Flow My Thoughts, The IT Professor Said

That Giant Sucking Sound

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=4059246

Article on offshoring which keys on predictions that U.S. white-collar jobs such as programmers, software engineers and applications designers will be offshored at an ever-increasing [the rate is expected to double]. Multinationals, having experienced backlash about this, are keeping mum.

In fact, the following priceless remark is deeply symptomatic: "Nobody has come up with a way to spin it in a positive way." The explanation for that is simple: there is no way to spin this positively.

Moreover, as this article notes, offshoring is by no means risk-free, even if it will grow by 25%/year:

http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/Top_10_Risks_Offshore_Outsourcing.html

Problems can range from lower cost savings than initially estimated to problems in knowedge transfer. Indeed, only the reduced cost impact of offshoring seems sufficient to balance against these risks.

Of course, none of this prevented the high and mighty, like Cary Fiorina [who does not have to worry about bread on the table today or tomorrow] giving a rather "let them eat cake" remark, and economists [who is laid end to end would never agree on anything] continue to hold that this pain is actually good for us:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/01/09/MNG6C46T0M1.DTL&type=tech

I think, when I think about it, that I am rather in the economists' court here, but when people who benefit to an almost obscene degree defend a practice which makes many of their contemporaries into dispossessed paupers, I also acknowledge without hesitation that this grates, and reveals the degree to which such speakers are pompous, heartless, and self-centered.

Posted by jho at January 12, 2004 12:41 PM