IBM Tries To Patent Offshoring

Ian Lamont writes "IBM has filed a patent application that covers offshoring employees. Application 20090083107, dated March 26, 2009, is a 'method and system for strategic global resource sourcing.' Figure 2 gives a pretty good idea of what's involved — it shows boxes labelled 'Engineer,' 'HR,' and 'Programmer' with crossing arrows pointing to cylinders labelled 'India,' 'China,' and 'Hungary.' The article speculates that IBM may apply the methodology to its own staff — it reportedly plans to lay off thousands of employees and has even started a program to have IBM workers transfer to other countries at local wages."

Comments

for the win

[Xenious]

Maybe if we let IBM patent it then everyone else will stop doing it?

Tariffs

[Renraku]

Its about time that we taxed software and support from US companies that outsource.

You want to outsource your programmers or call center to India? That's just fine. Now show us how many hours your foreign staff has worked. Alright, now we're going to tax you so much that you end up paying 2/3rds of what you would have paid if you had stayed in the USA. We're putting this money towards unemployment benefits and other social programs, to offset the number of workers you dumped so you could hire someone to do it for five dollars a day.

Re:The thing about IBM

[Amiga Trombone]

Some interesting info I picked up doing some research on who was hiring whom, and where. Here's a short list of companies in our industry, and the number of H1-B's they hired in 2008.

Microsoft: 4437
IBM: 1413
Hewlett-Packard: 520
Apple Computer: 291

You tell me - which of these companies has produced the most innovative products over the last decade? By the way - unlike the other three, Apple doesn't offshore their product development - it's all done in Cupertino, Ca. Also, when you call their tech support, you'll reliably get connected with someone who speaks English.

Re:What wasn't in the summary

[MosesJones]

Probably more likely that its people from abroad, especially the EU, who really don't want to move to the US with its much less protective legislation. A smart US based IBM employee should be signing up for the move to France, Germany or Scandanavia, better healthcare, that isn't linked to your employer, better food (in France anyway) and a chance to completely change your perspective on life.

Now it would be interesting what the odds are on IBM allowing a US to France transfer.