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You obviously don't know me very well, Trevor.I do NOT have the narrow view of the world that you ascribe to me. I haven't yet read Friedman's book, but I have read many of his articles that follow the same line of thought.
Our Congress did a great disservice to American workers (at the behest of multinational corporations) by their expansion of the non-immigrant worker visa programs in the 1990's.
I have seen my business destroyed by my American client companies' use of non-immigrant H-1B and L-1 workers that come mostly from India to work either directly for them or through body shops here in the United States.
My company, Integration Services, had 120 employees in 1998. Today - FOUR. I'll be filing for bankruptcy later this year.In 1996 we actually attempted to set up our own offshore operation in India - however, at the time, the infrastructure costs were prohibitive - we were told it would cost 12,000/mo for a leased line to connect our U.S. offices to the Indian subsidiary...we didn't have the volume of work to support such costs and didn't have the deep pockets of a Tata, Wipro, or Infosys to afford such overhead, so we dropped the idea.
I have also been witness to a major outsourcing project for a client in Austin, during my five-year tenure there.
I saw one Indian firm utilizing B-1 (visitor) visas (illegally) to bring their workers over for three-month stints, requiring us to train another Indian every quarter. A call to the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcment (ICE) about this issue fell on deaf ears. After a complaint to the company's ethics department about the illegality of these workers, several were sent back to India.
I saw numerous missed deadlines, poor quality coding, and mismanagement everywhere, both by he client and by the Indian firms. These firms are the Indian incarnation of the American "Big-Six" consulting firms - the coders ALWAYS have two years or less experience - NEVER more. Programs that would take an experience American programmer/analyst a day or two to code would take a week or more to get right.
I also saw blatant gender discrimination by young male Indians against female American workers, most of whom were afraid to complain because they knew that their necks could be on the chopping block.
I also learned that many Indians don't know how to say NO. If you ask them if they can do something, they say yes, but many times they don't follow through and deliver on their promises - I believe that this is a cultural issue.
Bottom Line: When they nod their head up and down, it doesn't mean that they understand you...
I personally heard an executive of my client company say:"Who cares if they (the Indians) have to rewrite the code three or four times to get it right - they only cost us 20.00 per hour." (blatant disregard for the value of TIME)
I saw an order entry system that was outsourced to an Indian firm go from having two employees and three American contractors. Today the Indian firm has over THIRTY programmers working on this software product (where's the cost savings now???). The project I witnessed was at least as f*cked up as the project that Frederick Brooks describes in "The Mythical Man-Month". (Which I HAVE read, and highly recommend.)
I saw another Oracle project that was outsourced to a Phillipine company for a fixed bid of 10,000 dollars. They were supposed to deliver a finished product in three months. After having several offshore workers on it for 1 1/2 years, the client fired them and hired a local consulting firm - the TWO American consultants they hired started again from scratch and had a completed product in two months (but it cost substantially more than 10,000).
What value do you assign to the lost year and a half?In my opinion, the RIGHT way to outsource projects is to put American workers (either employees or consultants) INSTEAD of Indian workers on the front lines here in the USA to be the liason personnel for a project and make them accountable for project timelines, but as far as I can tell very few of the outsourcers are willing to hire Americans for these jobs - they prefer to bring over their Indian employees instead, and most clients consequently get a substandard product as a result.
Regards, Steve
From: "Trevor Perry" <tperry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Reply-To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>Subject: Re: [CPF0000] The globalization of COMMON,or is this the right direction?Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 08:41:48 -0500 Steve, Welcome to the new world - the one that is global. Your narrow perspective is disappointing. I encourage you to read Thomas Friedman's book The World is Flat. IMHO, it is designed to educate peoplewith the same perspective you have. If you get one thing out of the book, it would be that for every dollar invested in India - whether technology, jobs, infrastructure, etc - the returns TO the US are tenfold. With your inabilityto see beyond the borders of the US, your perspective can only be adetriment to the US of now and the future - the one that plays ~well~ in theglobal economy, and leads the way. Your narrow view would have the US as an economic follower - not the rightful place, according to recent history.To add to that, your one-man personal view of the world does not sit well inregard to COMMON. Not being an active member, your view of COMMON is simply that of an outsider. The current incarnation of COMMON is a global user group. People come from all over the world to be educated, to be updated with the latest technologies, to talk to the leaders in the System i world.By your assessment, it would be best for COMMON to ignore these people. With someone like Rajan on the board, COMMON will have a first hand understandingof the new global economy, the place that System i has in that new globaleconomy, and how COMMON can attract people from all over the world to attendconferences and be part of the user community. I am disappointed in your narrowmindedness in this regard. A personal hot button of a non-active member should not have an impact on a vote for a board member. Slinging mud from the sidelines does nothing but stir the pot of ignorance (and by that I mean, lack of knowledge, not stupidity). Steve, if you want this to change, I encourage you to become an ACTIVE COMMON member, and if you think the board needs a change of direction, then run for a board seat. This would at least be a pro-active stance, and you wouldbe someone who would be an activist for change and growth. At the same time,you would not be making personal attacks on a prospective board member whobrings real System i and management experience to the table, and who appearscommitted to adding value to the board. I would hate to think your narrow perspective and personal attack would result in a the election of a nominee who is running for personal glory and has little to contribute.I encourage you to read Thomas Friedman. I encourage you to become active inthe COMMON community. Yours, Trevor tperry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Landess" Subject: [CPF0000] The globalization of COMMON,or is this the right direction? > All - > > I have not been to a COMMON conference in quite a while, but I had heard > that the next conference is being held in Miami. As I was looking at > COMMON's web site yesterday, I happened to click on the link that shows > the candidates in the next board of directors election ( > http://www.common.org/about/candidates.html ). >> As I read the candidate's statements, I noticed that one candidate (Rajan> Narayanan) is a senior VP for a company named Mindtree that promotes the > outsourcing of work to India ( http://www.common.org/about/rajan.html ).> That, of course, immediately pushed one of my hot buttons. This candidate > apparently earns his salary by taking jobs from North Americans and giving > them to workers in India. If this is not the case, I would surely like to> see his employee list! > > In fact, a quick visit to his employer's web page to view current job > openings ( http://www.mindtree.com/crs/opngs.php ) confirmed what I> already suspected - that Mindtree probably does NOT hire technical people> in the United States! Of 73 positions being advertised, only ONE is in> the USA - and it is for a "Manager of Business Development" in Schaumburg,> Illinois. >> It's no secret to anyone who subscribes to midrange-L or midrange-jobs how > I feel about outsourcing American jobs overseas. Does anyone see anything> wrong with the message that COMMON seems to be sending with this > nomination? >> COMMON purports to be an education provider, and it has programs designed> to work with schools to bring young programmers into the midrange > community. It even has a group calling itself the YIPS (Young iSeries > Professionals). Ostensibly, this education is intended to benefit the > iSeries community in North America. The last time I checked, COMMON was > still based in Chicago, Illinois, and not in Bangalore, India. > > I have heard that not many people vote for the board candidates because> only those with individual memberships and the member representatives for> a company are entitled to vote. It is my understanding that with people > moving around in the industry and within their companies, COMMON has had > trouble figuring out exactly who the member reps actually are. > > If I am allowed a little conjecture here, a candidate with a large IT > labor force could actually "buy" a seat on COMMON's board by telling his > employees to purchase individual memberships and that the company would > provide reimbursement. Also, the prospect that COMMON's membership list > could then be available to an outsourcing firm really bothers me. > > I am planning to buy a membership so that I can stand up for what I> believe. If you also see a problem with COMMON's direction, I urge you to> join COMMON and vote too. > > By the way...I'm sure that Rajan appreciates IBM for their ongoing > investment in India. See> http://news.com.com/IBM+to+pour+6+billion+into+India/2100-1014_3-6080346.html?tag=st.ref.goo> or http://tinyurl.com/eengr > > On that note, I'm wondering why IBM doens't just pull up and move their > headquarters to India! They could get rid of hundreds (or thousands) of > overpaid executives in Armonk and Rochester and replace them with far > cheaper workers in Bangalore... > > Thanks for your time, > Steve Landess > Austin, Texas > (512) 423-0935 -- This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options, visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives at http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.
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