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April 10, 2005
the flipside of offshoring
Offshoring has been hailed as a boon or a bane depending on if you're a CEO extolling it's virtues to shareholders, or a displaced technology worker who perceives it as the cause.
Being an avid Economist reader, I have read carefully discussions of offshoring, and outsourcing. The truth is even if it were as simple as lay people claim - lower wages in India mean workers here are automatically displaced - it is still not simple offshore projects. Here's a link to Ed Sim's Beyond VC where he discusses increased costs of outsourcing.
As an employer who often subcontracts work, and remote management I can relate to their difficulties. Managing projects and building software involves a lot of communication, and unfortunately often a lot of miscommunication. Though technologies like VOIP + Skype certainly narrow the divide, culture & language barriers, and the continued lack of Computer Science degrees in general are not problems that will soon go away.
Posted by admin at April 10, 2005 11:29 PM