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IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

nytimes.com

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Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#51

Post by tspike »

atarian wrote: post #48
timthelion wrote: post #5

I think that this is a good example of how racism, conscious and unconscious is making us worse at predicting the future. Ten years ago, so many Americans were making jokes about poor quality Indian code and Indian accents. The idea of Indians actually working innovative jobs seemed laughable to many Americans. But there wasn't actually strong evidence that Indians were less good at doing cutting edge research. This…

>Ten years ago, so many Americans were making jokes about poor quality Indian code and Indian accents. The idea of Indians actually working innovative jobs seemed laughable to many Americans. As someone who grew up in America during that time, this is the exact opposite that I was told by the media and teachers. We were taught that Indians were just as effective (if not more) than people working in the US and that we…

This mirrors my experience. When I enrolled in a CS masters in 2006, I was repeatedly questioned why I would enter the field when all those jobs would be going to India.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#52

Post by iamnewhereqwer »

jrs95 wrote: post #45
maxxxxx wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll probably get in trouble for this but from my experience even in the US majority-Indian teams prefer hiring Indians.

This is pretty much true of any group, it would be absurd to deny it.

I'll probably get in trouble but russians don't like to hire russians.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#53

Post by github-cat »

This is not good for IBM indeed.

As lots of people know that IBM gets 21 consecutive revenue decline and it's forced to cut down cost. But cutting down cost doesn't mean you should shift your development work to under qualified developers or programmers. This will further affect IBM's software quality and hurt its revenue. Why not putting the money hiring less but good developers. If you are a developer, you would find what that feels like to work with under qualified developers.

To be honest, have you heard about any impressive software product or solution from IBM in recent years? I would blame this to a short-visioned management team. Maybe its management team is thinking they could hire more below averaged developers with the same money of hiring one good developer in hoping that quantity can cover quality. In fact that's totally wrong in technology field.

Moreover, those talented technical people are escaping because they are not getting what they deserved. The management team is investing far less in technical talents than in so-called business. The end result is that the product quality will become worse and worse and customers would finally give them up.

While other companies are attracting talented IT people by all means, IBM is lost and it's driving them away.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#54

Post by logfromblammo »

tryingagainbro wrote: post #30
timthelion wrote: post #5

I think that this is a good example of how racism, conscious and unconscious is making us worse at predicting the future. Ten years ago, so many Americans were making jokes about poor quality Indian code and Indian accents. The idea of Indians actually working innovative jobs seemed laughable to many Americans. But there wasn't actually strong evidence that Indians were less good at doing cutting edge research. This…

Racism isn't based on facts. BUT, Indians and [insert third world country citizens] do great--in a country like USA. Question: Now IBM charges probably $300/hour per programmer. Even if it is $100 and I understand that not every hour is billed, but why isn't IBM making way more money given Indian wages?

Every Indian I have worked with in the US has been reasonably competent or better. Every Indian I have worked with remotely from India has been worse than useless. This suggests the hypothesis that the problem is with the work culture, rather than intrinsic to the workers.

And that suggests that IBM is not making more money because IBM's work culture has not adapted well to changes in the global economy. It may be that they have shifted to India workers because they are no longer capable of monetizing their workers to an extent great enough to pay competitive salaries in the US, rather than some factor resulting from their reliance on India. It could also be both, creating a vicious feedback cycle.

In short, problem is that IBM is IBM, not that IBM is full of Indians.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#55

Post by davesque »

pavanred wrote: post #42

Everyone seems to be making the assumption that all the work IBM India does is outsourced from US. IBM India is the biggest domestic IT player in India with clients like Airtel, Indian Railways, HDFC etc.; IBM India also services clients from other countries in the world (which wouldn't have happened otherwise because its too expensive in the US). And, IBM India, has a few research labs setup that do independent rese…

The reason people are comparing US and Indian employees is because the doubling of IBM's India workforce since 2007 seems to be, in many ways, a result of labor arbitrage, as the linked article is arguing. You can slice things any way you want, but the fact is that this is a problem for the average American worker. In other words, it's something that readers of the NYT would care about.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#56

Post by nebula »

cybernytrix wrote: post #33
gourabmi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a thought about the "huge" salary difference. Are you taking the Purchasing Power Parity(PPP) into account? I know that PPP is too macro for comparing very specific cases but it does steer the discussion in the right direction. Let's say, an engineer's monthly salary is $10,000 in the US and he can afford X level of arbitrary "comforts in life". To be able to afford the same X level of arbitrary "comforts of lif…

When you talk about PPP, keep in mind to factor in housing and other modern lifestyle conveniences. These are very very expensive if you price it as a percentage of your salary. Even in the Bay Area, a Home is still 5-6X annual income of a typical software engineer. In India, it is more like 10-15X.

>Even in the Bay Area, a Home is still 5-6X annual income of a typical software engineer.

Is this true? I am ignorant of actual prices in Bay Area, but people are always complaining of high housing prices there.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#57

Post by whydoudodis »

burger_moon wrote: post #28
timthelion wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the quality of life, while debatable, would be considered a downgrade for many who could potentially be poached from other regions". Why would it be a downgrade. If they paid an American $120k a year to live in Bangalore, that would buy the American a nice villa, pay for several servants, and allow for frequent travel. In SF, that same money gets you a shoe-box apartment.

I guess you could also use that money to buy a diesel generator so you don't suffer from the daily power outages and you can buy a great water filtration system so you don't have to worry about ever drinking unclean water either.

Much of Bangalore and modern Indian cities are almost at par with San Francisco as far as Infrastructure goes. How do I know this? I travel to India 3 times a year for work.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#58

Post by jordanb »

atarian wrote: post #48
timthelion wrote: post #5

I think that this is a good example of how racism, conscious and unconscious is making us worse at predicting the future. Ten years ago, so many Americans were making jokes about poor quality Indian code and Indian accents. The idea of Indians actually working innovative jobs seemed laughable to many Americans. But there wasn't actually strong evidence that Indians were less good at doing cutting edge research. This…

>Ten years ago, so many Americans were making jokes about poor quality Indian code and Indian accents. The idea of Indians actually working innovative jobs seemed laughable to many Americans. As someone who grew up in America during that time, this is the exact opposite that I was told by the media and teachers. We were taught that Indians were just as effective (if not more) than people working in the US and that we…

Yeah 2002-2005 or so the conventional wisdom is that there wouldn't be software written in America anymore -- that companies were going to beat a path to Asia just like they'd done in textiles and furniture.

Economists explained that software is a highly "tradeable good" and Asia -- especially India -- was filled with millions of highly educated cheap programmers.

Given that the number of people employed in software in America has remained constant since 2000, and that wages are about where they were then too, I think the evidence is that there has been a substantial "pressure release valve" effect going on. So while the most dire predictions of the 2000s haven't come true, it's also true that the confident optimism of the 1990s ill advised.

I would say that software development has been good to me so far as a career, but I still think I would hesitate to encourage a young person in America to pursue it.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#59

Post by temp-dude-87844 »

timthelion wrote: post #5

I think that this is a good example of how racism, conscious and unconscious is making us worse at predicting the future. Ten years ago, so many Americans were making jokes about poor quality Indian code and Indian accents. The idea of Indians actually working innovative jobs seemed laughable to many Americans. But there wasn't actually strong evidence that Indians were less good at doing cutting edge research. This…

Taking the commentary in this direction is unneccessary. In the 90s, the rise of outsourcing originating from the US and the rise of US-based H-1B-farms raised valid questions about the difference in production quality (in the historic, 'what-kind'-ness sense of the word); the wages paid in foreign countries with lower prevailing wages were predictably lower, as otherwise offshoring would have made little financial sense, and importing exceptional talent from overseas was always an option for those willing to pay for exceptional talent.

IBM and other US firms do in fact pay locally competitive and generous (but not outrageous) salaries in India, as well as other foreign talent hotspots like Romania and Estonia.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#60

Post by samstave »

pavanred wrote: post #42

Everyone seems to be making the assumption that all the work IBM India does is outsourced from US. IBM India is the biggest domestic IT player in India with clients like Airtel, Indian Railways, HDFC etc.; IBM India also services clients from other countries in the world (which wouldn't have happened otherwise because its too expensive in the US). And, IBM India, has a few research labs setup that do independent rese…

I think its more just an awareness issue of one of the largest, oldest, deepest tech companies in the world, a US based company, has now shifted its employee foot-print out of the US... and yes, it is based on economics for the company, as you say.

So I think the real takeaway here is that IBM is no longer a US based company, per se - but now is just a global tech company.

And you might even say they are the first of the giants to just be simply a "lobal tech company" -- while many a startup are already "global" or virtual as it were -- its just an interesting shift in the timeline of IBM as a company.... and thus relevant and of note when looking at the company IBM itself.

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