Mexican Hotel Chain Outsources IT To US

cweditor writes "Grupo Posadas has five data centers supporting more than 100 hotels and other lines of business, but it's moving almost all of those operations to a service provider in Texas. Could cloud service providers help the U.S. become a destination for tech outsourcing instead of an exporter of tech jobs? One stumbling block: The U.S. finds itself on the receiving end of protectionist legislation in other countries that discourages use of non-domestic IT service providers, says the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation."

Comments

Host in USA - get free backup

[Keruo]

Todays offer, host in USA, get free backup from NSA.
Only problem is getting back the copies once the cloud service crashes/vanishes underneath.

Blatant lie

[aepervius]

"The US finds itself on the receiving end of protectionist legislation in other countries that discourages use of non-domestic IT service providers"

That is a misrepresentation. most country I know of which view the US cloud service warrily, do because of the privacy protection of their citizen. One cannot guarantee any privacy protection once the data is on US soil. Neitehr can one guanrantee that the US will not subponea the data. THAT is the reason some country do not want their cloud data in the US, or outside their own juridiction for what it matters.

Re:Blatant lie

[Tailhook]

Even if one accepts the claim that the US is a privacy liability, that claim is orthogonal to whether other nations impede US services with protectionism — those two possibilities may coexist just fine. Despite this obvious fallacy the parent characterizes the latter as a `blatant lie' while citing nothing credible.

Please try not mod this nonsense up. I know we're supposed to indulge privacy outrage around here but the parent is crap. Find some other, less stupid malcontent to amplify.

Re:Blatant lie

[Tridus]

Actually, it's not. The US government screams "protectionism" when other countries pass things like privacy laws that don't allow you to store private data outside the country precisely because of the US government's fondness for spying on everything. If you have to keep data private legally, it's a pretty bad start when a cloud provider shows up and can't explain why they won't have to hand a Canadian business' data on Canadian customers over to a US spy agency on totally arbitrary conditions.

Sometimes the two aren't related, but sometimes they are.

Re:Blatant lie

[Concern]

Hmm. I'm usually the first one to point out mistaken beliefs about US superiority in general, or certainly in terms of privacy protection or civil rights.

I can't speak for Mexico. However, I don't believe i.e. India offers any privacy protection that the US does not. In fact, in most outsourcing hotspots around South or Central America or the Pac Rim, you not only have even fewer stated protections, but you are dealing with governments that are even less, shall we say, predictable. You also have to be concerned about how safe and easy it is to do business (with i.e. an outsourcing firm, hosting company) in places where the quality of the civil courts is not so great. And, let's be real - in many nations where IT outsourcing once boomed, the court system is more a theater for bribery than a forum for the practice of law. And then there's the well-documented danger of collusion between the state and large domestic companies, or even organized crime, to a degree that even the US still blushes at (and the US does not blush at much, especially these days)...

I did once investigate whether it was possible for an American to go to India in reverse of what normally happens in IT - to study there, or take an IT job there, either for several years or perhaps to emigrate. I came away with the impression that it would be harder as an American citizen to go there, than as an Indian citizen, to come here.

I think our trade and immigration policies are often ridiculous, but especially so when, in our era of "free movement of goods," the US doesn't even extract bilateral agreements on the free movement of people, after speaking with the relevant lobbyists to determine what the visa quotas should be. :)

Re:Blatant lie

[Gonoff]

GP is correct. It is not protectionism that keeps confidential data from here in the UK heading your way. It is clearly and specifically the fact that you have less regard for privacy than is generally expected of a developed democratic country.
I have been told here on /. that this is because companies are obliged to squeeze every last penny penny out of their assets ore its officers will find themselves on the end of some sort of legal action. Is it true that if a company does not reserve the right to sell my details to every advertiser it can, they will be in trouble?

Re:Blatant lie

[nedlohs]

Of course not, they're just one such country who also happens to be a country with a pretty large IT industry so that it might actually be an issue.

Yes, Iran invades people's privacy as well - but Iran isn't high on the list of places to buy "cloud storage" from.

China does to, but while China is a popular IT outsourcing destination I haven't seen a lot of "cloud storage" stuff from their (or India) - network connectivity is significantly worse than the US after all.

The underlying issue is non-domestic storage. It doesn't matter what country it is in, you have reduced the protection of your data. Now both your local government and a foreign government can request your data (and the foreign one can also physically take the hard drives). Maybe if your local government is in the business of taking physical servers by force but not doing anything about someone refusing to supply requested data you gain something - but that seems an unlikely combination.

Re:Blatant lie

[icebike]

Screaming? Hardly. Nobody ever head of this site, and nothing was done about the proposal, and the bill died in committee.

Some companies complained. Big deal. NOTHING came of it. The Government did nothing.

Next?

Re:Blatant lie

[GIL_Dude]

Is it true that if a company does not reserve the right to sell my details to every advertiser it can, they will be in trouble?

Well that would only be true in a limited sense. For example, with a company like Facebook now that it is public - yes, this could be partially true. A company whose business model is collecting data and selling advertisements based on that data would not make their shareholders happy if they decided not to fully utilize that data. However, if a company had a business model of "we provide secure cloud services" (oh say like Amazon EC2 or Microsoft Azure or something like that, or even like say Dropbox) their shareholders would not like it if the company jeopardized their entire business by not keeping the stored data as confidential as possible. Only as the company started to fail on its own (like dropbox could now that Google Drive and Microsoft Skydrive are attacking their turf) would the shareholders then want to extract all the possible value from the data that they have. They still wouldn't want to do it illegally though as the lawsuits could eat up the shareholder value before they can cash out.

The main risk to data is that it can be subpoenaed by the Government fairly easily. That's really the data risk you have in the US.

Re:Blatant lie

[suutar]

You are correct, and I apologize for failing to notice that.

Not much shift in Jobs...

[icebike]

Look, its fairly easy to get into the "cloud" business as the only barriers are financial, not technical.
Other than power, It costs about the same to run a data center with 200 cores as it costs to run one with 500 cores.
You might hire one more tech support person. Maybe. Probably not.

There will be few jobs outsourced to Texas, other than janitorial ones, because the hosting company
is only going to be running the machines, the Mexican hotel chain will still be managing them and
running their own booking software.

They are shedding physical plant, not jobs.

What they surrender is control. If the data center is accused of hosting some IP pirate nodes, the Mexican hotel
chain could find their servers are grabbed by the FBI in some heavy handed Anti-Pirate operation.

Top 5 Reasons Not to Outsource to US

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Top 5 reasons not to outsource to US:

5. Can't trust those Americans with your data.
4. You'll lose control over your infrastructure.
3. Low prices are temporary and will increase as the global economy continues to balance
2. Perceived cost savings are more than offset by the additional cost of having to spec everything out to the point where you're better off doing it yourself.
1. You won't be able to understand them when you call for support.

Re:Top 5 Reasons Not to Outsource to US

[Anonymous Coward]

Top 5 reasons not to outsource to US:

5. Can't trust those Americans with your data.
4. You'll lose control over your infrastructure.
3. Low prices are temporary and will increase as the global economy continues to balance
2. Perceived cost savings are more than offset by the additional cost of having to spec everything out to the point where you're better off doing it yourself.
1. You won't be able to understand them when you call for support.

5. Gringos ladrones.
4. Gringos ladrones.
3. Gringos ladrones.
2. Gringos ladrones.
1. Gringos no hablan español.

Re:Top 5 Reasons Not to Outsource to US

[roc97007]

That strikes me as the top 5 reasons not to outsource anywhere.

Re:Top 5 Reasons Not to Outsource to US

[DesScorp]

That strikes me as the top 5 reasons not to outsource anywhere.

On Slashdot, it's the top five reasons to peddle cheap cynicism. Even when something good happens... Hey, other countries want to move jobs here! ... some people bitch and moan, and are generally just looking for any excuse to complain about the United States.

Dilbert

[KDN]

Years ago Dilbert had a strip where they outsourced to country A, who outsourced to company B, and so forth until it was eventually outsourced back to themselves. Its finally happened :-)

Calling support...

[drkim]

Of course this get better when they call the support number and hear:

"Hello... I.T. support center. This is Joe-Bob, uh, I mean, uh, Pedro. How can I help ya'all?"

Re:Calling support...

[roc97007]

It's not the country. A "peggy" is a "peggy" if it's in Poland, India, Mexico or Ackerly.

I think you missed the joke...

I'm living the joke. Yes, I'm well aware that the current trend is for foreigns to use names appropriate for the country they're supporting. Some don't, and conversations go more like:

"Hello this is Anantharaman, how may I be helping you today?"

"Well, Aratha..."

"Anantharaman."

"Umm, Anaratharam..."

"Anantharaman"

"I'm just gonna call you 'Fred', ok?"

The hardest part of a service call should not be communicating with the helpdesk.

Indian Call Center company bought a U.S. one

[Attila Dimedici]

This is not the first sign of this. A few years back a large Indian Call Center company bought a U.S. Call Center company because they could not meet the demand for call center workers in India.

Global Outsourcing Example

[dorpus]

I am signed up for a Japanese company that outsources weird international requests to translators all over the world. Whoever is qualified, no matter where they are in the world, will do it. I've translated documents for topics ranging from industrial refrigerants on shipping vessels to the future of feminine hygiene products in India.

(Globally, feminine hygiene product makers are excited about the huge emerging market of India. But for now, most Indian women have never heard of a tampon and think that they have a horrible cancer that causes them to bleed every few weeks. Married couples may have no idea how to make a baby, and consult witch doctors.)

Re:Same staff

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you say the same thing if it was a Canadian company in North Dakota?

Let's be honest. You wouldn't and the thought wouldn't have even crossed your mind.

Texas has always had a large Spanish speaking Latino population. Yes, I know it is probably hard for ignorant people to understand but not all those fighting to save the Alamo were English speaking Anglos.

It is very easy to see how businesses in places that are supportive of bilingual individuals would be attractive to foreign businesses. Texas is among those places and therefore very likely to attract businesses from places like Mexico, etc.

Now lets make things simple for you to understand. Just because it involves Mexico and people in places with large amounts of Spanish speaking individuals does not mean that everyone involved is undocumented. There are millions of non-immigrant Latinos who live in the US. Some have lived in the US far longer than you or any of your ancestors, and still retain their cultural practices. The US was always inhabited by people of different cultures who have spoken different languages. Whether those languages were English, German, Polish, Spanish, etc. etc., one of the things that was supposed to make the US great was its openness and freedom for people to be themselves without persecution.

I know many of those great US stories are just a myth. The reality is that its just as racist, bigoted, and oppressive as any other nation. But that doesn't mean that we can't push that ideal, live our lives in that dream and maybe one day make it our reality.

I know this is going to inspire a bunch of haters to write more ignorant nonsense, instead of the thoughts and ideas I was hoping to provoke. All I can say, is good luck to you, at least in my fantasy world, people are pushing towards freedom instead of oppression.

Peace.

Re:Same staff

[techno-vampire]

The US was always inhabited by people of different cultures who have spoken different languages.

One of the greatest parts of America has always been the concept of The Melting Pot. Now liberals are trying to do away with it in the name of Cultural Diversity with the unintended consequence of the loss of the hybrid vigor it produced.

Re:Cue Twilight Zone theme

[rwise2112]

It happens more than you think. Last year I applied for a work visa for India, and found out that the visa application processing (at least in Canada) was outsourced to a Canadian company.