IBM now employs more workers in India than US

NY Post ^ | 10/5/13 | John Aidan Byrne

[Responsibility2nd]

IBM actually means...

I’ve
Been
Moved

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Old Joke. But still relevant.

[applpie]

oh right. strangely the other side of that cheerful little coin of yours is that those same smart business folks are not considering the long term effect on America and even the globe if America takes a nose dive to third world status. companies aren’t even going overseas anymore...they are just bringing guest workers here! so you tell me where are americans supposed to go to find a job? dont think this is just low tech workers....it is all types of jobs including IT, health, accounting, and other areas where americans have paid exorbitant rates to get a degree in these fields only to be cut out of the market by guest workers who are making tens of thousands less a year! interestingly how do they get away with it. used to be same pay for same job. not anymore. plus, these workers are cramming into lower priced housing and taking benefits because they don’t make enough to support themselves and their larger families. PLUS they are bringing their lifestyle and values here—and their biases—these middle east or eastern cultures that are male dominated—they are bringing it into the workplace. e.g., indian males are managers, they hire Indians and treat women like they are inferior. they also make fun of americans behind their backs and when you say anything...they say “this is the land of opportunity”. well maybe for them but not for us pretty soon.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

If you’ve ever had to clean up after the $17K guys IBM puts on contracts, it becomes pretty clear that you get what you pay for. Despite the reputations of Asians, the entry-level folks are not very good coders.

Depends on which entry-level folks - the Indian Institute of Technology is brutally difficult to get into and those who don't quite make the cut look to US and European universities as backup choices. I've had the opportunity to work with a couple of IIT students on a research topic and they were very sharp, to say the least. But the people who graduate from that caliber of school don't accept jobs as contractors for IBM, and the drop-off in quality from the IIT to the average diploma mill in India is steep.

[dfwgator]

You only get the good indians if you pay top dollar for them.

[applpie]

sick of people who automatically assume americans are inferior and lazy. that is just not so. why don’t you come by an office where lots of guest workers are employed and you will see them standing outside in large groups chatting for long periods of time. they bring their cultures here.

[Cyman]

I believe their name starts with International

[SecondAmendment]

"...If you’ve ever had to clean up after the $17K guys IBM puts on contracts, it becomes pretty clear that you get what you pay for..."

It's the overpaid MBA in charge of the project who should be outsourced!

[Caipirabob]

The average IBM pay in India is $17,000, compared with $100,000 for a senior IT specialist in the US.

I'm a lead advocate for one of these programs. You simply do not get the work out of the remote teams that you need unless you micro-manage every aspect of a project.

In my experience, you are getting far more value, ownership and engagement for the local expertise.

We had one example of a 6 month ongoing project that was only partially implemented. It took the local senior resource 36 hours to fix the insanely easy problems that indicated that there was only minor testing done as a formality, not truly vetted out.

OTOH, we only had to put a senior IT resource on the project for 36 hours to make it functional. There's the ROI.

[JSteff]

Generally speaking, the guys in India would be lower-skilled.

What about "Mark" in tech support?

[Understand the stimulus]

this is what happens when you have a feminazi as CEO...theyre firing vermonters ...the only reason IBM had a plant there was the Watsons had a chalet st Stowe...

[upsdriver]

US corporate taxes and regulations are more to blame than any corporation for the outsourcing of jobs. A corporation is a living organism. The first priority is to survive.

It's also like flowing water, it seeks the path of least resistance.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Yes. Truth be known, corporations hate to go off shore. They lose the ability to fix a problem quickly. So that results in a loss of customer base which is ultimately the demise of the corporation. But the government drives it.

[The Duke]

YOU_GET_WHAT_YOU_PAY_FOR_PING!

[setha]

Those were things once offered to US citizens - before they were viewed as problems instead of problem solvers. Now you’re lucky if you get any of those as a US citizen working in the private sector.

[FredZarguna]

So clueless, their stock prices have been maintaining a long-term upward trajectory for years now?

If the money had somewhere else to go ... if the Fed wasn't pumping ... would IBM making money?

From Forbes

[during the last 18 months]IBM stock has risen at a 7.1% annual rate. But in the last year, the S&P 500 has spiked 24.2% while IBM stock has eked out a mere 4.4% gain.

It hasn't gotten better since that article was written in June. Here's IBM performance vs. the S&P:

The truth is, IBM is a dying company. ALL of their profitability over the last five years has come from cutting staff, cutting costs, and even cutting contractors.

The truth is shareholders can get that kind of performance from guys who ask for $300K/year, so why pay people who make $8.3 million? And apparently, Ginni agrees with me, and not with you, since she has done nothing but sell her shares of IBM since 2011.

But please, keep buying IBM, by all means. You're exactly the kind of "investor" who thinks we ought to outsource the people who actually do the work while CEO's and upper management continue to take a larger and larger share of the profits without producing any results.

Talk about clueless.

[FredZarguna]

You got it.

[FredZarguna]

It doesn’t bother me. I’ve made a huge amount of money consulting for companies who discover after 3 years+ on a project in India that they haven’t even got something they can demo. I give them a number, and if they balk I tell them to go back to India and see how it works out; I’ve got no shortage of work.

[FredZarguna]

As a former academic, I have lots of respect for people who do research and friends and relatives who still make their living that way, however, a) as you correctly note, most of the entry-level people in contract projects aren’t the cream of the crop and b) in my experience credentials in research in computer science often correlate negatively to quality of work product.

[The Antiyuppie]

I agree with you. The easy money has already been squeezed out of their company.

This is just my opinion, IBM is the poster child of the US. Yes, they have a few “halo” projects, but they have gone from a manufacturing and innovation company to a service based company. Ultimately, they will go the way of Unisys, Sperry, and so on - when the good old boy network of salespeople and customers in government and the military die out, their business will go off a ledge.

There was a saying at one time, “no one ever got fired for buying IBM”, meaning, that IBM was a safe choice, you might not get the best deal or the best stuff, but it was going to work and they would make you look good (enough). Now, in 2013, I know places where you may well be fired for buying IBM.

[SgtHooper]

Plus Sanjay is likely a PHD.