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Boston Globe news article - software jobs moving to India

 
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One way you could spend the holiday today is by visiting the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, learning about how the industrial revolution made New England a center of the textile business.
And in another 25 years, you might be able to spend a day off at the American Software History Museum in Waltham, ...
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Somewhat depressing, but great article.
 
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But, I wonder this would be true for web enterprise development.
 
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And in another 25 years, you might be able to spend a day off at the American Software History Museum in Waltham, ...


I think this will be true for every country then..
"'Programming skills will become commodities over time"Keane.
It has already become the commodity.
 
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Originally posted by rahul rege:

I think this will be true for every country then..
"'Programming skills will become commodities over time"Keane.
It has already become the commodity.


Not really. The idea is that all software (developers) is (are) the same. In that case you hire the cheapest. Hence the lowest technologically capable country gets market share. If Inida has a big boom in the economy (and in this case I mean really big boom to move 750,000,000 people into significantly better economic conditions), salaries will go up and jobs will move to a new location.
Of course, we know that software isn't a total commodity. It's a commodity much in the way startup companies are, or R&D. In both those cases, you can't know what will work or what won't, so you select a portfolio and know that 2% will hit with big returns. Buying lots of cheap engineers, you know they won't do as well as strong engineering who cost more. But the economics of it are such that even with the bug fixes, rewrites, and upgrades, it is still more profitable for some types of software to do it overseas.
--Mark
 
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Originally posted by Mark Herschberg:

Not really. The idea is that all software (developers) is (are) the same. In that case you hire the cheapest. Hence the lowest technologically capable country gets market share. If Inida has a big boom in the economy (and in this case I mean really big boom to move 750,000,000 people into significantly better economic conditions), salaries will go up and jobs will move to a new location.
Of course, we know that software isn't a total commodity. It's a commodity much in the way startup companies are, or R&D. In both those cases, you can't know what will work or what won't, so you select a portfolio and know that 2% will hit with big returns. Buying lots of cheap engineers, you know they won't do as well as strong engineering who cost more. But the economics of it are such that even with the bug fixes, rewrites, and upgrades, it is still more profitable for some types of software to do it overseas.
--Mark


Whether software is or is not a commodity is not the issue since no one would seriously say Indian software developers are any worse. Therefore the distinguishing characteristic would be price. Therefore get your photos ready now, while you're young, to go into the Museaum.
 
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If Inida has a big boom in the economy (and in this case I mean really big boom to move 750,000,000 people into significantly better economic conditions), salaries will go up and jobs will move to a new location.


Sorry herb slocomb , India's population is more than 1,000,000,000.
 
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Originally posted by herb slocomb:

Whether software is or is not a commodity is not the issue since no one would seriously say Indian software developers are any worse. Therefore the distinguishing characteristic would be price. Therefore get your photos ready now, while you're young, to go into the Museaum.


The idea of a commodity is that it is nearly interchangable. Consider lawyers. Lawyers are not commodity items. There is a huge price differential, and people are willing to pay out the extra money. Why? Because not all lawyers are the same and the better ones cost more, but are worth it.
Commodity items are those in which are relatively interchangable such that price is generally the key factor. If software (developers) is not a commodity item then such a wide range of developer prices can exist.
--Mark
 
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