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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

#81

Post by samfisher83 »

davesque wrote: post #55
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.

Even the arbitrage is going to start failing. The housing is insanely expensive in India especially relative to the salaries. At some point most of the people who can leave will leave, because its hard to live there with the salaries they are are getting. You can make more in other countries and the housing difference would not even be that much different.

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

#82

Post by IntelMiner »

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

It's hard to not fall into this trap in certain fields of IT. To the point it's almost not regarded as racist

Though as a Systems Admin, outsourcing is considered more of a joke than anything. The lowest bidding contractor wins, and the people they hire are absolutely abysmal.

If contracting companies did the same thing, but hiring a 100% "American workforce" (or British/Australia/etc), and they did an equally mediocre job, I'd suspect the derision would shift accordingly

There's a lot of smart Indian people. They're no "better" or "worse" than the rest of us. They're just a larger sample size that get tarred with that brush

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

#84

Post by blizkreeg »

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…

You're getting a little defensive here. IBM was one of the crown jewels of American industry. It was an iconic company in its time. The fact that it now employs more people in India than the US is something to ponder. It isn't so much about the merits of outsourcing.

Everything can be done cheaper by getting it done in another part of the world. Should it be? Sometimes the answer is yes, at other times, not.

Imagine for a second that 50 years from today (when say India is in a place where the US is today), many Indian jobs are outsourced to another country. Same thing.

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

#85

Post by Antrikshy »

zerr wrote: post #79
davesque wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were looser H1-B policies, wouldn't jobs still go to non-Americans but just not over seas?

H1B lottery-based system is crap. There should be deterministic, points-based, uncapped immigration scheme tailored for highly skilled and paid talent, similar to Canada and Australia I believe.

I'm on H-1B now, and the process was extremely frustrating. I would love to see what you describe be put in place.

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

#86

Post by Antrikshy »

gourabmi wrote: post #6

I'm not surprised. As H1-B regulations keep getting more strict, this phenomenon will spread to other big players in the industry.

I have researched H-1B heavily (because I was transitioning into it myself). I don't think the regulations have changed whatsoever in the last couple of decades. If they have, I'd love to hear in what ways.

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

#87

Post by jstarfish »

samstave wrote: post #64
github-cat wrote: post #53

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…

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.

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

#88

Post by ska »

samstave wrote: post #64
github-cat wrote: post #53

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…

They haven't done consumer stuff for ages.

These days, IBM's competitors are companies like Deloitte, not Dell.

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

#89

Post by wehadfun »

skynetv2 wrote: post #68
github-cat wrote: post #53

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…

> shift your development work to under qualified developers or programmers. How do you justify this blanket statement?

I have been a close observer of code coming from India. I think the majority of the problems are because of vague, incomplete, and wrong requirements coming from the company that hired them. One company sent over someone. The guy spent a month talking to management, employees, probably the janitor and figured out what we actually wanted and the resulting code was decent.

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

#90

Post by jgalt212 »

samfisher83 wrote: post #81
davesque wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even the arbitrage is going to start failing. The housing is insanely expensive in India especially relative to the salaries. At some point most of the people who can leave will leave, because its hard to live there with the salaries they are are getting. You can make more in other countries and the housing difference would not even be that much different.

> its hard to live there with the salaries they are are getting

hmm, sounds just like SF or NYC.

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