[DaGuy]

I found this rather disturbing. What do you guys think?

http://news.com.com/2100-1011_3-1024194.html?tag=fd_top

[techtrucker]

See the other thread..."get a job loser"...It is very disturbing! I know several people formerly in IT doing other, somewhat menial, jobs just to get by. In a month or two I get to join their ranks too, my company is folding up and I can't find anything else in my area.

[DaGuy]

This is exactly what happened to our garment industry. In that case, the sewing machines needed to be moved and the migration took a while. For us IT guys, thanks to broadband the migration occured overnight. We were caught off guard.



If they are taking, IT, Call Centers and Finance/Accounting then I don't see anything good in the horizon. All I see is shrinking middle class.

Alas, I'm dumping Java and adopting Cocoa. Might as well have a good time if the jobs won't be there anyway.

[techtrucker]

Or we could figure what the "next big thing" will be and ride that wave...
It's almost as if we're slowly eliminating the need for ourselves...
Maybe a few of us can find a niche as Cocoa developers. I'm working on a nice vertical market application that I'm hoping to sell. If not the most I invested was time.

[depolitic]

This is not only a US issue, here in Australia the trend is also to out source development to 3rd world and developing countries. (Their has also been some horror stories of projects going down due to shoddy overseas workers)

I have been rather down in the last few weeks on this subject. I have recently been accepted into Post Grad Study in IT at a major UNI in Sydney. I will be taking on a major course of study in Java. Which is still huge in OZ but still mostly Windows focused.

It is my hope that by having specialist skills I will be of more value able to employers. I have also noticed that those who have extra non IT skills are more employable. Skills like foreign languages, or experience in engineering, science, medicine are more valued.

I think that their will always be a place for highly skilled developers.

I however think that focusing on a very specific skill like Cocoa, or Python may be fun, but in OZ it would be murder.

Wish us all the best of luck.

[sadie]

Yuk. My boss is actually talking about setting up an office in Romania, hiring local developers. He's promised not to fire any of us, that it would be independent and working on different projects, but it still shows that that's where the trend is headed.

You know what really annoys me about this? Developers are already underpaid compared to the managers, executives and other fluffy people that are making these sorts of decision, most of whom are significantly less skilled. As long as they can get onto the executives ladder, a not very bright or useful person can comfortably ride their way up it. Meanwhile, the developers who do the real work are being outsourced to cheap countries as if we were just making trainers or something.

</rant>

[DaGuy]

Perhaps we should've taken a queue from Windows systems administrators:

1. Make things way more difficult then what they should be and make sure they stay that way.

2. Avoid clarity

3. Pretend you are working all the time

4. Undermine knowledge transfer initiavites.

Alas, most programmers are good souls (even the hackers) and most thrive in showing off the quality of their work. Some take pride in the proper use of design patterns, eager to post all kinds of tutorials on the web and finally that utopic idealism of not wanting to reinvent the wheel and thus make their constructs easily reusable.

I don't ever see those traits changing. Since they define a lot of us. Too bad it all worked against us.

[teknologika]

Take this with a grain of salt, as I have no way to confirm it's accuracy but a coworker from my previous employer told me that something like 80% of all graduates in India are studying IT.

If this is true, the last thing the IT industry needs is a flood of cheap, poor quality labor appealing to managers that don't understand that you get what you pay for.

I was also having a discussion at lunch with a developer mate last week, and I challenged him to name ONE piece of software that had been developed in India by an Indian software company.

He couldn't name one. If these Indian based companies were developing great software, he should have been able to reel off a list of them.

I am all for free competition, but if any country wants to compete on the world stage they should develop, market and support their own products just like everyone else, not provide the IT equivalent of "body shops".

I also think that there HAS to be some GREAT Indian developers and companies, that will get a REALLY bad wrap from all this outsourcing that the majority of the companies are trying to do.

[DaGuy]

Unfortunately, is rarely about quality. I place the blame squarely on management

Most managers that I worked with wanted something that worked long enough for them to be promoted or noticed. In other words as long as the app didn't break too badly under their watch they couldn't care less about the long term. This way of thinking is so common.

What made this possible? In my experience, overlapping (or parallel) releases. For example, Manager "A" works on Release1 and before he finishes Manager "B" starts working on Release2 etc. After several iterations (one every three months) the mess is such that no one can pinpoint who screwed up what. Therefore, one sees consistent timely deliveries but somehow the end the final product turns out to be absolute crap.

From an upper management's perspective, cheap labor is a blessing. Why? If well educated (expensive) locals end up with a crappie final product, then might as well pay less for the same end result.

It's going to be tough... Not impossible but definitely tough.

[DaveGee]

Originally posted by teknologika:

I was also having a discussion at lunch with a developer mate last week, and I challenged him to name ONE piece of software that had been developed in India by an Indian software company.

Not something that I'd say is 'great software' but you do know that Quark has moved much of it's offices to India in the not too distant past. Not sure about development but I think so.

D

[absmiths]

Companies will always need highly-skilled labor at any rate. There is only so much that a crappy outsource-farm can achieve without someone finishing it for them. The bottom line is most managers don't care about quality but they DO care about metrics. If an outsourced project goes over-budget and past deadline and still has nothing to show for it they will have to go somewhere else.

This trend will curb in the long term as companies get burned one by one.

Also, I blame American workers for this. So many good (and even mediocre) developers over the last several years have done nothing but complain about how they deserve $X00,000/year and managers have responded.

By the way, there are MANY, MANY crappy American IT workers as well - I have worked with my fair share of them. Just visit forum.java.com and you will find weenies from all over the world trying to do a job for which they are not qualified.

[DaGuy]

Originally posted by absmiths:
Companies will always need highly-skilled labor at any rate. There is only so much that a crappy outsource-farm can achieve without someone finishing it for them. The bottom line is most managers don't care about quality but they DO care about metrics. If an outsourced project goes over-budget and past deadline and still has nothing to show for it they will have to go somewhere else.

This trend will curb in the long term as companies get burned one by one.

Also, I blame American workers for this. So many good (and even mediocre) developers over the last several years have done nothing but complain about how they deserve $X00,000/year and managers have responded.

By the way, there are MANY, MANY crappy American IT workers as well - I have worked with my fair share of them. Just visit forum.java.com and you will find weenies from all over the world trying to do a job for which they are not qualified.

My strong area is J2EE and I agree with you to great extent. But talent is just one of the factors. One must not overlook the fact that new technologies are extremely portable (at least when compared to legacy) and cookie cutter solutions are readily available. This is important since many managers will look around and see what can the technology do for them and then decide on business functionality. It's perverse logic but one that makes sense when you all about cutting cost.

Once the jobs go, they are not comming back. I can see companies going through the whole process improvement mumbo jumbo but this time on foreing shores.

There will be some demand for IT workers -no doubt- but broadly speaking, I don't think we are going back to the era of high salaries for anyone but the super gurus.

I think technology has become to easy. For example, I would have never imagined that I would be making decent quality videos and sophisticated audio productions at home. This was the realm of just a few, now it's in range of the masses. I think Java is real easy technology and thus allow anyone who thinks "fairly" logically to contribute.

The drill of taking a product to market or managing inventories, billing systems etc. has been beaten to death. No more need for rocket scientists...

This suck Dudes, I for one thought that rocket scientists were always going to be in demand.



Maybe this mean we should go back to our legit areas and just use IT as a backup nice to have. I'm thinking more and more in that direction. Others are thinking of unionizing IT. Now that's radical stuff...

[osxisfun]

this just the beginning.

the only jobs that will be in great supply or McJobs.

And you can raise a family on that right?

[absmiths]

Originally posted by DaGuy:
Maybe this mean we should go back to our legit areas and just use IT as a backup nice to have. I'm thinking more and more in that direction. Others are thinking of unionizing IT. Now that's radical stuff...

The day IT unionizes is the day I get out.

[DaGuy]

Out of curiosity, why do you feel so strongly about it. I personally never belonged to a union but I'm somewhat familiar witht some of the pros and cons. Would you care to comment further?

Thanks.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
this just the beginning.

the only jobs that will be in great supply or McJobs.

And you can raise a family on that right?

Wow, that sure is pessimistic. There will always be an IT market (yes, even in America) and yes the era of exorbitant salaries for anyone who knows what HTTP means is over.

In my humble opinion the cause of the original problem was stupid business decisions by middle and upper management, and they are the same ones who are driving the current bad decisions.

By the way, the notion that software is easy to write is a load of M$ propoganda. It is true that software of the past was much more low-level, but modern software, even simple stuff, is orders of magnitude more complex than old systems ever were.

Developing good, usable software will always require skill - and that's what is marketable. There is also the responsibility on our part to be good employees - something not typically true of IT people, and one reason that many companies will outsource that role if possible.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by DaGuy:
Out of curiosity, why do you feel so strongly about it. I personally never belonged to a union but I'm somewhat familiar witht some of the pros and cons. Would you care to comment further?

Thanks.

Sure will. I have been on both sides of the union fence many times (mostly against my will), and I completely disagree with the while concept. My brother-in-law is a carpenter and in our area all shops are unionized, but he chooses not to belong to any. As a result, when he goes into a new shop, there is no way he can earn money based on the quality of his work. The pay structure is instead based on how long you have been there, and many of the employees who have been there a long time are quite worthless (mainly because they have the strength of the union to insure their survival).

My wife was a member of the Texas teacher's union (as well as at the national level) involuntarily (she didn't really have any choice). We paid dues, and watched as the union (especially at the national level) constantly spent the money for political lobbies which their own research showed that a majority of their members did NOT support.

Finally, my mother has managed a unionized carpentry shop where the members are constantly whining about one thing or another, mainly because they feel empowered by the force of the union.

Unions create an adversarial relationship between the employee and the employer, and when given a choice, many employers opt out by moving plants overseas (the same situation that IT is now in, for much the same reasons).

Unions were a survival mechanism during the industrial revolution - but there are so many work-related laws in place that I don't believe they are warranted anymore - and now (in my mind) they represent only greed and corruption. (Read a bit about the International Brotherhood of Teamsters).

Finally (for real this time), my contract is between my employer and myself, not involving any other employee in the company (or the world).

This is a very hot topic generally and this represents my opinion. Feel free to rebut, refute, flame and/or fume.

[DaGuy]

Originally posted by absmiths:
Feel free to rebut, refute, flame and/or fume.

No need for that. You made your points clearly enough and I agree with you. The labor laws do provide "some form" of protection which is probably adequate but not optimal.

I have reservations about interfering with market forces but one must also realize that the word "market failure" is an integral part of every economist's education. Those IT jobs that are leaving have financed a great number of middle class households. I don't know the numbers but I am pretty sure they are highly non trivial.

Remember that in the 90's we allowed lots of blue collar work leave our borders (a.k.a. NAFTA, globalization) justified under the fact that it would lead to better jobs at home (you know the service economy). Well now that we are seing those better jobs leave at a very rapid pace then it would be good not to look the other way and throw in the towel. My concern is that I don't see anyone in Washinghton even talking about the problem. If the country allows high tech to be sliced and diced and shipped overseas then we face a pretty big problem since our best minds will stay way from those areas.

Anyway, thanks for posting your thoughts.

[osxisfun]

Developing good, usable software will always require skill - and that's what is marketable. There is also the responsibility on our part to be good employees - something not typically true of IT people, and one reason that many companies will outsource that role if possible.

Like the quark programmers?

Programmers are the textile workers of the future.

[DaGuy]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
Developing good, usable software will always require skill - and that's what is marketable. There is also the responsibility on our part to be good employees - something not typically true of IT people, and one reason that many companies will outsource that role if possible.

Like the quark programmers?

Programmers are the textile workers of the future.

Well I really hope that what you are saying holds true a few years from now. There's an article on this week's Time magazine that points out that the difference in wages between domestic and Indian workers. Here's some interesting average data:

SOFTWARE PROGRAMMER
US => $66,100
INDIA => $10,000

IT MANAGER
US => $55,000
INDIA => $8,500

Talent alone is no salvation under those differentials... I've met some very talented Indian programmers and they don't care about Monday Night Football -if you get my drift.

My take on it is that there needs to be at least some degree of concern in Washington since we can't just let everything fly out the door. It's not just IT there are other middle class jobs heading out such as accounting -it will be hard to lock anyone up, if the next Enron occurs overseas.

[osxisfun]

we are on the same side. maybe my comment lost something in the translation.

totally agree with your previous comment.

my jibe at quark was that talent means nothing in the short term to some of these greedy CEOs. they won't realize that its not the best solution but by then i fear the it sector will be in disarray.

when they see the number you posted it all about the $$$ to them.

shortsighted fools means more americans needlessly out of good paying jobs.

microsoft$ is doing this now and they have $50 billion in the bank!

shameless SOBs should be brought to task in high profile town square. but i am not going to hold my breath.

[Richard Edgar]

Surely this is one for market forces to sort out. If people don't like the code that comes out of India (or wherever), they will go elsewhere. So far as code quality is concerned... I'll start paying attention to arguments based on that when software licences stop disavowing all responsibility for the activities of the program in question.

[rumblepack]

I wouldn't be too worried about these things. Key points:

1. Why is there such a surge in the media theese days about offshore outsourcing? Anyone who has been around a technology newsdesk knows that these "news" are nothing but press releases from the involved companies. Ie, the american companies that make a living brokering these offshore deals. Gartner is another example off this; they don't do these reports for free. A company orders a report and Gartner delivers one that the customer is willing to pay for.

2. Comparing menial labour like that of the textile industry with IT is idiotic. I know many IT managers would terribly much like to think so, but you just can't compare a white-collar business worker that has had four years of university and endless certification courses etc with someone off the street who you can park at a sewing machine after 10 minutes of training. IT is not menial labour, it is a business critical field and companies who think otherwise should best be avoided since they are obviously a.) totally oblivious of the field of business they are in or b.) not very serious at all.

3. software development is far more than software programming. You as a customer or as project leader need to be able to talk directly with your developers, you need to be able to get them on the phone during business hours, you need to be able to get them in a meeting to discuss the project with the customer, design staff, OAM staff etc. Software development is more than menial typing of code.

Many IT CEOs screwed up bigtime the past few years. They will jump at anything that will make them out as visionaries to save their jobs, if not their companies. Sorry for the ramblings but I get rather annoyed when I see clueless "manager" (ie, buerocrats) turn good business to shite.

[osxisfun]

> 1. Why is there such a surge in the media theese days about offshore outsourcing? Anyone who has been

Please tell the former programmers of quark, macromedia, soon to microsoft and hundreds of other companies with lower PR profiles that this is just "news". Tell them its just "news" that they can not pay their rent or have to switch carreers.

> 2. Comparing menial labour like that of the textile industry with IT is idiotic. I know many IT managers would

Thinking i was comparing the skill set is idiotic. Programmer jobs just like textile worker jobs are being shipped over seas. I fail to see how that is idiotic. See Time stats on pay rates for each. The people coming out of indian schools are very good. and when they make a tenth of what an american does, you do the math and do a google on the skill set of indian programmers while you are at it.

> 3. software development is far more than software programming. You as a customer or as project leader need

I know first hand this is wrong. What the companies are doing are keeping the project leader an american and making the rest of the pgrammers off source people. its the project leader's job to "comminucate" with them.

> Many IT CEOs screwed up bigtime the past few years

and when they see the salary differeneces all they see is $$$

[osxisfun]

>Surely this is one for market forces to sort out. If people don't like the code that comes out of India (or wherever), they will go elsewhere. So far as code quality is concerne

And surely microsoft, who with $50 billion in the bank and is about to set up thousands of programming jobs in india would agree with you.

Let's let the market sort it out. The CEOs ALWAYS have the best interest of the citizens in mind.

Cough...Cough...

[wadesworld]

Guys, you have to understand what the goals of management are, especially for a publicly-traded company.

The goals are:

Increase sales
Reduce expenses

That's it. That's always their focus. If they feel they can move development to India and get the same result for 25% of the cost, they're going to do it every time.

The only protection is to keep innovating. Continue to make your work so good that they're convinced they couldn't get the same thing in India or anywhere else.

Wade

[DaGuy]

Originally posted by rumblepack:
I wouldn't be too worried about these things. Key points:

1. Why is there such a surge in the media these days about offshore outsourcing? Anyone who has been around a technology newsdesk knows that these "news" are nothing but press releases from the involved companies. Ie, the american companies that make a living brokering these offshore deals. Gartner is another example off this; they don't do these reports for free. A company orders a report and Gartner delivers one that the customer is willing to pay for.

Well, outsourcing started out as a domestic endeavor with domestic workers. The very large and global consulting firm that I work for (the one with it's offices in Bermuda) was the first to implement (at a large scale) outsourcing in the U.S. That was about three years ago. Soon after, outsourcing was augmented as "overseas outsourcing". The impact of the emerging trend was fuzzy and was not immediate. However now it's beginning to be felt deeply in many middle class families (those that actually have something to loose) and hence the increase in the amount of media attention. You know the drill, "buy the lock after you've been robbed". So yes, you are correct, Gartner (and others) have been writing about this for quite some time.

2. Comparing menial labour like that of the textile industry with IT is idiotic. I know many IT managers would terribly much like to think so, but you just can't compare a white-collar business worker that has had four years of university and endless certification courses etc with someone off the street who you can park at a sewing machine after 10 minutes of training. IT is not menial labour, it is a business critical field and companies who think otherwise should best be avoided since they are obviously a.) totally oblivious of the field of business they are in or b.) not very serious at all.

Think about it in very cold economic terms (that's what makes a good executive). It doesn't matter much just how complex or simple a task is when the supply for the required skills exceeds demand.
Much of I.T. has been commoditized, not all but a bunch of it. Garment workers produce commoditized goods (forget their education levels) with an over supplied labor market.

And who said that Indian workers don't have good and in some cases very good schooling? Furthermore, forget India... if not them, then there's a whole slew of very well-educated (chess playing) Eastern Europeans who would gladly work for a small fraction of what we get paid in the U.S.

Let's illustrate this further. My salary as an IT professional in U.S. (J2EE Development) can be exchanged for at least 7 Indian workers. This means management can afford a whole team for what I make i.e. they can afford an Architect, several Developers one or two Testers and a Team Lead. That's pretty stiff competition... No matter how much I know about advanced data structures, non linear partial differential equations (or how well I park my car).

3. software development is far more than software programming. You as a customer or as project leader need to be able to talk directly with your developers, you need to be able to get them on the phone during business hours, you need to be able to get them in a meeting to discuss the project with the customer, design staff, OAM staff etc. Software development is more than menial typing of code.

Many IT CEOs screwed up bigtime the past few years. They will jump at anything that will make them out as visionaries to save their jobs, if not their companies. Sorry for the ramblings but I get rather annoyed when I see clueless "manager" (ie, buerocrats) turn good business to shite.

Yup, there's a lot of truth to that. And do allow me to clarify that my intent is not to entice an element of fear. I just like to keep my eyes on the ball and not underestimate my competition... Going forward, I don't expect to be "greeted with fowers".

[Richard Edgar]

And surely microsoft, who with $50 billion in the bank and is about to set up thousands of programming jobs in india would agree with you

What has the size of Microsoft's cash pile got to do with anything? The point is, if the Indians (or whoever) can write the code which Microsoft's customers want, and do so cheaper than anyone else, why shouldn't the Indians be doing the programming?

The CEOs ALWAYS have the best interest of the citizens in mind

They have to keep the interests of their customers in mind. I don't see what the citizens have to do with it.

[DaGuy]

Originally posted by Richard Edgar:
Surely this is one for market forces to sort out.

Market forces are clearly superb at what they do, which is the allocation of goods and services. BUT who said that they are moral, or that they will always produce the best outcome?

So Indeed, the markets will reach an equilibrium. The question is, will it be a socially desirable one? Reaching socially desirable outcomes is what policy makers are paid to do and that's what ticks me off, since I don't see any degree of concern comming out of D.C.




How to solve it? Well how about if you want to do business here (in the U.S. or U.K. etc) then you must have a specified percentage of employees in the country. Those who choose to go cheepo exteme will loose out on our wonderful market. This of course, is an over simplification and the real deal requires a lot of work. But again, someboy needs to pay attention.

[Richard Edgar]

BUT who said that they are moral, or that they will always produce the best outcome?

I never made any comment on morality. It is not a consideration for a market. So far as `best' is concerned, I would have thought that one would conclude that people would buy the solution which is best for them. Taken together, the consumers will then pick the best solution overall. Isn't that what markets are supposed to do?

[DaGuy]

Originally posted by Richard Edgar:
I never made any comment on morality. It is not a consideration for a market. So far as `best' is concerned, I would have thought that one would conclude that people would buy the solution which is best for them. Taken together, the consumers will then pick the best solution overall. Isn't that what markets are supposed to do?

Treating IBM, MS, Quark etc. as ordinary consumers is a very delicate matter since the choices that they make affects millions. The reverse is not true the choices that a few even a couple of thousand of us make will not make a dent on MS i.e., we are mac users, right? Also, It would be better for these very large entities to not to worry about pollution, get rid of all regulations etc. They are very different creatures. They exist at a different economic scale, that makes matters quite different for them than it is for us common folk. Anyway, I suspect that at the heart of the matter is the notion of a free market.

The idea of a free market is one that's oversold and NEVER implemented. Bottom line is, policy makers need to "encourage" the market to produce good (or best, if theyt are clever enough) outcomes. If we don't make money then we are not buying anything, it's as simple as that, at end of the day.

It's also true that when not done with care, stearing the market in any unnatural direction can screw things up even more. However most of these failures again are due to policy makers not keeping up with the times and having and enormous ammount of inertia -such is the current case.

[rumblepack]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
> 1. Why is there such a surge in the media theese days about offshore outsourcing? Anyone who has been

Please tell the former programmers of quark, macromedia, soon to microsoft and hundreds of other companies with lower PR profiles that this is just "news". Tell them its just "news" that they can not pay their rent or have to switch carreers.

I'm not saying that this kind of business practice doesn't exist. I'm saying that it's blown out of proportions. The article states that the entire BPO market (which doesn't just include IT btw) was worth 1.3 bn dollars 2002. How many markets get this kind of press for 1.3 bn?

Of course that doesn't matter to the specific programmers who have gotten laid off due to outsourcing. Being a programmer myself with a family and a mortgage I certainly do feel for them.

Originally posted by osxisfun:

> 2. Comparing menial labour like that of the textile industry with IT is idiotic. I know many IT managers would

Thinking i was comparing the skill set is idiotic. Programmer jobs just like textile worker jobs are being shipped over seas. I fail to see how that is idiotic. See Time stats on pay rates for each. The people coming out of indian schools are very good. and when they make a tenth of what an american does, you do the math and do a google on the skill set of indian programmers while you are at it.

You misunderstood what I was saying. I wasn't saying that *you* were comparing skillsets. What I was saying is that many managers think that since outsourcing of menial labour has turned out to be very profitable for some companies, that same principle can be applied to any other field, which I do not belive it easily can.

Industries such as IT, finance etc are very dependant on the actual human beings working in them, while industries such as textiles are much less dependant on the actual workers and more dependant on the machines and tools that the workers use. Hence, it can be profitable for employers of menial labour (albeit extremely cynical, imho) to "switch" worker from well-paid unionized western workers to underpaid third world workers. Since your capital is in machines, all you need to do is move the machines. With the so-called "knowledge workers" that becomes much more difficult. Since your capital now is in the brains of these guys and gals, they are much more difficult to replace.

Note that this has nothing to do with the qualifications of Indian programmers, who I am sure are just as qualified as any western ones. I'm swedish myself and the average salary for a swedish programmer is a fraction of the salary for an american or english one yet it is extremely rare for american companies to outsource to Sweden, even though we too now have a surplus of educated programmers and even though we are ranked as one of the top IT nations in the world.

[DaGuy]

Originally posted by rumblepack:
Since your capital is in machines, all you need to do is move the machines. With the so-called "knowledge workers" that becomes much more difficult. Since your capital now is in the brains of these guys and gals, they are much more difficult to replace.

Thanks for clarifying, I believe I see your point better. But... the fact is that it took the garment industry almost a decade to leave the U.S. (my parent's raised me on those wages, so I know). The great majority of those sweat shops were in the hands of small businessmen who just didn't have the smarts to move that quickly -even though it would've been theoretically possible to do so. It's was not easy for some (in my case NYC) business owners to just quickly pact and move their factories to Manila. You need lots of MBA's for that. So the fact that a lot (not all) of I.T. appears to leaving at an even more rapid pace makes me believe that we've just gotten so much better at globalizing.

As Consultant I had ample opportunity to transfer knowledge to clients and I can tell you that at the Programmer's level, it really was no big deal. It was usually some cookie cutter system -once you seen a few of them then you pretty much know the story.

Now, from a Manager's perspective, those who deals with effectiveness and productivity metrics we are no different than machines. It's about all input-output, when the smoke clears. There's also the "who you know factor" but I can't gauge that in any concrete sense.

Anyway, I don't think is all bleak, I believe that good architectural and formal design skills will always be in demand. That catch is that there not too many of those around and the guys who currently have those roles are not planning on dying anytime soon... They seem to workout and eat well, have actual girlfriends etc... If you know one, start feeding them lots of greasy pizza!

Those sweatshop type programming roles were also excellent for recent grads to get their green little feet through the coorporate door...

[Richard Edgar]

Treating IBM, MS, Quark etc. as ordinary consumers is a very delicate matter since the choices that they make affects millions

I wasn't particularly. I was more thinking of the individuals who make their purchases, based on their needs.

The reverse is not true the choices that a few even a couple of thousand of us make will not make a dent on MS

That is because it has been the choice of many more that they do want to purchase MS software. Nothing wrong with that.

Also, It would be better for these very large entities to not to worry about pollution, get rid of all regulations etc.

Only insofar as they do not destroy their future consumer base. Doing that would not be an intelligent move, and would eventually bring about the downfall of any company which followed such a course.

[DaGuy]

Originally posted by Richard Edgar:

Only insofar as they do not destroy their future consumer base. Doing that would not be an intelligent move, and would eventually bring about the downfall of any company which followed such a course.

It could be some hard to detect toxic waste... as we've seen plenty in the past. Penalties yes, slap on the hands, yes but I don't know of any company that went under for such things. Do you?

The other thing is that: Downfall = chapter 11 + some other tricks were no one goes to jail.

It's nice to have some rules and big stick to enforce them (and we do). We have to police markets in order to not allow them to self-destruct. Markets don't appreciate complete freedom as we do. Just Imagine, theft is after all a profit maximization activity...

[Richard Edgar]

It could be some hard to detect toxic waste... as we've seen plenty in the past. Penalties yes, slap on the hands, yes but I don't know of any company that went under for such things. Do you?

The point is that if companies poison all their potential consumers, there won't be anyone who can buy from them. End of company.

Just Imagine, theft is after all a profit maximization activity...

Provided one is not caught (whether by the state or the original owner). That's just part of the risk analysis.

[DaGuy]

Originally posted by Richard Edgar:
The point is that if companies poison all

Yeah, I guess just poisoning some and not all is probaby ok.

[rumblepack]

Originally posted by DaGuy:
So the fact that a lot (not all) of I.T. appears to leaving at an even more rapid pace makes me believe that we've just gotten so much better at globalizing.

Or, we've gotten much better at shooting ourselves in the foot... But you're right of course, globalization has its drawbacks. Actually, Karl Marx predicted this 150 years ago. The problem, according to him, is that in the end, when you (or rather the "capitalist system") have pushed back worker salaries as much as possible, there won't be anyone around that can buy your stuff... :-) I guess a fat disclaimer is in order here, I took a few courses in political science at uni which is why I know these things. I'm not a marxist (then again, neither was Marx, paradoxally...) :-)

Originally posted by DaGuy:
As Consultant I had ample opportunity to transfer knowledge to clients and I can tell you that at the Programmer's level, it really was no big deal. It was usually some cookie cutter system -once you seen a few of them then you pretty much know the story.

I guess it depends on the system being built. If you're doing a project from scratch as a one-off thing for which you won't need to sign support contracts etc then I guess it would be feasible to outsource the development (abroad or not). However, the kind of things we're doing at the company I work for I can't really see would be "outsourceable". Since we are obliged to keep the customer's software running smoothly for years on end (we're not really talking Microsoftish EULA's here...) and since it's usually projects that take man-years to finish we would be seriously screwed if all the key developers were to leave, as would be the effect of outsourcing development. I can imagine the same thing happening to any other company that maintains large software projects. Say Microsoft decides to outsource development of Office. We're talking most likely hundreds of thousands of lines of code here! How on earth would they be able to get a new team working on that beast in a cost effective way?

Originally posted by DaGuy:
Now, from a Manager's perspective, those who deals with effectiveness and productivity metrics we are no different than machines. It's about all input-output, when the smoke clears.

I also believe it's about long-term vs short term planning. There is a huge number of management philosophies and theories out there that advocate management paradigms ranging from sixties style hugfests to sweatshops. I honestly believe this trend is just another Dilbertesque management "paradigm" that will be The In Thing at the management seminars for some time and in the end it will cost the industry huge amounts of money and we will all be back at status quo again, just as has happened with so many other "revolutionary" paradigms. This is a short-term planning thing. This industry has only one asset, only one method of value creation, and that is the employees that make the software that the big guys get rich from. What are the long term effects of placing that asset in a company you don't control? What prevents the company you're using to develop your software from developing software for your competitors? What's stopping the bright indian guys from starting their own companies directly competing with yours? What if you're not happy with the company you're using, are you going to accept the time you lose switching development house? And can you be sure that all copies of the source code are deleted at the old firm? What about differences in legal systems - here in Sweden for example many of the NDA clauses I've seen in american contracts are unenforcable under swedish law!

Originally posted by DaGuy:
Anyway, I don't think is all bleak, I believe that good architectural and formal design skills will always be in demand.

...or you can do it the other way. I saw a Java obfuscator posted on Freshmeat the other day, if you want to be safe... ;-)

Seriously though, this industry is in a real crisis. What we need now is to get back to the boring hum-drum of everyday productivity, not mess around with magic management paradigms. These big companies need to understand that India has a population of 1 billion, almost twice as much as the US and Europe together, and are putting out great programmers at a very high rate. They don't need these "sweatshops", they have an IT industry of their own that is going to explode in the coming years, and woe betide the Quark or Microsoft that has spent the time up till then messing around like this instead of going back to basics and making good, competitive software.

[DaGuy]

Originally posted by rumblepack:
These big companies need to understand...

They never understand until they are down to the last breath of air i.e., the recording industry still wanting to push CDs.

But it's time to begin thinking about what do and even who to vote for. Some believes that tax cuts solve everything (but I won't get into that) but can you imagine saving some money on taxes and reinvesting but not in the country that the tax cut was to supposed to help? We are shooting ourselves in a much more vital place than the foot...

The auto industry provided a good example of what can be done with I.T. Honda wanted to sell cars in the US so they opened some plants in the US. I am sure that they could have saved some money elsewhere but such a move would generated some bad will in there target market. I say we should take the attitude that who ever wants our money must also provide some work domestically. Anyone who wants to pay child labor wages can do so but at the expense of loosing a market. This is hard to pull of without legislation.