I wouldn't take an American's word for the quality (or lack of it) of Indian outsourced services, since an American has a vested interest in painting India and Indians as inferior and poor workers. Since you asked for counterexamples, start with this one:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1754352&cid=33251946
Can you name any good programs that have come out of India? Because every occasion I know of when work has been sent there has been a disaster.
Well, I'll tell you about a failure instead of a success.
There was this project in which I was the Senior Consultant/Technical Architect, implementing a certain Supply Chain planning software, and there was a huge amount of data integration involved. Now, the sales team (Americans, all) had promised the moon to get the contract, so when I actually sat down with the client, I was horrified with the client's expectations, both in terms of work and timeline. I (and the Project Manager, both of us Indians) started convincing and negotiating the timeline and scope with the client. The client was naturally pissed and we had to take a lot of shit from them during the discussions. The issue was escalated to senior management (Americans again), and we received instructions from them to 'find a middle path' since we couldn't 'afford to lose this client'. In the end, we ended up with requirements that involved just too much customization to the pre-existing product (and a very aggressive timeline too).
Now, when we began building the team, pressure was put on us by some members of senior management (Americans, btw) to keep the number of billable resources to a minimum so that we wouldn't exceed our budget. We got together 10 resources (much less that what I'd have liked), out of which 3 were crap (But hey, that's bound to happen in any project, anywhere). I started asking the client for access to a dump of their data, or at least a subset of it. Now, their data maintenance was outsourced to a third company, and with all the bloody bureaucracy there ('Data security issues', interdepartmental protocol, and so on), it was 3 weeks before we started to get some data. Realize that I had returned to Bangalore now after taking all the shit from the client during the requirement discussions, and was building the technical team and kick-starting the project offshore. So all conversation with the customer was telephonic, not to mention the timezone issues. We had an 'on site coordinator' (American btw), but though he was technically good, he wasn't efficient in getting things done, pushing the client for data, and so on.
When we actually got the data, we found that the code we had written so far (remember, we were working blind all this while, with only the 'documents' to guide us) needed significant changes. And they never gave us a complete consistent dataset - it was all trickling in one by one, and extracted at different points in time. So we got data for salesorders which referred to certain items, while the items dataset had none of those items! Lot of such inconsistencies made life hell for us, and our database.
I won't ramble on and describe all the other shit that we had to face on that project, but the end result was an over-budget, delayed project. Which was implemented in the end, but only after the 'Indian offshore team' was blamed for all the ills of the world. As far as I know, the client is still using the product and is happy with it now - their retarded end users have got a good feel of the product by now, I suppose. But who got blamed for no fault of theirs? The Indians. Who worked their asses out to successfully finish the task inspite of being fucked from all directions? The Indians. And who gets blamed and vilified in the end? Yep, the Indians!
I have heard (and seen) similar things in several (not all) projects.
Hmm.. if Indian programmers are sooooo bad and shitty, wonder why you guys are sooooo worried about losing your jobs, Indians getting all the code jobs, and so on? After all, sooner or later, the quality (or lack thereof) will be noticeable to all, and corporations would drop India like a hot potato, isn't it? Or, are you perhaps stating that everyone in the USA apart from your esteemed self, is a moron who can't see the obvious?
Nope. Carpet bomb Pakistan. They're biting America hard in the ass - taking billions of dollars in aid on the one hand and cultivating the Taliban on the other. Afghanistan can be won only if the Pakis are given a hard kick on their backside.
That's the way, dude! Look at the arrogance of the Anonymous Coward - he assumes that anyone who provides logical explanations to clear stereotypes is 'sapping' the American education system. The poster is most probably a leech living off benefits. I'm not perplexed by such posts anymore. Some people just cannot understand sane logical points - they deserve absolutely no sympathy or civility.
I was "caught" taking photos in the Delhi metro with my mobile camera once, and the security guys almost confiscated my phone. I pretended to delete all the photos I had taken and they were satisfied and let me go... Today, the situation worldwide is such that, if you so much as dare suggest that the security thing is a little overblown and some of the rules are ridiculous, you'll have a pile of right-wing nutters on your backs within seconds! That's how it's going to be for the forseeable future and we must just get used to it...
The 'Universal Installer' and other Java based tools can easily be rewritten - no big deal. More important than those tools, IMHO, is the fact that Oracle has been providing support for in-database Java Stored Procedures. That, I'd say, is a bigger reason for Oracle not to kill Java!
No Government or intelligence agency in the world is interested in your grandma and her pals exchanging recipes. Neither are they interested in reading anonymous techies let off steam on slashdot. Communications monitoring will become more and more common in all countries going forward, India included. As long as we have this terrorist/militant bugbear there's no escaping this. Maybe we just get used to it?
And oh - if American citizens think that their Government does not have the means to monitor communication, all I have to say is - dream on.
I have a lot of respect for America as a nation and I accept the immense contributions that America has made to the world in the past century. However, I just CANNOT stand the whining disgruntled American middle class techies who infest slashdot like bacteria.
"the plug can be pulled"
Really?? Wow, I'm impressed. Do you work as a 'Network Engineer' by any chance? You'll rise high in your career, my good wishes are with you...
Yeah, the Indian Govt. is incompetent and hugely bureaucratic - nothing new in that. But be careful what you wish for - it might not be fun to live amongst a bunch of pathetic whiners who just can't stop howling about "jaaab stealers"
Looks like slashdot is infested with disgruntled hypocrite American techies. I can't see any other reason why the above comment was not modded 'Flamebait',
Most middle class Americans are hypocrites. They are well known for ad-hominem attacks on other countries and cultures instead of getting off their ass and speaking to their own home-grown politicians etc. who are the root cause of all their problems in the first place.
What keeps Americans in a constant state of frustration and agitation about 'stolen jobs' is the American politicians and bureaucracy. Wasting billions of dollars on wars, nuclear weapons, etc. etc. when the pathetic set of whiners that is the American middle class, continues to suffer job losses, recession and rising prices.
Another round of howling from the American hypocrites - 'them Indians are steeeealing our Jaaaabs'.
Look at the supreme arrogance of it - all jobs on earth are first American jobs. Anyone else who dares to do that job is a 'thief'. For arguments sake, let us assume that American jobs have indeed been stolen by Indians. But now those are Indian jobs. So, how dare you ask for those jobs to be 'stolen from Indians' and given to Americans now?
" continues to be dangerous to be a Christian in some parts of India"
Agree only partly, with emphasis on the fact that those 'parts of India' are less than 0.0003% of India's land area. More importantly, it is dangerous for Christians in that 0.003% of India only if they try to convert tribals and other backward communities to Christianity. I'm not saying this is a good thing - just stating facts.
"and has been for decades"
Vehemently disagree! What nonsense - the only 'communal riots' India has had for 'decades' were Hindu-Muslim.
Tell me where you get your information on 'persecution occurring for decades on a continuous basis'?
Looks like you get a kick out of imagining yourself to be some kind of spy. The risk is not worth it. There is a 99% chance that you'll go scott free even if you take no precautions. But OTOH, it's also possible that you get into trouble even with all your precautions. The internet isn't going anywhere. Just visit China and behave like a normal tourist would. You can access the 'whole, unadulterated, unfiltered Internet' to your heart's content when you return!
"Why are you so threatened by my claim that Christians are persecuted?"
No one is 'threatened' by your claim - it does piss one off when issues are blown out of proportion and an image is created as if Christians face 'persecution' in India on a constant basis.
If you call a few isolated incidents carried out by a few fanatics, 'Persecution of Christians', I can claim that the Americans 'persecute Indians' in the USA based on newspaper reports of crime/racism against Indians!
After 60 years of independence, there have been some cases of violence by some fanatics in one remote and backward corner of the country, brought under control within weeks (don't believe that crap propaganda about attacks for 500 days - had that happened, the state Government would have been dismissed), and you have the gall to say that 'Christians are being persecuted'??
Slashdot Mirror
please feel free to give me counterexamples
I wouldn't take an American's word for the quality (or lack of it) of Indian outsourced services, since an American has a vested interest in painting India and Indians as inferior and poor workers. Since you asked for counterexamples, start with this one: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1754352&cid=33251946
Are you surprised? High time you stopped stereotyping Indians based on call center experiences.
Can you name any good programs that have come out of India? Because every occasion I know of when work has been sent there has been a disaster.
Well, I'll tell you about a failure instead of a success.
There was this project in which I was the Senior Consultant/Technical Architect, implementing a certain Supply Chain planning software, and there was a huge amount of data integration involved. Now, the sales team (Americans, all) had promised the moon to get the contract, so when I actually sat down with the client, I was horrified with the client's expectations, both in terms of work and timeline. I (and the Project Manager, both of us Indians) started convincing and negotiating the timeline and scope with the client. The client was naturally pissed and we had to take a lot of shit from them during the discussions. The issue was escalated to senior management (Americans again), and we received instructions from them to 'find a middle path' since we couldn't 'afford to lose this client'. In the end, we ended up with requirements that involved just too much customization to the pre-existing product (and a very aggressive timeline too).
Now, when we began building the team, pressure was put on us by some members of senior management (Americans, btw) to keep the number of billable resources to a minimum so that we wouldn't exceed our budget. We got together 10 resources (much less that what I'd have liked), out of which 3 were crap (But hey, that's bound to happen in any project, anywhere). I started asking the client for access to a dump of their data, or at least a subset of it. Now, their data maintenance was outsourced to a third company, and with all the bloody bureaucracy there ('Data security issues', interdepartmental protocol, and so on), it was 3 weeks before we started to get some data. Realize that I had returned to Bangalore now after taking all the shit from the client during the requirement discussions, and was building the technical team and kick-starting the project offshore. So all conversation with the customer was telephonic, not to mention the timezone issues. We had an 'on site coordinator' (American btw), but though he was technically good, he wasn't efficient in getting things done, pushing the client for data, and so on.
When we actually got the data, we found that the code we had written so far (remember, we were working blind all this while, with only the 'documents' to guide us) needed significant changes. And they never gave us a complete consistent dataset - it was all trickling in one by one, and extracted at different points in time. So we got data for salesorders which referred to certain items, while the items dataset had none of those items! Lot of such inconsistencies made life hell for us, and our database.
I won't ramble on and describe all the other shit that we had to face on that project, but the end result was an over-budget, delayed project. Which was implemented in the end, but only after the 'Indian offshore team' was blamed for all the ills of the world. As far as I know, the client is still using the product and is happy with it now - their retarded end users have got a good feel of the product by now, I suppose. But who got blamed for no fault of theirs? The Indians. Who worked their asses out to successfully finish the task inspite of being fucked from all directions? The Indians. And who gets blamed and vilified in the end? Yep, the Indians!
I have heard (and seen) similar things in several (not all) projects.
Hmm.. if Indian programmers are sooooo bad and shitty, wonder why you guys are sooooo worried about losing your jobs, Indians getting all the code jobs, and so on? After all, sooner or later, the quality (or lack thereof) will be noticeable to all, and corporations would drop India like a hot potato, isn't it? Or, are you perhaps stating that everyone in the USA apart from your esteemed self, is a moron who can't see the obvious?
Best bang for the buck: Nuke Iran.
Nope. Carpet bomb Pakistan. They're biting America hard in the ass - taking billions of dollars in aid on the one hand and cultivating the Taliban on the other. Afghanistan can be won only if the Pakis are given a hard kick on their backside.
That's the way, dude! Look at the arrogance of the Anonymous Coward - he assumes that anyone who provides logical explanations to clear stereotypes is 'sapping' the American education system. The poster is most probably a leech living off benefits. I'm not perplexed by such posts anymore. Some people just cannot understand sane logical points - they deserve absolutely no sympathy or civility.
I was "caught" taking photos in the Delhi metro with my mobile camera once, and the security guys almost confiscated my phone. I pretended to delete all the photos I had taken and they were satisfied and let me go... Today, the situation worldwide is such that, if you so much as dare suggest that the security thing is a little overblown and some of the rules are ridiculous, you'll have a pile of right-wing nutters on your backs within seconds! That's how it's going to be for the forseeable future and we must just get used to it...
The 'Universal Installer' and other Java based tools can easily be rewritten - no big deal. More important than those tools, IMHO, is the fact that Oracle has been providing support for in-database Java Stored Procedures. That, I'd say, is a bigger reason for Oracle not to kill Java!
No Government or intelligence agency in the world is interested in your grandma and her pals exchanging recipes. Neither are they interested in reading anonymous techies let off steam on slashdot. Communications monitoring will become more and more common in all countries going forward, India included. As long as we have this terrorist/militant bugbear there's no escaping this. Maybe we just get used to it? And oh - if American citizens think that their Government does not have the means to monitor communication, all I have to say is - dream on.
I have a lot of respect for America as a nation and I accept the immense contributions that America has made to the world in the past century. However, I just CANNOT stand the whining disgruntled American middle class techies who infest slashdot like bacteria.
"the plug can be pulled" Really?? Wow, I'm impressed. Do you work as a 'Network Engineer' by any chance? You'll rise high in your career, my good wishes are with you...
Yeah, the Indian Govt. is incompetent and hugely bureaucratic - nothing new in that. But be careful what you wish for - it might not be fun to live amongst a bunch of pathetic whiners who just can't stop howling about "jaaab stealers"
I second you :-)
Most Americans seem to think that ALL 'big fat rich' corporations in the world are American.
Yeah? Get out of your inflated sense of self-importance. The Indian Government cares tuppence about your whining 'correspondence'.
Looks like slashdot is infested with disgruntled hypocrite American techies. I can't see any other reason why the above comment was not modded 'Flamebait',
Most middle class Americans are hypocrites. They are well known for ad-hominem attacks on other countries and cultures instead of getting off their ass and speaking to their own home-grown politicians etc. who are the root cause of all their problems in the first place.
What keeps Americans in a constant state of frustration and agitation about 'stolen jobs' is the American politicians and bureaucracy. Wasting billions of dollars on wars, nuclear weapons, etc. etc. when the pathetic set of whiners that is the American middle class, continues to suffer job losses, recession and rising prices.
Another round of howling from the American hypocrites - 'them Indians are steeeealing our Jaaaabs'. Look at the supreme arrogance of it - all jobs on earth are first American jobs. Anyone else who dares to do that job is a 'thief'. For arguments sake, let us assume that American jobs have indeed been stolen by Indians. But now those are Indian jobs. So, how dare you ask for those jobs to be 'stolen from Indians' and given to Americans now?
" continues to be dangerous to be a Christian in some parts of India" Agree only partly, with emphasis on the fact that those 'parts of India' are less than 0.0003% of India's land area. More importantly, it is dangerous for Christians in that 0.003% of India only if they try to convert tribals and other backward communities to Christianity. I'm not saying this is a good thing - just stating facts. "and has been for decades" Vehemently disagree! What nonsense - the only 'communal riots' India has had for 'decades' were Hindu-Muslim. Tell me where you get your information on 'persecution occurring for decades on a continuous basis'?
I will not tell it explicitly, but it is in Central-East Europe.
Just curious - why all the secrecy?
Looks like you get a kick out of imagining yourself to be some kind of spy. The risk is not worth it. There is a 99% chance that you'll go scott free even if you take no precautions. But OTOH, it's also possible that you get into trouble even with all your precautions. The internet isn't going anywhere. Just visit China and behave like a normal tourist would. You can access the 'whole, unadulterated, unfiltered Internet' to your heart's content when you return!
Which country is this??
"Why are you so threatened by my claim that Christians are persecuted?" No one is 'threatened' by your claim - it does piss one off when issues are blown out of proportion and an image is created as if Christians face 'persecution' in India on a constant basis.
If you call a few isolated incidents carried out by a few fanatics, 'Persecution of Christians', I can claim that the Americans 'persecute Indians' in the USA based on newspaper reports of crime/racism against Indians! After 60 years of independence, there have been some cases of violence by some fanatics in one remote and backward corner of the country, brought under control within weeks (don't believe that crap propaganda about attacks for 500 days - had that happened, the state Government would have been dismissed), and you have the gall to say that 'Christians are being persecuted'??