Offshore Tech

I don't really want to step into this argument, but the amount of media spew makes it hard to ignore. Reports like this one in E Commerce Times are hard to ignore.

You know you can hear the reporters eh? "Look at these poor bastards. A couple of years back they were leaving jobs for signing bonuses and stock and now they can't make the payment on their beamer."

I really doubt it's as bad as the media suggests, but don't tell that to someone who has recently lost a tech job. And we know that CAD jobs, at least at the big design builds have been worked at least in part overseas and in countries where labor costs are lower for several years now. Is it just a matter of time before they're all gone? I doubt it. But don't expect the media coverage or offshoring to go away anytime soon.

As consolation, also published in E Commerce Times last week is this article The
IT Marksman at Wal-Mart. While mostly another article about a hard working IT executive it refers to a Wal-Mart study on outsourcing.

"Wal-Mart's preliminary studies have shown that offshoring is more expensive than writing software in-house, Dillman says. It turns out that offshore programmers tend to take more hours to complete tasks than Wal-Mart's U.S. employees do."

Wal-Mart is THE business leader. Top of Fortune 500, I'm betting that they're not making a mistake in keeping development in house. On the other hand, Wal-Mart wages are about the same as those paid in Bangalore, India.