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What you're describing doesn't sound like outsourcing or even offshoring to me. It sounds like expanding the business in new geographic areas. Successful manu

What you're describing doesn't sound like outsourcing or even offshoring to me. It sounds like expanding the business in new geographic areas. Successful manufacturing companies would never think of sending off a spec sheet to the cheapest contract manufacturer and then just sitting back and waiting for the first production run. But somehow, companies have no problem sending off a software spec and just sitting back and waiting for a product.

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chanakya 16y ago
I see what you're saying, but 'expanding the business' is a bit of a euphemism. The article gets almost everything wrong, but I think it has a good definition of outsourcing/offshoring that works: save a ton of money and ship quality software. The article claims this almost never happens, but make no mistake, this is exactly what is happening from the better centers. The cost differences are enormous, Indian cost often being no more than a quarter to a third of US ones. The article has a lot of nonsense about why great Indian devs will 'charge' the same as what US ones do (as if they have the power of market makers), but the reality is that you really can get great teams at a fraction of US costs. Another reason to call it offshoring is that every time the company stock is under pressure, US top management wants to let go some people in the US and move more to the India office. This is often not what the India teams want. Over the years, they've developed strong relationships with devs in the US office, with respect for their abilities and acknowledgement of having learnt a lot from them, and don't want to see themselves as taking away the US devs' jobs. The best devs in india want to go off and do new things they've thought of themselves, but are pulled into 'transitioning' new stuff. Managements are the same everywhere, and these kind of things don't figure in their calculus.

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chanakya 16y ago

I see what you're saying, but 'expanding the business' is a bit of a euphemism. The article gets almost everything wrong, but I think it has a good definition of outsourcing/offshoring that works: save a ton of money and ship quality software. The article claims this almost never happens, but make no mistake, this is exactly what is happening from the better centers. The cost differences are enormous, Indian cost often being no more than a quarter to a third of US ones. The article has a lot of nonsense about why great Indian devs will 'charge' the same as what US ones do (as if they have the power of market makers), but the reality is that you really can get great teams at a fraction of US costs. Another reason to call it offshoring is that every time the company stock is under pressure, US top management wants to let go some people in the US and move more to the India office. This is often not what the India teams want. Over the years, they've developed strong relationships with devs in the US office, with respect for their abilities and acknowledgement of having learnt a lot from them, and don't want to see themselves as taking away the US devs' jobs. The best devs in india want to go off and do new things they've thought of themselves, but are pulled into 'transitioning' new stuff. Managements are the same everywhere, and these kind of things don't figure in their calculus.