"You can't work a person like a dog and get their best from them. It does not work."
I think this actually WORKS in China. The prisoners and child labor - for sure....
And I would disagree. And I'd point to the failure rate of those projects as evidence.
China gets exactly what they pay for. Those workers are *not* the equal of a well paid, well trained, free worker. It's self-evident.
And on this 4th of July weekend, I'd like to point out that this has been the single greatest strength of American workers for the last few centuries.
American software developers are more productive, and do superior work, than the vast majority of off-shore workers. In my direct experience.
Now don't get me wrong -- there are some very, very talented Indian developers. Most of them are over here, and they charge what I charge (or more).
But there is no free lunch. You can't just go to a place, hire a bunch of folks and viola! have a software shop. Not even here in the states, really. It's much harder than that. You have to hunt and search for good people, then keep them happy to retain them.
It's a 'talent' business. The big corps are slowly finding that out. Reluctantly. Like sports, you can pay one person $100k and get 10 times the production of 2 people you pay $50k. The trick is finding the talent.
These corps are going to have a very hard time with that. It's not what they've been use to. Most other industries are 'factory' type situations, in which workers are just numbers, interchangeable. You hire someone, train them for a week or a month, and you have a solid producer.
Software, of course, is *not* like that at all. But that doesn't stop them from trying to run development shops as "software factories". They're failing, and will eventually evolve/adapt. But this is a very new industry, relatively speaking. And it's just a mere shadow of what it *will* be. I believe the internet is like Radio was, the paralells are too similar. And radio went thru a big boom and bust, and then began to grow. Slowly, at first, but eventually radio came to be what it is today.