nerdy, smart ones and nor do they have the ability to do something proactive.
And you're mistaken if you think that business is all about selling services. That is a very, very tiny fraction of what businesses do. Taking an idea and seeing it to fruition and adoption isn't an easy task.
There is a difference between the kind of Trotskyist view that the average Slashbot talks about and the kind of "socialist" causes that you talk about. However, what's worse is that most of these folks do not have a clue on how to even go about running a business, let alone how the system, or capitalism works.
And it's called expertise - I do not go to a plumber if I have a question on medicine, I go to a doctor. Similarly, the opinions on topics like business and eocnomics by those without any economic background or business expertise is quite worthless. That applies across all domains - take this article for instance. Most of the posts here are about India being crappy, dirt poor or about how jobs are being outsourced, or something equally cliched and knee-jerk. Not one of the highly modded post talked about the existing infrastructure investment being made in the telecom sector in India, or about how this boom in software is a result of India's engineering market boom. Neither do they talk about how India's currency being stable is one of the reasons for investment - instead, the OP makes a blatantly stupid comment on the instability of the region, when the very reason for investment is economic stability. I mean, sure, we can see business and economic expertise right there.
When there is no one left to buy your services at a price that you can live on, you'll become a socialist too, of the worst kind--and trust me, I've seen this happen to people. But by then, it will be too late.
It's a free market. Things will even out, eventually. The way to stay ahead of the game is to discover new areas to innovate in. Software is gone. Kaput. There are other players in there. Discover newer areas and be the first to innovate, and stop whining.
What will kill you is not a few outsourced jobs, but the lack of innovation and the lack of enterprise. You'd be too busy whining to do anything productive.
(and I'm not referring to you in particular, that was a generic you, directed at folks in general)
Clue #2, there's more where that came from and they are cheaper where they are. It's easier to find bright people when you have a billion to chose from.
Currently, those you see here are more "motivated". When you have a chance to leave a $3 trillion economy for a $12 trillion economy with one quarter the population, or 16 times the wealth. People in India still starve to death, while "poor" people in the US are fat.
All this gets around the fundamental problem, the use of slave labor. Microsoft, like GE and other big dumb companies think they can use IP laws to keep control of the world without real intellectual effort. It's a suicidal betrayal to put research facilities offshore. Those that do are those that know. In time, they will develop better weapons systems than we have and the "slaves" will break free. What kind of neighbors they will be is largely dependent on how we treat them now. As big dumb companies have used such labor moves to threaten their own employees, the treatment of others is bound to be poor.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
General motors isn't really a good example. They have plants outside of the US as well. The problem is that they are poorly managed. When compared to Toyota's plants in the US, it simply costs them more to manufacture a vehicle due to poor manufacturing controls and design. This has been changing over the last few years so that GM and Ford are nearly equivilant to the US plants run by Toyota and Honda, when it comes to lenght of time to produce a car.
GM has two real problems. First is that they have an image problem. Their products don't seem to last. This may have changed in the late '90s but that is hard to prove since the quality studies sited are basically initial quality not long term. The long term quality numbers have yet to come in. The second problem is that GM is full of marketing idiots. These people basically are falling for the same thing they fell for in the 70's. They build big "popular" car of the month type automobiles, and advertise them to no end. They fail to invest in smaller vehicles. So everytime the population decides that gas costs to much or that they want to buy a smaller car GM doesn't have an appropriate product to compete against the hondas and toyotas. The big SUV and Truck sales numbers for both Ford and GM are down very significanly. I've heard that Ford sold roughtly 1/2 as many Explorers this year as last. That is why they are hurting, because all their eggs were in that basket.
They are an evil company. First, they create software that is so full of bugs, it can barely accomplish anything without causing the user tremendous headache, frustration, anger, depression, sexual problems, and other maladies. Then, they go to all the good software companies and steal all their good employees, so as to destroy those companies and their products. Then they buy perfectly good products and destroy them. Now, instead of helping the United States, especially at this critical time in our history when the country needs all the help it can get from the businesses that profit so enormously from the freedoms made possible here, they are going to India to help erode our economy and increase the trade deficit. This, at a time when they should, instead, concentrate their efforts on helping our great president to win the war on terror and have a victory in Iraq. What an evil company.
But, if US companies don't think long term..and try to balance this out...the hurt to the US workforce and economy can come back at bite them. You gotta have US workers making good money to keep buying their products, and gotta slow the brain drain to keep US developers able to come up with the next new product for them to sell.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Actually, Bill Gates is very extroverted. People who worked with him in the early days talked about how he always dominated conversations, meetings, etc. He was known for running things, not for doing them. That's typical of extroverts. The fact that the man can't dress himself doesn't detract from that. :) Introverts do succeed in business, but don't thrive on the networking usually required to build one. They usually hire or partner with someone who takes care of that end.
Taking an idea and seeing it to fruition and adoption isn't an easy task.
Adoption is where the sales come into it. During the dot com days I worked at a company that produced, amongst other things, a security product that could very well have saved the company--if anyone had known about it. Six months after it was completed, another product, that wasn't as good, came out, and made boatloads of money. The guy in charge of the project was a typical dot com entrepreneur. He didn't follow through at the end and get the product out there. He was the kind of salesman who excelled at selling ideas and shares, not product. Building it is good, but you don't make any money unless it gets sold.
I agree that protectionism for the sake of protectionism is doomed--it produces a hot-house economy that wilts under the first sign of stress. I have no problem with outsourcing, as long as the workers in those countries are making good wages by local standards; eventually, that will lift their entire economy and create a market for our goods. But when the free market becomes an article of faith, the results can be disastrous. Governments can and do shelter sectors of their economies to incubate talent and expertise, until they are ready to compete in the free market. The film, music, and game industries in Canada are a good example of this. At the opposite extreme, you have Iraq, where a weak and profoundly compromised economy was thrown open to the wolves, instead of being sheltered and given time to recover.
One of the most distressing things that seems to be happening, though, is the extreme disparity forming between the workers at the bottom and the people at the top. In the 50's the difference in incomes would typically be in the range of 100 to 1 at the most. Now we have disparities of 10,000 to 1 or more, which means that money is stagnating at the top, and social mobility is breaking down. Social mobility is what the American Dream is all about. America resisted the choking grasp of organized labour that crippled England because Americans considered themselves rich people in the making. Once people get stuck at the bottom, and see no hope of escape, they identify with those at the same economic level as themselves. The result is class consciousness, and suddenly, Marxism becomes relevant again. It is especially dangerous if you get intelligent people stuck in the underclass--they become the agitators. This is precisely what people like Ford and Rockefeller where trying to prevent. Flawed as they were, they at least could see that the system that supported their fortunes was threatened by the very disparity they enjoyed. Marxists hated them, not just for being capitalists, but for saving capitalism itself.
Of course saying the money will be invested and actually investing it is a whole other story. I suppose microsoft believe that this incentive will get India to shift from a pro Linux and open source stance to a windows stance and as for the US they can use their fiscal power to provide incentive for elected officials to force it upon all the disgruntled unemployed windrones (for you windrones it's either food services or Linux and us penguinista's arn't the ones forcing the choice on you, your buddies at M$=B$ are).
One does wonder who they expect to sell the product to when all the employment is outsourced, who is left to buy product when it can't be afforded at either the point of manufacture or at it's final supposed point of sale. But then the rich and greedy don't give a rat's as long as they have far more they everbody else and the poor go die quitely out of sight, except when they are needed as servants.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen