[rbg81]

I’m sure there are a lot of good programmers in India, but as a percentage, it is much lower than the US. I can tell you that many of the Indian student I’ve seen cannot program their way out of a paper bag. But they are polite and speak good English. In any case, the cost savings is probably going to be largely an illusion.

[AmericanInTokyo]

i think for example much of hollywood movie support is going to end up in india or elsewhere...post production, writing, graphics, special effects, this/that and the other.... let’s see

[weegee]

I want to see import taxes on all software authored overseas. It is millions of dollars of corporate investment. Doesn’t matter that it is “imported” through a wire. It is manufactured and assembled overseas.

[weegee]

I also find it crappy that American corporations won’t let employees stateside telecommute but they have no problem employing people on the other side of the globe and communicating with them by shared computer desktops and teleconferences.

[webstersII]

“In any case, the cost savings is probably going to be largely an illusion.”

Yes, but bean-counters can always make the numbers work to make it look like a profit if they really want to.

I’m surprised that off-shoring is increasing. With the dollar so low it hardly makes sense anymore, especially with the difficulties in communications, specs, etc. It’s a very inefficient way to put products together.

[Plumres]

We have dozens of programmers from India where I work. I find them to be very smart or very dumb. They also expect you to drop everything you are working on to be their personal gopher. I work from 8am to 5 pm. I once got an email at 10:45pm to do something. Than 7:45am the next morning I got another email asking why the request wasn't completed. The programmer was not in India, but in my building.

[Mike Darancette]

It has been my experience that those offshore types can write code but they just don’t seem to get the why of it.

[Cronos]

As a percentage, yes, it may be lower than the US, but in sheer numbers, the number of good programmers in India would outnumber the number of good programmers in the US -- one solution is to allow more legal migration to the US.

The cost savings are there and are definitely no illusion -- operations in India assume that 20% of the IT workers would not be really good, but do you need top notch talent for most prod support activities? No. And for high level integration etc. work, if 20% are bad, the remainder still make up enough of a cost savings to make it worth it.

Plus, you now have a critical density of programmers there

[Non-Sequitur]

In any case, the cost savings is probably going to be largely an illusion.

The problem is that you can throw two Indian programmers at a job that one U.S. programmer could do on his own, and still save money.