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Software analyisis/design is a function of software development for a vast majority of developers. Project management is nothing more than deciding what your going to do and how long it should take (and estimating cost if that's your role). For the sake of this discussion we'll put aside office politics as a navigable function of a PM.

I'm not going to quibble over what the average software developer does. I've seen a wide range of skills in developers -- and very few have the full gamut of skills required to define requirements, design/architect, write the code, run the project, and work with customers.

Here's the reality of the situation. Western companies are replacing software developers with cheap labor overseas. They generally hire a Western-based architect/project manager (PM) to oversee the work. Software development has been relegated to churning out code.

You can argue against this reality -- but it's really pointless, since it's already happening right now.

The reality is they are "throwing the baby out with the bath water". I agree that many "developers" do not have the full range of skills but that doesn't mean they are incapable of developing them. The problem is this, how do you develop the skills if there are no positions of lesser capability available to develop said skills?

This is a catch-22 and needs to be addressed. Are we to develop university programs that develop all of these skills? If so it would require at least 4 years of "residency" much like doctors perform now. Without the opportunity to develop the skills "on-the-job" the higher end positions will not be filled and leave a large hole in a corporations R&D efforts.

We are talking about America's future competitive edge and as much as the "business class" dislikes their engineering counterparts they still need them. We are training the third world in "high-tech" now so expect them to compete with us head on later.

If we were to simply do it all here then the value of our products would dramatically increase. Since our companies are the consumers they only care about cheaper software not the VALUE of developing the software. If we are the only ones that can produce high quality business solutions then we have a monopoly. If we train the third world to produce high quality software then we had better be prepared to forgo any market they want to sell to.

Software can be and is a profitable form of product development and is not always part of a "cost center". Giving away the golden goose (high tech know-how) doesn't seem like a long-term winning strategy.