IBM Snags Leading Indian Outsourcing Firm 442
theodp writes "In one of the biggest foreign acquisitions in India in the past few years, according to ZDNet, IBM will pay an estimated $150-$200 million to acquire Daksh, India's third-largest back-office services company. The deal will give IBM access to privately held Daksh's 6,000 employees, who mainly offer call center services to 13 clients, including Amazon.com."
IBM First Post (Score:5, Funny)
After they finish, the Microsoft guy washes his hands, takes a whole bunch of paper towels and dries his hands REALLY well. He turns to the others and says,
"At Microsoft, we have to be thorough."
The Apple guy then goes to wash his hands and takes a single paper towel and dries his hands perfectly with it. He smugly says,
"At Apple, we have to be thorough AND efficient."
The Sun guy just walks straight out the door without even washing.
"At Sun, we don't piss on our hands."
Re:IBM First Post (Score:2, Insightful)
... but then the Sun guy couldn't use the paper towel to open the door meaning he's handling everyone elses vile germs on the door handle.
Re:IBM First Post (Score:5, Informative)
Re:IBM First Post (Score:4, Funny)
ontopic joke! (Score:5, Funny)
When they finally meet, one is skinny and the other overweight.
The thin one says: "How did you manage? I ate a human just once and they turned out a small army to chase me -- guns, nets, it was terrible. Since then I've been reduced to eating mice, insects, even grass."
The fat one replies: "Well, *I* hid near an IBM office and ate a manager a day. And nobody even noticed!"
See, IBM has had a long tradition of too many chiefs, not enough err... Indians.
What can I say? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What can I say? (Score:2)
Re:What can I say? (Score:5, Funny)
call center expertise
Sorry, but these three words should never be used together in a sentence...
Re:What can I say? (Score:3, Insightful)
Daniel
In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
Here in Hickory Flat, MS... (Score:5, Funny)
P.S. No hyphen in Hickory Flat.
Secessionistically, Joe Bob Bubba Earl Senior VP for Information Technology
Re:Here in Hickory Flat, MS... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Here in Hickory Flat, MS... (Score:3, Funny)
HAHAHA R0FL (Score:5, Funny)
IBM Snags Leading Indian Outsourcing Firm
Just don't call it Leading INDian OutSourcing" and everything will be fine.
Next layoffs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Next layoffs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who do you think is going to be taking calls for IBM's linux initiatives?
RedHat's outsourced already, noone ever mentions it here because you cant deride the almighty linux vendors.
I called Red Hat tech support once a couple years ago, and talked to some guy who barely spoke english who told me he was in the Philippines.
A free-as-in-beer OS needs a cheap-as-in-sweatshop support staff.
Re:Next layoffs? (Score:5, Funny)
Real men roll their own distro and fab their own processors.
Fear me, I am He-Nerd
Sure as hell can deride Redhat! (Score:3, Funny)
You need to pay more attention! Open season has been declared on Redhat since they killed their desktop distro. Deride away!
Re:Sure as hell can deride Redhat! (Score:2)
But then they sued SCO. It's so hard keeping track of who's on the blacklist this week.
Re:Next layoffs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Next layoffs? (Score:3, Interesting)
Say what you will about bonuses, but 50 percent of someone's yearly salary is NEVER good business sense. There are other ways to keep the employees happy besides bonueses. Yeah, they're nice to get, but come on. Next thing you know you have a bunch of employees thinking they earn 150% of what they actually earn.
Re:Next layoffs? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're implied that they expected the bonus. I've noticed that it's been the culture recently. Everyone expects a bonus and are disappointed when they don't get it. What gives. It's called a bonus, not a End-Of-Year-Salary. Sorry, too bad, you're a consultant, and if you work expecting a bonus, then you're working in the wrong field. While yes, it is "expected" that consultants get bonuses because their salary can sometimes be low,
Re:Next layoffs? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Next layoffs? (Score:3, Interesting)
So IGS got no bonuses, but y'all did get Variable Pay right? Did you know Software Group made enough money to purchase Rational, but they took the purchase cost out of SWG's profit number so it looked like SWG made nothing. Hence, Variable Pay even in high-profit products (WebSphere, Portal server) was almost zilch. Makes you want to scream to the bean counters to just eliminate the program and stop lying to the new-hires about their yearly compensati
Re:Next layoffs? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think before if you got hired by IBM, it was pretty much assumed that you would work there until you retired. How times have changed indeed.
Re:Next layoffs? (Score:2)
Yeah, those indian givers. [reference.com]
Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, it pays... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hey, it pays... (Score:3, Funny)
They're asleep at the switch on this one:
Re:Hey, it pays... (Score:2)
Re:Hey, it pays... (Score:5, Informative)
Outsourcing? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Outsourcing? (Score:3, Informative)
"Exporting of jobs" would be a better term.
Laugh it up, furball (Score:3, Funny)
Big Indians (Score:4, Interesting)
So if you're disgusted by the practice of outsourcing, make your dialog with people you suspect as being an outsourced employee as complicated or colloquial as possible.
Re:Big Indians (Score:5, Funny)
He was wondering if you wanted to take them surfing or what.
Re:Big Indians (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Big Indians (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Big Indians (Score:3, Informative)
Wave the options? Wave [reference.com] (synonyms: wag, waggle, undulate) them like a hand-held fan to cool him off?
Perhaps he was confused that you didn't want to forgo* any additional services and waive [reference.com] (synonyms: relinquish, dispense with) those options?
* or forego, both spellings are accepted.
Re:Big Indians (Score:2)
S
Re:Big Indians (Score:2)
Next time don't be surprized to hear "Fo shizzels"
Do You Hear That? (Score:5, Funny)
So now IBM can say... (Score:5, Funny)
Even though the actual results WRT jobs/people will still be the same.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting Combination (Score:5, Interesting)
Just my $.02
Lowest Common Denominator? (Score:5, Interesting)
I understand that i have no right to the lifestyle I live now (and its not extravagant by any western standard... but I've grown quite used to it). I fear the future if even the higher skilled jobs, like IT, become minimum wage - or worse.
Re:Lowest Common Denominator? (Score:2, Interesting)
But you can't bid down. I tried that. I posted my resume with a piddly wage request and nobody cared. It carries too much stigma. It is not a fair market of goods and services. It is based on social impressions.
Plus, many other profession
Re:Lowest Common Denominator? (Score:2)
The difference that i see is those are mostly locational services. You can form a union of people who all agree that they shouldn't work under a certain wage - and it Benefits Everyone. But on the other hand - a group of impovershed people overseas have no such benefit from everyone agreeing not to work under a certain wage. Well - actually they sort of do... as long as we don't bid down... they will suck up more and more jobs. A
Re:Lowest Common Denominator? (Score:5, Insightful)
We can't unionize, because there are simply too many people who can do what we (systems administrators, network administrators, programmers, etc) can do. They might not do it as well but if it takes them twice as long at one fourth the wage that will be good enough to most people.
However getting worried about this is to see the hill and miss the mountain. Outsourcing is just a tiny little worry. What happens as computers continue to get easier to network, and programming continues to move toward open models with users contributing back source for free? We're all gonna be out of work before long. Now admittedly computers don't manage themselves, but that's because very little effort (comparatively) has been spent on systems maintenance automation as compared to everything else. Now that companies are working hard on maximizing uptime and making it a primary priority, I think we're going to see a return to the olden days of receptionist-as-sysop. A consultant will be called in occasionally to fix the hard problems.
Solution? Realize that Specialization is for Insects [c2.com]. You don't have to take things to Longian proportions where you can fix a computer, pilot a spaceship, knock off one or two fine pieces of ass and still make it home in time to cook dinner and play the bagpipes during supper, all while wearing a tux coat and a kilt, but only being good at one thing is a big mistake. In addition all us non-polyglots are going to be in big trouble in the "global economy" which is only getting more global - as many of us have found as we became rapidly unemployed. Actually, it was the dot-bomb that got me, not outsourcing, but I can only assume that outsourcing has made it harder for me to get work.
Lately I've been working on auto body and paint skills, as well as other automotive stuff. A decent body and paint guy can make six figures if he's willing to put in 40-50 hours, is very good at at least one thing and pretty good at a few more things, and lives someplace people have money. It used to be easy to reach/approach six figures in computers, but not any more. If you make that kind of money now it's because you understand the deep voodoo in some complex system, or because you got astronomically lucky.
Of course, cars aren't going to be a reliable way to make money FOREVER. Raise your hand if you thought computers were the sure money... Now lower your hand if you still have a job working with computers that keeps you above the poverty line. Let's compare counts... Now, lower your hand if you still enjoy your job. Count again, and note how many of the hands are still up... Someday the world will swing away from being car-heavy, simply because it will become uneconomical. You might argue that this is true today but as a form of transportation it is hard to beat cars. If you get a relatively efficient one (read: just about anything japanese that isn't an SUV or a full size truck) then you will get very good mileage, the system requires little maintenance, and almost anywhere you go, public transportation is crappy and expensive. It costs $3 for a day pass in Santa Cruz which has a merely mediocre bus system (A very few buses run until 1am, which is not too bad.) $3 will get you about a gallon and a half of gas right now, which around town in my girlfriend's honda will take you probably a good 30 miles. (It might take you almost as far in my 240SX, which has a stock motor, if I wasn't up on the throttle all the time.) But it's only a matter of time before cars swing around again - They, however, will probably continue to hold their place of prominence longer than I am alive.
Re:Lowest Common Denominator? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lowest Common Denominator? (Score:2)
Re:Lowest Common Denominator? (Score:3, Insightful)
But I don't feel that people in developed nations need to apologize for the fruits of decades (if not centuries) of economic- and lifestyle-effecting investments, or for the fact that they have access to abundant natural resources (v. Saharan Africa, for instance), or whatever else is blamed for the lots of the impoverished nations.
This is not to claim that overt actions haven't had an effect on impoverished nations, or that developed nations shouldn't hav
Re:Lowest Common Denominator? (Score:3, Interesting)
I couldn't decide whether to mod you down for this or reply. I'm not one for anonymous bashing, so I figured I should say something instead. The fact that you were modded + anything is quite surprising, if not a little disturbing.
You know, it's naive, childish remarks like yours that often times lead to Americans being labled both racist and elitist. I'm strongly opposed to outsourcing, but going so far as to
Re:Lowest Common Denominator? (Score:3, Interesting)
So yeah - it is the companies i fear - and the government... but more so - i fear that deep down, on some moral level - its The Right Thing - from an egalitarian sense... but human instinct is based not on what is right but what is best f
Re:Lowest Common Denominator? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not right. It is how capitalism works IN THE ABSENCE OF A FREE MARKET. We don't live in a free market economy (see oligopolies), so the ability for local labor to compete is diminished. In order restore some semblance of competition to the playing field for labor, we need some kind of significant tariff or duty on imported services (ie. outsourced work). After all, if India was dumping cheap steel into the US market, you can bet we'd slap a tariff on it, why sh
Anyone work for an IBM call center in the U.S.? (Score:2)
Does anyone work for an IBM call center in the U.S.? If so, what kind of severance package are you expecting?
Re:Anyone work for an IBM call center in the U.S.? (Score:2)
Why is this a problem ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah I know abt the diminshing jobs in the IT sector (And I guess I am writing this since I dont work in the It sector).
After all if IBM can get something done for a fraction of the price in the US why wouldnt or shouldnt they go for it.
This is not Soviet Russia you know
Re:Why is this a problem ? (Score:2)
Are we counting call centers in Information Technology now? Call centers aren't exactly things that matter to nerds.
Re:Why is this a problem ? (Score:5, Informative)
Also, businesses despite what I see in your post are not just about making money, if that were true I wouldn't have Christmas parties and bbqs and an owner I can go out for beers with. Sometimes its about accomplishing a goal and human resources or rather, the people you employing being a better term are your means to reach the goal. If they are successful you are successful, destory any and all vision of their future doesn't exactly help matters either.
My father works for IBM, has for 30 years, he know his time is coming and he's preparing, but he doesn't know when, will it be this summer? The fall? He has no idea how long he'll be able to stay.Re:Why is this a problem ? (Score:2)
Re:Why is this a problem ? (Score:2)
I, and many people like me, have this whole food/shelter requirement. Thats the problem I have with outsourcing. I know too many smart people who have no job and outsourcing is making the situation worse.
Re:Why is this a problem ? (Score:5, Insightful)
It does no good to ask these questions without taking a serious look at reality. When you do, you will find all the answers that you need. There is no doubt that limiting freedom should not be done in an arbitrary and reckless manner, and that the burden of proof is on those who seek to limit freedom. However, all one has to do is look at the evidence to see that market fundamentalism is a horrible and flawed social policy. No one in their right mind asks questions such as,
"Why shouldn't people be allowed to trade stocks using insider information? Who are we to limit their freedom of speech?"
At least, no one that has studied the Great Depression.
And, if we take a look at what is happening with "Free" trade, we can see that it is being used as a tool to crush the weak. It is placing property rights above all other rights, in fact, it doesn't even recognize such basic things as being able to eat, or have decent healthcare as rights. In the point of view of market fundamentalists, the only things worth protecting are the rights of IBM, and those with property, to enjoy their property, and everyone else can starve and die, since they have no rights. This is all good and well, until one realizes that there is no logical basis for rights at all. Rights are whatever we decide them to be. Therefore, it makes no logical sense to promote IBM's right to their property any more than it does to promote the right of working people to have food, shelter, and decent medical care. We decide what should be a right based on what kind of society we want. If we want a society where IBM can dump a thousand people out on the street on a whim, and those people have no protections, then we can keep going in the direction "free" trade and market fundamentalism. If we want a society that treats each human being with dignity and respect, and gives everyone in it a way of contributing (including the 8-10% that are now unemployed), then we can give more priority to things such as a right to work, right to medical care, etc. There is no logic to it, it's based on what you feel is right. Logic is a tool, and it's application to this kind of problem is severely limited.
The reason why IBM, in my opinion, shouldn't be allowed to do whatever they want with their property is because property rights should be balanced with other desirable social ends. Honoring property rights should not trump all other social policy. If IBM moves their money to some other country, and as a result, thousands of people lose their jobs, the environment of the world takes a turn for the worse as IBM and others take advantage of India's inferior environmental protections, and the overall standard of living takes a nose dive, as IBM pockets the difference in increases profits, then we need to take a serious look at whether IBM's right over their property should come above other's standards of living, the envrionment, etc. These things do not operate in a vacuum, and if you want to understand the issue, it pays to realize that what IBM does affects not only itself, but a large amount of other people. Therefore, IBM should behave with an appropriate amount of responsibility, that is, if we want a society that behaves in a sane manner. My ownership of a 700 watt stereo does not give me the right to turn the volume up any more than IBM's right to it's property should give it absolute power over that property. The same reason why we outlawed slavery can be used as a basis for arguing against free trade. Slavery was outlawed because it was understood that freedom of contract should not take precedence over things such as a minimal standard of living for all. In a society that places freedom of contract, and property rights, above all else, the logical extension is, of course slavery, as those without po
Reasons OTHER than Outsourcing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reasons OTHER than Outsourcing (Score:4, Insightful)
We should pressure India to open up its markets and provide the SAME AMOUNT of trade from the US. Why do so many contries try to become producers instead of consumers?
Why should we keep running trade deficits with every country? That just makes us the dumping ground for cheap trinkets and services of all the newbie economies.
If they want to take advantage of our consummerism, then they should also form equal consumption on their part. No more free lunches for those guys.
No, we should produce more stuff for *us* (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that we have many unemployed people in industries where we are in surplus. Increasing exports to India won't fix that. They won't buy IT services; they'll buy things they need, like grain or pharmaceuti
Re:Reasons OTHER than Outsourcing (Score:3, Insightful)
If they can indeed do your job cheaper than you, then you are inefficient at your job. Tough luck. If they as a NATION can do it cheaper than you, then why shouldn't the US choose to go with the cheaper option? Some organizations will pay the service premium of having local develop
Investment... (Score:4, Informative)
Daksh is an early mover in a sector that is thriving by tapping India's English-speaking workers to provide services such as accounting and insurance claims processing to foreign customers looking for low-cost outsourcing.
So correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems to be an investment rather than a direct acquisition.
In other words, these 6,000 employees wouldn't be taking tech jobs from the U.S.
Re:Investment... (Score:2, Insightful)
No, that part has already been done.
Re:Investment... (Score:2)
Look at those numbers (Score:4, Interesting)
They're getting people for $25k a pop.
(ok, $33k if they get $200Mil, still a BARGAIN)
Re:Look at those numbers (Score:3, Interesting)
Savings... (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course if IBM had bought a similarly staffed US or European company, it would have cost 5 times more.
*rimshot*
Bets? (Score:2)
So... (Score:4, Funny)
A big deal indeed (Score:5, Informative)
Morale in the trences (Score:5, Interesting)
The Outsourcing Disaster was to be expected (Score:4, Interesting)
It's all par for the course. Every time some new business buzz-concept comes along, every business writer drizzles saliva all over it and writes about how amazingly wonderful it is, and about getting "left behind". Every MBA reads the series of articles, and somewhere over the year of getting this stuff hammering at them, decides that they need to take advantage of the latest and greatest. Inevitably everyone moves at once, which happens too far and too fast, and as a result most of the people moving with the herd come out bloodied and worse off than they started.
Let me start in the late eighties going into the nineties. IT spending was a big thing. Huge amounts of money were directed into IT, lots of people (an unsustainable number, which now screws over all the people having to deal with an oversaturated job market) were hired, incredible amounts of money were blown on completely unnecessary products. Oracle installations and high-end hardware cost *stupid* amounts of money, but people paid it. "Computers" was a buzzword, and to "computers" MBAs flocked. Microsoft got really, really rich.
Then, in the late nineties, "Internet" hit the radar. The government was pushing it as a big commercial deal, economists were enthralled, everyone was convinced that *now* was the time to get in on the ground floor. Business rags raved about the "Internet". Sure enough, stupid amounts of money (unsustainable amounts) were committed. The dot-com boom happened...and then crashed.
Now, in the naughties, "outsourcing" has become insanely popular. If an MBA hasn't considered "outsourcing", he should have a good reason why. So we're going to shove a whole lot of people to various countries, go overboard in doing so, and burn ourselves again.
Whenever the business press catches on to something and starts to get excited, it's a really good time to run in the opposite direction.
IBM == India Business Machine (Score:2, Insightful)
Guess Bush and his CEO cronnies are to short sighted to realize in the long run they are gutting middle America. Whose going to buy
Re:IBM == India Business Machine (Score:2)
IBM has over 300K employees. 20K in India is less than 1%. IBM has employees in almost every contry.
So which part of International Business Machines is confusing?
Re:IBM == India Business Machine (Score:2)
Re:IBM == India Business Machine (Score:2)
Time to change the IBM logo (Score:2)
Hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Back to the drawing board.
Will someone please explain to me why, if we're running a trade deficit and have been for next to forever, the dollar is still so strong compared to other currencies?
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
The trade deficits that everyone quotes don't include all international financial transactions by a long shot. For example, they do not include corporate profits repatriated into the US, nor do they include investments made back into the US by people who recieve dollars in payment for goods. These other flows of money do a lot to balance the trade deficit's effects on the dollar.
You know that old adage: (Score:3, Funny)
Slashdot quandary: IBM good or bad? (Score:5, Interesting)
But on the other hand, IBM is outsourcing your job to India.
But maybe there is consistency here. Linux = free software. India = cheap labor. They both help IBM keep their costs down.
At the panel yersterday... (Score:4, Interesting)
Its a sea change from the 80s when IBM was kicked out of India [seacoastonline.com] during Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's administration.
To really look beyond the short-term glitter and understand what this might lead up to, you must watch Life & Debt [imdb.com], which chronicles the Jamaican tragedy. Once Jamaica agreed to freetrade & opened up its trade zones, in a short span of few months, its entire native diary industry & banana trade was totally destroyed ( Milkpowder was dumped at dirt-cheap prices, and MNCs like Dole undercut the banana trade by bringing in bananas from Mexico ). There are a lot of pluses to free trade, but unless developing nations like India wield their bargaining power carefully, they will sell out to corporations & lose their autonomy.
But a lot of Indians in the panel felt the American ownership of Indian firms was a good thing, and it could erase some of the anti-outsourcing sentiment prevailing here in the US. Towards the end, the panel discussion got particularly heated up with sharply polarized arguments from both sides. A host of people agreed to talk to us [projectoutsourced.com] about the "sale of India", as one of them put it.No easy answers to be found on this one.
Reminds me of a quote from a calendar... (Score:3, Funny)
"A company that will go to the ends of the earth for its people will find that it can hire them for about 10% of the cost of Americans."
Calendar photo at: www.despair.com/discovery.html [despair.com]
Age Discrimination (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody got it yet. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Brain Drain Blame Game (Score:3, Interesting)
Ok, so we just lost 5,000 $7.00/hour jobs (hello, $7.00 an hour???). In exchange we are getting hard working citizens dying for a success they can only dream of in their country. Business men. Store owners. Free enterprise.
Yes, I know some of the jobs lost are worth more than $7.00, but frankly, it's still a fair trade. Go find another one. If you can't, you're not trying hard enough... After all, they are, on less, and succeeding, in your back yard.
Re:Grrrrrr! (Score:2)
What's the difference? Neither are run by Americans...
Re:Grrrrrr! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Good IBM now split Damit (Score:2)
Re:Related New - American Companies with no Americ (Score:2)
Re:"privately held ... employees" (Score:2)
No, for "pod person". Your replacement will arrive soon.
Sounds kinda cool as slang for getting downsized..."I've been dakshed!"
Re:You should have bought... (Score:2)
Call center agent: "This is because Amazon does have an EMC storage solution"/"This is because your flat does not have an IBM SAN"
NOT.
Re:Ad campaign? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok what if i start an american computer manufacturing company. all parts are made here in the us.
That $1000.00 Dell, my equilivant will be $6500.00
there is no way in hell you would buy it because it has a Made in the USA sticker on it. Americans are cheap bastards that love their dirt cheap computers and electronics. They WILL NOT pay a premium for domestic products, that was proven without a doubt in the 80's when textiles went to hell as you could buy what you wanted at 1/3rd the price from ove
Re:We did it to ourselves-Excused ourself to death (Score:3, Insightful)
Because India has always produced high quality software. At least that's the perception. A quarter of the price and four times the quality is a pretty hard deal to pass up.
2-Some but if you read through the site above, you'll note that a lot, in unemployemnt are NOT "DeVry this" or "ITT" that.
Everyone is affected by this, MIT grads along with junior college dropouts. But when entry level jobs start at $60K, experienced workers are going to want a proportionately