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Indian Software Firm Outsourcing Jobs To US

phobos13013 writes "NPR is reporting Indian software maker Wipro is outsourcing positions to a development office opening in Atlanta, Georgia. Although it sounds good for US job growth, the implication is that firms outside the US appear to be dominating more and more in the global economy, even from developing and underdeveloped regions of the world. Similarly, salaries of IT professionals world-wide are projected to stagnate or possibly fall due to the large pool of qualified applicants in the market today."

36 of 444 comments (clear)

  1. qualified applicants? by oni · · Score: 5, Funny

    large pool of qualified applicants in the market today

    qualified. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

    1. Re:qualified applicants? by CaffeineAddict2001 · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you are going to outsource code, do it to someplace COLD. The Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Russia, etc. All of those countries seem to have unusually large supply of good coders. The only problem is that you end up with functions like b0rk(B0rk *bork) { }

    2. Re:qualified applicants? by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Qualified: appears to or on paper seems to be able to do the job. usually appears alongside a plethora of assorted "certifications" to further build on the assumption that the person is capable of doing the job.

      Experienced: Has solid proof of abilities, usually lack certifications as Experienced professionals look down upon the certifications as most are nothing more than proof you can memorize and take a test. Very few certifications hold merit with seasoned and experienced professionals. The ones that do are held in high regard.

      Basically to tell the difference, the more certifications a person has the greater the possibility that they are simply a useless tool. Yes I have tested this in real life. when looking for a outsourced programming company the ones that all the clients have the MOST trouble with are the ones that touted all kinds of certifications the employees need. ALSO many times these companies will violate your terms on the contract. I have had to inform clients on several occasions to pay for the removal of OSS code or not release their product or release the source code in order to be compliant with the law. The Outsourced firm used GPL libraries and snippets, even left the original headers and comments in there. That was 3 years ago though when I was a Code Monkey in Corporate America. I am certain it has not gotten any better.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  2. Hey, its not like.... by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Hey, it's not like we didn't willingly give it all away...

    We freely sent off our manufacturing, then our IT, and a good bit of agriculture. But thankfully, we still have a great service industry, lots of restaurants, etc. That'll keep us safe in times of financial/world troubles.

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    1. Re:Hey, its not like.... by bnenning · · Score: 4, Insightful

      US manufacturing output is at a record high (PDF). It's true that fewer Americans are employed in the manufacturing sector, because efficiency has increased so much. This is good, for the same reasons that free software is good.

      --
      How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
    2. Re:Hey, its not like.... by Colin+Smith · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We freely sent off our manufacturing, then our IT, and a good bit of agriculture. But thankfully, we still have a great service industry, lots of restaurants, etc. That'll keep us safe in times of financial/world troubles. Actually. It's pretty much all caused by the petrodollar.

      You're too expensive because the petrodollar tends to deflate. There's high demand for dollars to pay for oil, the world over. It makes Americans expensive.

      The current world troubles are caused by the US interest in preventing the dollar from losing it's reserve status. Iraq, Iran, Saudi etc.

      The current financial problems are caused by the dollar being a debt based currency. Debt increases exponentially, it requires exponentially increasing economy and additional loans to service the debt and continue growing. So liquidity is piled in exponentially, the debts grow accordingly. Eventually you have to get even those unable to pay involved, in order to continue the growth. The crash is inevitable, nothing can grow exponentially forever. However the longer the growth period the bigger the bump. In the past few years the central banks have piled in cash in order to glide over some of the smaller bumps, basically just lining up for a bigger crash later. It's more of an issue right now because the dollar has become less desirable internationally forcing up interest rates.
      --
      Deleted
    3. Re:Hey, its not like.... by megaditto · · Score: 4, Insightful

      To play devil's advocate here, not everybody benefits from improved efficiency. Old, undereducated, less intelligent people cannot easily retrain. This 'they-stole-my-jerb' croud still gets to vote however, so something must be done about their issues.

      Sure, some are able to put away their pickaxe or lathe, take up Game Theory or Biochemistry books and courses, and grow into their new high-tech workplace. The others (in America) were better off before globalization moved in.

      --
      Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
  3. I love this game! by Champ · · Score: 5, Funny

    U.S. companies outsourcing jobs to foreign countries: bad for the U.S.

    Foreign companies outsourcing jobs to the U.S.: bad for the U.S.

    1. Re:I love this game! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      U.S. companies outsourcing jobs to foreign countries: bad for the U.S.

      Foreign companies outsourcing jobs to the U.S.: bad for the U.S. Of course it doesn't actually mean what the editor's comments say. All we can really conclude is that the Indian company found labor more accessible and/or cheaper in the USA. Or has some totally irrational motive, for all we know.

      Doesn't say anything about labor prices either. If it was outsourced because they couldn't find enough cheap labor in India, that's *good* news for wages.
  4. Why is this so surprising? by Judg3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously, why is this such a surprise to everyone? When you going a global economy, it's like opening a flood gate; initially there's a huge rush out (everyone outsources), then some smaller waves back (people demand more insourced jobs), then - well, then it all balances out (US Company A outsources to India, Indian Company B outsources to the US, Mexican company G outsources to the UK, UK Company L outsources to Oz, etc etc).

    In fact, isn't this exactly what everyone was telling us would eventually happen 8 years ago? So shouldn't we have been expecting it?

    --
    Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
    1. Re:Why is this so surprising? by krgallagher · · Score: 4, Interesting
      "Seriously, why is this such a surprise to everyone?"

      I am a natve US citizen, Caucasian male. I worked for Wipro recently, and they are a very good company. They paid me competitive rates to what I would get from a US company, and had excellent benefits. Their US home office is in Sunnyvale California about two blocks from Google. If it wasn't for the fact that I was ready to get out of a job that had me living in airports and hotels, I would still be there today.

      Most of what I did was to put an American face on what is basically an Indian company. Any major development was handed off to my counterparts in India where skilled labor is cheaper. I spent an enormous amount of time acting as an interpreter on conference calls for customers who could not understand English with an Indian accent. I also did a lot of requirements gathering because the language barrier made it a painful process for many of our customers. It really was a good job, and if you have the personality that will let you be a good traveling consultant I highly recommended Wipro.

      --

      Insert Generic Sig Here:

    2. Re:Why is this so surprising? by kahei · · Score: 4, Informative


      Well, I haven't worked for Wipro. I *have* had them working for *me* and it was an unrepeatable experience -- scared, inexperienced, homesick, basically useless Indian guys supplied on a constantly revolving system, spending about a month on the project and then either disappearing or being rotated somewhere else. The absolutely classic bad side of outsourcing.

      They're probably OK to work *for*, though, if you aren't one of those guys.

      --
      Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
  5. Here we go again by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Another story about outsourcing to 3rd world countries!

    --
    Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
  6. Re:Theories vs Facts by JeanBaptiste · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Its just a THEORY... just like EVOLUTION and GRAVITY

    Market theory is well tested and proven...

  7. Re:Ah India. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Our greatest friend and ally!... After the UK, Australia, Canada, and of course Bosnia. Don't forget Poland!
  8. So does this mean... by SkinnyKid63 · · Score: 5, Funny

    So does this mean that when Indians call for tech supported, they will get angry because they can't understand the American accent of someone claiming to be Raehan?

  9. Misleading summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Similarly, salaries of IT professionals world-wide are projected to stagnant or possibly fall due to the large pool of qualified applicants in the market today."

    TFA only mentions the Indian tech industry. I'm sure you could make a case for a world-wide effect from this, but the article doesn't mention it.

  10. Or, as Scott Adams has put it.... by DrYak · · Score: 5, Funny
    Dilbert is just visionnary :
    • strip 1 (and here is some text to feed the spam filter)
    • strip 2 (again some text to please the spam detector)
    • strip 3 (sorry SlashCode : this isn't ads for viagra, these are actual dilbert strips)


    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  11. Reasons for this by Necroman · · Score: 4, Informative

    Listening to the audio version of the story, I found a few key points:

    * US programmers are still much more expensive than programmers in other countries.
    * Wipro has software houses in multiple countries around the world, their is their first Software house in the US though.
    * US programmers know about the culture and idioms of this country, which is needed for some jobs.
    * Any defense contracts must be worked on my US based developers.

    --
    Its not what it is, its something else.
  12. Re:Theories vs Facts by zeromorph · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You must be joking. Models in market theory are mostly oversimplified. Often to the extent that the results are useless for practical purposes.

    Why do you think investments in stock markets are still a risky business? Because all the investors do not listen to the academia? If models and theory in physics would be that unreliable nuclear power plants would regularly go boom!

    --
    "Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
  13. LIES LIES LIES!!! by MCHammer · · Score: 5, Informative

    I live in Atlanta Georgia and a lot of people are talking about how this company will be bringing jobs to Atlanta. The truth is that while they will be hiring people, this will result in a NET LOSS for Atlanta and the United States.

    The way this works is that Fortune 50 companies in Atlanta like Bell South, Coca-Cola, Delta, etc. have contracts with US based firms and employ US based resources. The movement is now to outsource to India. The problem is that they realize that they have to have someone in the United States to actually talk to the customer and deal with problems. These people will be the business analysts and the technical architects that feed the people off shore. While they say that these companies are creating jobs in the United States, the truth is that most of them will be landed resources also from India under H1B visa.

    The result of this is that the 50 people in Atlanta that were working in IT are now replaced by 40 off shore people, 5 landed people in Atlanta, and 5 local people. I'm not judging whether it's good or bad or right or wrong, I'm just clarifying what is really happening because most people are way off on this one.

  14. USA has low cost of living areas also by MarkWatson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    About 10 years ago my wife and I moved from a beach area in California to North Central Arizona - partly because it is a beautiful place and partly because a much lower cost of living in Arizona has freed us up to be more flexible in our working (or not working). Neither one of us has had a job in an office since our move, and we both only work on projects that interest us.

    Frankly, I can not understand why so many people trade both their time and preference to work on interesting projects for material stuff like frequently buying new cars, homes that are much larger than they really need, etc. I believe that this odd behavior is caused by a lifetime of subjecting oneself to advertising, but that is just a theory :-)

  15. It reminds me of the dumb things people say by tkrotchko · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Back in the 80's when Japanese cars made real inroads in the U.S. car market, people would comment that Japanese cars were built better and more reliable than their American counterparts. Inevitably this would lead to talk of "fat lazy union workers", and would conjure up pictures of some fat slob with a cigarette dangling from his mouth only putting in the occasional bolt if the mood struck him.

    The reality is that quality in cars is engineered from the earliest drawings. It goes into the manufacturing process to ensure there is only one correct way to assemble something. It comes about because management is committed to a quality product. Not just the words, but they take concrete steps to ensure what goes out the door is the best that they know how to build.

    So the Japanese really were building better cars simply because the management of the company committed to building good cars. The proof was when Honda and Toyota moved manufacturing to the United States with no loss in quality. Nobody cares if their Accord is built in the U.S. or Japan, the cars are simply quality products.

    To this day, the myth of the lazy American work persists, I assume partly because American cars for the most part still fall below Japanese standards. Now somehow the Union makes line workers stupid and lazy, which is ridiculous.

    A large part of the reason unions arose in heavy industries was because management treated workers so poorly. That culture still exists in American automobile plants and leads to workers understand that the company will cheat them blind without a good contract. So the company treats people poorly and suffers the consequence in the factory.

    It's like you punch somebody in the face, and then complain when they punch you back.

    --
    You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
  16. We need more Engineers! by Trojan35 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Last week on Slashdot: We don't have enough engineers! Should we subsidize those majors in college?
    This week on Slashdot: Too many engineers! Salaries are falling!

    1. Re:We need more Engineers! by Greyfox · · Score: 4, Funny
      Wikipedia says the number of engineers in the USA has tripled in the last three months. It must be true!

      Or at least it will say that by the time you read this post.

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  17. I'm a consultant and he's right! - Mod parent up! by ObiWonKanblomi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    These people will be the business analysts and the technical architects that feed the people off shore. While they say that these companies are creating jobs in the United States, the truth is that most of them will be landed resources also from India under H1B visa.

    Of all the points I have seen on this thread, the above quote is the most legitimate. I'm a business IT consultant with a focus on custom application development. I'm one of those "technical architects" he speaks of. Our local teams are rather small with our full-time consultants to build the foundation of the applications and we then tap into a pool of contractors to do fill in the implementations as provided by the design me, my fellow consultants and business analysts construct.

    One of the things the parent does overlook is that aside from experience and technical skill, clear communication skills are essential. I remember being told back in college in the late 90s I would need strong communication skills (granted English is my first language). I am not referring to only plain English but also an understanding of "International" English (to speak to our Indian associates and any other people who aren't familiar with localized metaphors) and business-speak. In addition, it takes a level of being assertive and proactive.

  18. So called increases in productivity by sauge · · Score: 4, Interesting

    US company makes gadgets ready for assembly.

    They send gadgets over seas to be assembled

    Gadget is sent back to US company for adding to another gadget.

    US company claims entire sequence as increase in US productivity.

    Is the productivity increase really said to belong to the US company?

    Many economists calculating GDP are beginning to question it.

  19. whatever happened to training? by SABME · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've seen a few comments from employers in this thread who bemoan the lack of experienced people in the job market.

    Whatever happened to hiring someone who was inexperienced, but still sharp, and developing that person? This is how I got my start in 1990: someone who had seen my work took a chance that I'd do a good job supporting the company's LAN, even though I lacked experience, and hired me. With the exception of a few months during the bust years of 2001 and 2002, I've been working in the field ever since (in a variety of different positions, most recently QA testing).

    One thing I noticed around the turn of the century was that there weren't any 20-somethings at work anymore. At age 34, I was far and away the youngest person at work. Where will the next generation of experienced old hands come from if not from within? At some point, all the experienced people will be too old to work any more, and then what will we do? The worst part of outsourcing is that we're outsourcing not just today's jobs, but the future of our talent pool.

    ((Let me cynically answer my first question ("Whatever happened to hiring ..."): regular corporate layoffs. To most managers, we grunts are nothing more than numbers in the "Expenses" column of a spreadsheet.))

  20. Swedish code is still legible by roystgnr · · Score: 5, Funny

    cpsJust vbDont vbOutsource ppYour nCode prepTo cntryHungary.

    1. Re:Swedish code is still legible by CaffeineAddict2001 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm actually a fan of Hungarian notation. It's nice to be able to know both the scope and type of a variable just by looking at it.

    2. Re:Swedish code is still legible by Surt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's building a tool (understanding scope and type) into your coding style. Always a bad idea. Build the tools around your coding style, and keep your style as elegant and simple as possible.

      As a relatively trivial example of where this goes wrong, refactoring such a variable can trivially result in the code lying to you about the type and scope of a variable. If you instead have a tool that will tell you the scope and type based on inspection, it will never lie to you.

      Hungarian notation was a bad bad idea created by someone with a poor understanding of and lacking insight into the problem they were trying to solve.

      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
    3. Re:Swedish code is still legible by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 4, Funny
      I'm actually a fan of Hungarian notation. It's nice to be able to know both the scope and type of a variable just by looking at it.

      Dammit, Simonyi, no one asked you! Now just go away.

      --
      That is all.
    4. Re:Swedish code is still legible by Surt · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You're making my case for me: you're asking programmers to put overhead time into their work to make hungarian notation work (and demanding that they not make mistakes!). Hungarian notation is error-prone. It's not going to help your blind coworker if it is wrong.

      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
    5. Re:Swedish code is still legible by S.O.B. · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Linus also said:

      Encoding the type of a function into the name (so-called Hungarian notation) is brain damaged - the compiler knows the types anyway and can check those, and it only confuses the programmer.
      --
      Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
  21. Re:Hungarian Notation by Surt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Heh. The discussion you reference is linking Joel on software. I send beginners there and ask: give me a list of all the things Joel is obviously wrong about. I keep the ones who are smart enough to come back and say: I don't want to spend that much time writing it all down.

    --
    "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
  22. Re:Ah India. by C0C0C0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Don't forget Poland!
    No. Seriously. Who modded this "Funny"? Poland has been our ally since the Revolutionary War. They sent troops to Iraq. They are the Europeans that don't hate us.

    Totally off topic, but, for real: They are a huge US ally.

    --
    You are totally blocking my view of the wall. - Dogbert