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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

#31

Post by 31reasons »

gourabmi wrote: post #20
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…

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…

No amount of salary will give you clean air and tidy streets. Some people will just prefer that as part of their package. But I guess few months / years of experience won't hurt westerners.

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

#32

Post by schnevets »

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…

Let's not forget a Western stereotype from 10 years ago: the deprecated specialist. Since the 80s, IBM has had a lot of bloat from poorly managed technologists who owned "the JDBC-based plugin for integrating AIX-based Lotus Notes servers with a COBOL-based mainframe that is only used by JP Morgan and the state government of Ohio".

Despite the risk, it's easier to toss these responsibilities to a junior-level developer overseas than to maintain a 20-year veteran in the New York office.

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

#33

Post by cybernytrix »

gourabmi wrote: post #20
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…

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.

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

#34

Post by burger_moon »

e40 wrote: post #24

The real question is (and this is serious): how is it working out for them?

20 straight quarters (from Arpil this year) of revenue decline would tell me IBM has problems, though they may have nothing to do with where they source the labor from.

http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-revenue-decline-20-straig...

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

#35

Post by tapatio »

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…

IBM is innovative? Lol.

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

#39

Post by DarronWyke »

e40 wrote: post #24

The real question is (and this is serious): how is it working out for them?

Badly. They've lost many clients because of it. Disney was one of their biggest; they jumped ship a few years ago due to constant missed deadlines and poor work.

I used to work for IBM. We had a few workers in India who were decent to good, but most of them are just seat warmers. Their work was abysmal and required frequent re-doing.

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

#40

Post by maxxxxx »

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…

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