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

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

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am just curious.. I havent purchased a single IBM roduct for maybe more than a decade (professionally and personally) -- the last major professional purchase was an AS/400 upgrade... 1998? I have never bought an IBM-->lenovo laptop, although I have been provisioned some in various jobs... What other main product(s) does IBM have that I would want? they have great eng resources, scientists, etc... but I just dont se…

As a consumer, probably nothing. But they still sell a lot of big iron to banks and FIs and try to shove QRadar down everyone's throat.

Those irons are only a small portion of IBM revenue now due to cloud. But they haven't put the correct resource on cloud and software. It was working in the past even though its software is very difficult to use. But now it's the other way around.

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

#92

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 fi…

I am just curious.. I havent purchased a single IBM roduct for maybe more than a decade (professionally and personally) -- the last major professional purchase was an AS/400 upgrade... 1998? I have never bought an IBM-->lenovo laptop, although I have been provisioned some in various jobs... What other main product(s) does IBM have that I would want? they have great eng resources, scientists, etc... but I just dont se…

Maybe DB/2 and Websphere liberty profile...

They tack the name 'Watson' on a lot of stuff, but some of that might be good.

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

#93

It's a multinational corporation, I don't see a problem with it on a surface level since they have no real obligation to maintain some arbitrary percentage of American workers. The current climate of companies needing to continually push down cost to compete is the new normal and there will be various ramifications as further globalization opens up more cost saving opportunities. Maybe it will hit a turning point whe…

The thing that bothers me is not so much that technical and implementation work goes straight to India and manufacturing goes to China, Mexico, etc.

The thing that bothers me is that there's so many goddamn "project management professionals" state-side. It's like now students are coming out of college and going straight into project management doing bullshit work. American industry is in a downward spiral, we're training our competitors. These "low-cost-centers" are going to eat our lunch at some point in the future. They will be lean, efficient, creative, business savvy, and ready for anything. In the United states we'll all just be a bunch of useless PM's and supply chain specialists who can barely do more than work a phone. It will be like taking candy from a baby. Of course the execs that forced all this will be retired and living filthy rich by then.

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

#94

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 fi…

I am just curious.. I havent purchased a single IBM roduct for maybe more than a decade (professionally and personally) -- the last major professional purchase was an AS/400 upgrade... 1998? I have never bought an IBM-->lenovo laptop, although I have been provisioned some in various jobs... What other main product(s) does IBM have that I would want? they have great eng resources, scientists, etc... but I just dont se…

The problem is that you will fall behind if you cannot transform your research into real products. Just like the smart planet idea, this idea is very brilliant and it was proposed around a decade ago, however the business around is a failure because of execution failure. Nowadays we are seeing other companies working on smart planet while IBM is changing to cognitive. What can we expect from cognitive?

Some personal thought, execution is key for business success now.

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

#95
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the tech sector at least, the relative salaries of employees located in India is still significantly lower than those in most America metropolitan locations. This overall reduced cost to a company is significant enough to invest in the market. As India is still considered a developing country, the quality of life, while debatable, would be considered a downgrade for many who could potentially be poached from other…

"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.

There's no way in hell they're paying the American $120k if they're working in India.

And, all the money in the world can't buy good air quality.

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

#96
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am just curious.. I havent purchased a single IBM roduct for maybe more than a decade (professionally and personally) -- the last major professional purchase was an AS/400 upgrade... 1998? I have never bought an IBM-->lenovo laptop, although I have been provisioned some in various jobs... What other main product(s) does IBM have that I would want? they have great eng resources, scientists, etc... but I just dont se…

Maybe DB/2 and Websphere liberty profile... They tack the name 'Watson' on a lot of stuff, but some of that might be good.

Have you tried to use DB2 or WebSphere? Do you feel painful when you install them?

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

#97
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To give some idea of the market - people are starting to count stock options as future income in order to qualify for home purchases. The median home price that sold recently in San Jose is close to a million dollars.

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/25/about-silicon-valleys-...

When I bought in 2001, every house on the peninsula (between San Francisco and San Jose) no matter what condition had at least a dozen offers and it's worse now. http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/04/13/sjm-shortage-0414/

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

#98
post #48

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…

I completely agree with atarian.

I'm a bit of an oddity in that I took summer / nighttime college courses in 1995, when I was 10, then had a job programming right during the dot com bust. Everyone said that even if tech recovered it would probably all go to India so when I entered full-time university I went so far as to study structural engineering, something I didn't think would be easy to outsource.

When I transitioned back to software I was actually shocked at how big of a skill difference the median Indian and American / Canadian actually had. The top 1% between the two cultures is similar, but the median Indian, circa 2009 when I last interacted with them, was far behind.

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

#99
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seems low, I'd put it at 8-10x. You're hard pressed to find a property for less than a million dollars.

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

#100
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I've worked with outsourced IBM tech.

[deleted]

Anecdotes and generalizations are both useful tools for discussion as long as you recognize them and it’s understood what they are. Otherwise conversation would be largely impossible.
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