You forgot the additional $60/hr. the boss has to pay you top fix the crap that Apu coded so that the original business purpose for the program is achieved.
Virtually my first year at my current company (2006) was rewriting tons of SAP programs and interfaces that were so screwed up by our SAP implement or’s outsourcing company in India, that my company tried to get most if not all of their money back for this part of the project.
My friend who worked for Philips and is now a contractor for IBM says that IBM's main staff is in overseas and that the quality of work is below that of dog crap. He says Philips now regrets laying off their entire IT staff and go with IBM consulting.
Agreed. I think there is some mythical status people assign to these foreign engineers. But truth is their quality is severely lacking.
Two examples of just that:
I worked for a software company a few years ago that decided to outsource a new app. They got an estimate from one of our developers, huffed that it was going to take far too long and cost too much money to do it locally. So they outsourced it to a whole team in Pakastan. It took four times as long, four project managers quit, and when it was "done" they demo'ed it to our customer who said, "You're kidding, right?". Then they had the original developer rewrite it in the amount of time he first estimated. And naturally, declared the outsourcing a complete success and started outsourcing everything else.
I currently deal with two companies from which I buy software solutions. Company A outsources all their development to India, and a good portion of their support. Their software sucks. It is buggy, resource intensive, impossible to upgrade, and needs constant monitoring to keept it operational. To make matters worse, if it wasn't enough that their Indian developers are incompetent, they have a horrible attitude and are utterly convinced of their innate superiority. They never offer solutions, only excuses for the lousy state of their software. Any time I browbeat them into actually doing something about a problem, I can guarantee their "solution" will only make things worse.
Company B develops their software in the US. The difference in quality and support is shocking. I can virtually forget about company B's software from a support standpoint. It just works. When I do have a problem I can put in a call and get a response, usually a solution on the same day.
I didn't choose company A. Who would? I inherited them. Whose business will be growing? Who would you rather own stock in? Company A is ruthlessly bottom-line oriented. And a good portion of that bottom line comes from the customers they are ripping off.