Comments on: Offshoring: Companies guarding 'secret sauce'

Digital Agenda Many U.S. tech businesses say they are adamant about keeping IP at home for now, even if they are considering some form of foreign outsourcing.

[furl12]

Ten Years From Now

?Let's talk about 10 years from now. Where am I going to get my systems architects??

Ten years from now the people who entered the college pipeline in the US in 2004 will be of poorer quality than those who entered in 1994. The bright lights have already turned their attention elsewhere.

Those college graduates will also have less hands-on experience: It?s no longer cool for high-schoolers to spend all their spare time hacking (i.e. playing) on their PC?s. Those who do graduate will be less devoted to their job choice as a career and will refuse to work the long unpaid hours of their predecessors keeping skills honed and up to date.

Who knows where India will be? Maybe all those millions in extreme poverty will attack the country that spends all its discretionary rupees on corporate tax subsidies and there will be a bloody revolution. Maybe a socialist government will remove all those corporate subsidies and Indian workers will lose their cost advantage.

Maybe, having absorbed all staff IT functions, India will have no competition in the industry and ?US IT? will become an oxymoron.

I like the talk of a ?professional revolt? against current US policies that are destroying the American dream and replacing it with an American nightmare. That?s the other scenario, one where the revolution happens in the US and all the current crop of politicians and CEO?s are the ones out on the street.

[frankinla]

Wait a minute....

In day one we here "As a senior Silicon Valley executive, Bob Denis hears a lot of talk about the exportation of jobs overseas--but little that addresses the real problem...."

Then, In day two we here "Like many technology executives, Rhonda Hocker saw offshore outsourcing as an ideal way to stretch her budget..."

Guess it was a case of question asked and ansewered ;)

Can a market survive the outflow of jobs that pay more than subsistence

Income in the United States has been stangnant
for some time. During the 1990s those of us in
the computer industry did very well, so we were
not screaming. Now we are joining those whose
well paying manufacturing jobs disappeared overseas.
All this begs the question: how can consumer
markets survive when more and more jobs only
pay enough to get buy and have little in the way
of disposable income. For a discussion of this
(sadly without many answers) please see:

http://www.bearcave.com/misl/misl_other/economics.html

This web page has an extensive section of
annotated reference on the Web dealing with
outsourcing.

Secret Sauce is not always Technology

Having worked in HITECH since 1978 in the Silicon Valley... I don't think in many cases it's the technology that is the so-called secret sauce. There is so much technical capability and experience that if the funding is available a new competitor can produce an alternative choice for the consumers in rather short time. I think the real secret sauce is in the marketing, sales, and networking that goes on within the tech industry. I firmly believe that people buy from people and that impacts so many of the large deals. That's the REAL-SECRET-SAUCE

[George Cole]

tech industry

http://www.analogstereo.com/vacuum/miele_types.htm

[russ960]

Government contracts... It's about 2 little words...

It seems to me when you look at government contracts there are 2 little words that are vital National Security! It has been pointed out already that there are security concerns with-in India and Pakastan. Not to mention the Muslums in Pakistan probably don't like us very much for our involvement in Iraq. We cannot afford to possibly have vital goverment information moved overseas where citizens who are not held accountable to American courts access government information. As pointed out in this article India already has issues policing it's own county. Seems to me issues that deal with government contracts should stay in the US. We have already had one major failure in National Security that costed 3000+ lives. We don't need any more.

[b2bhandshake]

Interesting story

Do check out the new book on offshoring management at http://www.offshoringmanagement.com