Comment US Techies are Still The Best in the World! (Score 1) 584
Sorry guys, allot of good arguments about exchange rates, racism, corporate greed, and quality of services as regards offshoring work to India, but these are the facts...
The United States will still remain the powerhouse for technology and technology jobs including software and infrastructure professionals, period! We are still one of the TOP places for offshoring of services and according to three surveys I've read, will remain so!
Funny...we read about Indians replacing 30% of all software programmers in the US by 2010 (from analysts like Forrester and Gartner), when really more foreign countries come here and buy stuff from the US in terms of services than we offshore, at present. And the stats show that maybe 1-5% of all technology services procvided in the US are pushed overseas at present. Thats nothing! That speaks VOLUMES for the quality of tech services we provide as a country, to ourselves and the world. The loss of jobs is purely based on poor business decisions and technology ignorant CEO's in the US who are now getting burned by those decisions, from the articles Ive read.
Second, according to Venture LLC, Indians on average make roughly 1/4 what techies in the West make, yet that has risen 10-30% per year. Forget about inflation and the security risks and the HUGE attrition rates of Indians and the mass movement to "captive" corporate employment hiring versus direct purchases of that labor pool. All those things also affect the failures in offshoring, but the HYPE is around the salary differences, when that has almost NOTHING to do with cost...or at present, or lack there of. Venture says that cost savings from work overseas was 9% and maybe 10% OF THAT was due to labor. That means labor cost savings were around 1%!!! Thats nothing...so has NOTHING to do with cost. The issue is it takes 4-12 Indians what it takes one high quality tech professional in the US to do. There is no cost savings when you measure PRODUCTIVITY! Or managemnet costs involved. What does that say about the US techie versus offshored Indians? Or the poor business decisions mangagers in this country have made???
Next, I work for a tech services firm and was the only one left in our development team in 2002 when the last developers were cut by our CEO. Ive been to many corproate board meetings, met many clients and their CEO's and written the code that supports many many corproate products online. Now our company is booming again and we have allot of work and tons coming. Salaries are way up, and we have people from all over the world working with us. Its even hard to find talent. From what I see its clearly an advantage to hire US people over foreigners. This has nothing to do with race...its culture! People nutured in our country and in our corporate environment have HUGE talents and can innovation on a dime and wear many technology "hats". We can put one developer on a very large c# project and it comes out nearly bug free. The productivity and code quality level is unmatched. We have tried hiring small teams of Indians and it takes 4-5 guys to work on one web application...when our team can have one guy building several at once. There is no comparison in quality and productivity...but managers and dumb business people dont see that in technology and the work professionals do...its like we still have this stigma of disrespect from upper level management. Why, when we are the ones managing the infrastructure, the profits from bug-free software, the competitive edge in superior customer support. etc. etc.? But that is changing.....
From my experience, here is what has happened:
US CEO's and business managers are the DUMBEST people in the WORLD as regards technology. Thats a a fact. I cannot tell you how many times Ive met CEO's who have NO CLUE what the technology or spec docs they paid thousands for did! Nor do they or their managers know what their technology people did in their organization before they laid them off. I cannot tell you how much damage US business people have done to the technology profession the past 5 years by laying off high quality people who did amazing work in the US. The result of making the ASSUMPTION that technology is the same the world over and that the work US techies did can be duplicated at a cheaper cost is ridiculous! And now most business people are eating crow, because we are seeing the push to rehire US technology professionals to clean up the mess that offshoring has done. Just like any other industry, its the TALENT and the INNOVATORS that matter in IT, and you cannot buy that in India, period. The few out there of the millions of Indian nationals that graduate who even have the business accumen and talent to do the quality of work US techies do are either working here in the US or making the big bucks like we are in their country and beyond the cost savings model. Water always seeks its own level...and cannot flow upstream folks! Everything evens out and business peoiple may have saved some money but pay the prices in quality and other factors. Either pay big to do it right, or save money and pay twoce as much later to rehire the talent to clean up the mess. Thats been my personal experience working in IT the past 7 years with people from all over the globe.
Also, the number of Indians actually qualified to compete globally in the world, with the same level of experinece and training and skills and talent is a tiny percentage of those that graduate! You cant BUY that. And its not about education,,its because the US leads in innovation! Our culture fosters that...via diversity, education, and freedom! The third world socities (not cutlures) dont have the same socities to foster that. Studies Ive read show slearly that even though India will out-engineer us in a few years in terms of the volumes of those with degrees (and smarts), their society has not caught up to our level of infrastructure, innovation, imprtation of foreign talent, etc. The US wuill be the leader for many years to come in this IT because of this, I predict. You can say our schools dont have enough "rigor" (Bill Gates) but its more a cultural challenge. Our cuture fosters that. Thats why we are the worlds leader in military, space, computer and other technologies...not because of our smarts, or education.
Lastly, there is a change afoot thats coming and Bill Gates predicted it correctly last April....we will be facing a HUGE tech shortage in the US. Because EVERY indistry is moving digitally, in temrs of delivery of services, management, supply change, SOA, and for competitive edge using technology, we simply dont ahve the talent (not the barins) in the US to provide that. SO many kids have dropped out of technoloy because of the damage that Big Business has done to this profession and its salary base, that no level of exchange rate, offshoring, or business automation can reverse. US companies will have to bite the bullet and shell out the big bucks for IT talent...Its already coming!
So, before we make assumptions about technology and tech professionals and lay off and damage the talented work people do over here compared to the mess overseas, we need to have technology CEO's at the helm who understand that the competitive advantage in the new world thats coming will begin and end in the US. Either realize that now or pay big bucks for that lesson later. Unfortunately talking the bottom-line is the only language business people in the use speak or understand. It isnt the language of technology!
WILDRANGER in TEXAS
"You can have your technology GOOD, FAST, OR CHEAP - pick TWO!"
The United States will still remain the powerhouse for technology and technology jobs including software and infrastructure professionals, period! We are still one of the TOP places for offshoring of services and according to three surveys I've read, will remain so!
Funny...we read about Indians replacing 30% of all software programmers in the US by 2010 (from analysts like Forrester and Gartner), when really more foreign countries come here and buy stuff from the US in terms of services than we offshore, at present. And the stats show that maybe 1-5% of all technology services procvided in the US are pushed overseas at present. Thats nothing! That speaks VOLUMES for the quality of tech services we provide as a country, to ourselves and the world. The loss of jobs is purely based on poor business decisions and technology ignorant CEO's in the US who are now getting burned by those decisions, from the articles Ive read.
Second, according to Venture LLC, Indians on average make roughly 1/4 what techies in the West make, yet that has risen 10-30% per year. Forget about inflation and the security risks and the HUGE attrition rates of Indians and the mass movement to "captive" corporate employment hiring versus direct purchases of that labor pool. All those things also affect the failures in offshoring, but the HYPE is around the salary differences, when that has almost NOTHING to do with cost...or at present, or lack there of. Venture says that cost savings from work overseas was 9% and maybe 10% OF THAT was due to labor. That means labor cost savings were around 1%!!! Thats nothing...so has NOTHING to do with cost. The issue is it takes 4-12 Indians what it takes one high quality tech professional in the US to do. There is no cost savings when you measure PRODUCTIVITY! Or managemnet costs involved. What does that say about the US techie versus offshored Indians? Or the poor business decisions mangagers in this country have made???
Next, I work for a tech services firm and was the only one left in our development team in 2002 when the last developers were cut by our CEO. Ive been to many corproate board meetings, met many clients and their CEO's and written the code that supports many many corproate products online. Now our company is booming again and we have allot of work and tons coming. Salaries are way up, and we have people from all over the world working with us. Its even hard to find talent. From what I see its clearly an advantage to hire US people over foreigners. This has nothing to do with race...its culture! People nutured in our country and in our corporate environment have HUGE talents and can innovation on a dime and wear many technology "hats". We can put one developer on a very large c# project and it comes out nearly bug free. The productivity and code quality level is unmatched. We have tried hiring small teams of Indians and it takes 4-5 guys to work on one web application...when our team can have one guy building several at once. There is no comparison in quality and productivity...but managers and dumb business people dont see that in technology and the work professionals do...its like we still have this stigma of disrespect from upper level management. Why, when we are the ones managing the infrastructure, the profits from bug-free software, the competitive edge in superior customer support. etc. etc.? But that is changing.....
From my experience, here is what has happened:
US CEO's and business managers are the DUMBEST people in the WORLD as regards technology. Thats a a fact. I cannot tell you how many times Ive met CEO's who have NO CLUE what the technology or spec docs they paid thousands for did! Nor do they or their managers know what their technology people did in their organization before they laid them off. I cannot tell you how much damage US business people have done to the technology profession the past 5 years by laying off high quality people who did amazing work in the US. The result of making the ASSUMPTION that technology is the same the world over and that the work US techies did can be duplicated at a cheaper cost is ridiculous! And now most business people are eating crow, because we are seeing the push to rehire US technology professionals to clean up the mess that offshoring has done. Just like any other industry, its the TALENT and the INNOVATORS that matter in IT, and you cannot buy that in India, period. The few out there of the millions of Indian nationals that graduate who even have the business accumen and talent to do the quality of work US techies do are either working here in the US or making the big bucks like we are in their country and beyond the cost savings model. Water always seeks its own level...and cannot flow upstream folks! Everything evens out and business peoiple may have saved some money but pay the prices in quality and other factors. Either pay big to do it right, or save money and pay twoce as much later to rehire the talent to clean up the mess. Thats been my personal experience working in IT the past 7 years with people from all over the globe.
Also, the number of Indians actually qualified to compete globally in the world, with the same level of experinece and training and skills and talent is a tiny percentage of those that graduate! You cant BUY that. And its not about education,,its because the US leads in innovation! Our culture fosters that...via diversity, education, and freedom! The third world socities (not cutlures) dont have the same socities to foster that. Studies Ive read show slearly that even though India will out-engineer us in a few years in terms of the volumes of those with degrees (and smarts), their society has not caught up to our level of infrastructure, innovation, imprtation of foreign talent, etc. The US wuill be the leader for many years to come in this IT because of this, I predict. You can say our schools dont have enough "rigor" (Bill Gates) but its more a cultural challenge. Our cuture fosters that. Thats why we are the worlds leader in military, space, computer and other technologies...not because of our smarts, or education.
Lastly, there is a change afoot thats coming and Bill Gates predicted it correctly last April....we will be facing a HUGE tech shortage in the US. Because EVERY indistry is moving digitally, in temrs of delivery of services, management, supply change, SOA, and for competitive edge using technology, we simply dont ahve the talent (not the barins) in the US to provide that. SO many kids have dropped out of technoloy because of the damage that Big Business has done to this profession and its salary base, that no level of exchange rate, offshoring, or business automation can reverse. US companies will have to bite the bullet and shell out the big bucks for IT talent...Its already coming!
So, before we make assumptions about technology and tech professionals and lay off and damage the talented work people do over here compared to the mess overseas, we need to have technology CEO's at the helm who understand that the competitive advantage in the new world thats coming will begin and end in the US. Either realize that now or pay big bucks for that lesson later. Unfortunately talking the bottom-line is the only language business people in the use speak or understand. It isnt the language of technology!
WILDRANGER in TEXAS
"You can have your technology GOOD, FAST, OR CHEAP - pick TWO!"
