Comments on: Labor group: Microsoft offshoring work on Longhorn

Organization says documents contradict industry claims that offshore outsourcing will be limited to mundane tasks.

[Prndll]

Who am I?

I just wonder how much Bin-Laden's group has contributed to the developement of the worlds most used OS.

The US uses more computers and does more with them than anyone else. For that matter, there is discussion of conducting federal elections online. Shipping to India----HA! Most of these people can't even speak english, and the few that can really can't.

Hat's off to Micro"suck" for turning over such power to potential enemies and destructive death crazed lunatics......

It is the potential I'm concerned about.

[waynehapp]

What can you expect?

based upon the quality I see of Indian workers where I work--You can expect it to br late, bud ridden and sloppy.

These people are not being hired because they're good. Hiring 3 Indians to make a bug ridden mess of a module and 1 American to fix it all is still cheaper then hiring 2 Americans to get it mostly right the first or second time.

Now I Know!!!!!!!

Now I know why every release of a Microsoft product has the same bugs and problems that prior releases had. Quoting Stacy Drake of Microsoft - "testing is not development". Instead of testing and putting out a quality product all Microsoft wants is to continue putting out new releases that have the same bugs and virus-trojan-hijacking vulnerable garbage that prior releases had. And charge an arm and a leg for it.
If you think I'm wrong, just look at Internet Explorer. Every new release has the same vulnerabilities and exploits that the prior releases had. How about testing before release instead of quick releasing and then patching after peoples computers have been screwed up?

Could it be cost?

Actually, that's an easy one to answer. Microsoft has found that it is not cost effective to release stable software. It takes time to test and rework code and that costs too much.

If you look at it from Microsoft's view, if we really don't want to use their buggy software, then why keep buying it? We are telling MS that it is OK that their software has serious defects and that we will line up for the next release as soon as they have it ready. If we didn't like the way they are doing business, then we wouldn't do business with them.

Well, that's my philosophy anyway. That's why I have installed Linux on my laptop and I force myself to learn it. I'm not supporting their software based petri dishes anymore. Besides, I'f floored by what I have access to through Open Source! I'm not going back. I'm making the switch and I'm taking my clients with me.

The numbers don't add up

There are two issues I have with the statements that the economy will improve due to offshoring.

Let's say that $10 billion goes overseas this year for outsourcing. That means there is $10 billion removed from our economy. How does that improve it? There is $10 billion less that will be spent here in the States. Not only do the jobs go offshore, but the cash goes as well. I don't expect it to be spent in here in the States - not when the goods are less expensive overseas. It truly is the American dream - in India. nfortunately, that means that India or the Philipines really will not be creating their own economies. They are simply siphoning off ours.

Also, the chain of events that the instantaneous, self-described "economists" are talking about happen in a closed, or somewhat closed, system. The fact that the cash is going offshore means that the chain of events that leads to more jobs is broken.

As a side note, the cost of labor for these companies are being lowered, but we will not see that reflected in price cuts for their goods or services. You can expect their labor cost to go down and their product prices to continue to climb. More bad math.