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Is India's computer-services industry heading for a fall?

• gruseom 19y ago
  The article doesn't mention the biggest problem with this industry: it's built on a mistake. Software development isn't manufacturing and programmers are not factory workers. The "hire hundreds of cheap programmers" story was good for a first round of sales, but it doesn't work, and that's not good for long-term business. I've talked to people involved in half a dozen such projects and they all said the same thing: the overhead of coordination was greater than the cost savings, and the quality of the work was low. The point is that this approach doesn't do any better there than it does here. The grass just seemed greener on the other side of the fence. As one executive put it, "Why should I pay $20 million for nothing here when I can buy it from India for 15?"
• geebee 19y ago
  "Today more Indian than American firms meet the highest internationally recognised standards for software development." Is this in reference to the CMM model? I'm not sure exactly what the economist is referring to by the "highest internationally recognized standards for software development." Sounds impressive, which probably means it's a lot of complete bull$%&#.