I have to side against the Fool in this case. His point was that his job was threatened by the outsourcing scourge. I work in IT, and I do not see the threat. But then I am an analyst and not principally a programmer. It is the heads down programmers, web developers, and phone support that is being threatened by outsourcing. It is clear that programming is difficult, but its rather technical work (like fabrication or assembly), meaning that large scale innovation is no longer driven by the programmers. It is the architects and analysts that provide the innovation. What has to happen is these same programmers need to shift their careers to analysis. No off-shore worker can provide business requirements or delve deep into legacy systems to solve business problems. The focus of IT is business. This fundamental belief is lost with those who are bothered by outsourcing. The days are gone of the Mainframe programmer/analyst, who did it all with respect to creating mainframe apps. No one person can write a large program any more. The technology is too sophisticated, and the business requirements are too massive for one person. The programming has become the easy part of the technical solution. It's the analysis of determining the business behind the bits that's important.
>From a personal level, Freightliner now out sources mainframe legacy development. This is largely because there are so few mainframe programmers left who will do legacy sustaining work. The Off-shore outsourcing is now our only good source of talent who can dedicate careers to these legacy systems. No American worker would "waste" career time learning COBOL, when is considered such a career limiting effort. The few mainframe programmers left, none of which are under the age of 50, have converted their skills to analysis. They are providing their subject matter expertise to provide guidance for development. They bring their knowledge of the BUSINESS to the table. It is not for their COBOL skills. Its for things like understanding when you copy a parts list from one database to another, you are legally obliged to bring over the costing information with that data. Failure to do so would break financial laws. Nothing in COBOL demands this, which is why these Americans are needed for the job. No Off-shore developer could provide this. Another example from Portland. A successful Video rental company recently tried to outsource all of the elements of a project, including the analysis. The Indian company contracted to do so realized that they could not do analysis from a continent away. So they shipped a bunch of analysts from India to Portland to do the work. Do I need to mention that this multi-million project quickly went belly up? And what about those little manuals that come with most Asian computer components. Ever read one that did not have some significant English spelling or syntax error? We are the Masters of English. It is this mastery that will keep us on top. And about those outsourcing companies... Rumor has it that the Indians are now not satisfied with the rates being offered by American companies for the work, so they are now doing offshore outsourcing to countries like Russia and Viet Nam. This tells me that the American programmer is going the way of the punch card operator, and that things will shift world-wide. Working with a large multi-national Fortune 500 company, I have seen how subject matter expertise now gets the high wages. We are importing $300/hr analysts to convert our parts systems to the new global parts management system for the largest automobile company in the world. Half of this expertise comes from Europe. The other half from the American side. Both are needed, because Europeans don't get IT very well, but Europeans know how to organize, categorize, and how to work with the rest of the world. You can't buy that here in America. Ask two American developers how to do a task, and they will both fight about the best way to do the task. To Europeans, tasks are viewed much differently. They "play well" together. So let this work go to the Offshore people. I can get ten times the work done for programs I design for the same cost of doing the work here. This makes the company better, and because of that the bonuses are bigger. Its not the American Corporate Pig-Dog that is greedy, its people like me. Outsourcing makes me look good. I am an analyst who programs, not a programmer that does analysis. This is the difference. I only hope that the development community sees this as well. I have made the shift, and any programmer can use his oversized brain to cope, as well. Half of our development staff is Indian. I turn to them to tell me the technology can do what I want it to do. They are the subject matter experts to programming. The American developers are OK, but the Indians really get it, and they really enjoy the work. They are also the most friendly. The American developers here are probably the most unsocial people in IT. They have not make the transcendental shift to socially connect to the business that supports their lifestyle. It is these people that complain that wages are diminishing, that there is too much foreign competition, and how everyone outside of their little world are idiots who don't get technology. I have news for them. The Ivory Tower they live in is falling. I hear stories about phone support people off-shore, who place marbles in their mouth while speaking to straighten out their accents. Phone support people here complain if they have to be nice to customers. How hungry are you to do this job? Try putting a marble in your mouth the next time you put a headset on. This is what you are up against. Those foreign workers are hungrier than you, and they are kicking your ass! I don't think Americans are wanting to compete, they just want to complain about foreigners taking their jobs, asking for special protections so they can maintain their lazy lifestyle. I do hope they see the writing on the wall. Its time to move on. In summary, I state to every weasel manager that makes a claim that change is needed, I retort that change IS good, because it applies to their sorry ass as well. Everyone wants change to happen around them, not _TO_ them. For me, I embrace change, because it means change for all the poor suckers around me as well. Bring it on... I'm up to the challenge. Are you? Nerd From Hell _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
