Future of IT ... Continued 2

[CajunCenturion]

To continue to Future of IT discussion
drdebit has stated a good follow-on question quite eloquently.

Quoted from drdebit
"One of the things i came to realize in other forums is that this site has an international audience. As i've read or scanned in this thread, i've come to be curious what folks in countries other than the us would say about compensation/future/migration of jobs etc. are Britain and Australia suffering migration of jobs to india too. Does Canada have similar education (or lack thereof ) requirements to the US. What's going on in the European union? Are Russian programmers finding a way to get online work like Indian programmers? China? and so on. Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[Grenage]

Well here in the UK I believe the situation is pretty much the same as in the states, with some jobs going overseas.

 

[drdebit]

Do you have a sense as to whether these are English companies moving their original jobs overseas, or other companies who have migrated in in the past and are now moving back out?

 

[KT027Q]

I am sure that it is happening to some extent here in Australia but as our cost base is lower than the US or the UK, and the education standards are at least as high, the pressure for companies to relocate jobs overseas is less.

 

[Granvillew]

IMHO, KT0270 I wouldn't be too confident in that statement. I am only basing my thoughts from the point of view of support calls. However a number of "Australian based" companies have their support phones answered by people with Asian/Indian accents.

 

[wolluf]

British companies have been outsourcing IT work to India for quite a while (certainly since early nineties to my knowledge). Have only a small view of it (as a former contractor - what I've encountered on individual projects), but think the emphasis has moved from 'cheap coding' (ie, send specifications to India, get back completed code for system/user testing and fine tuning in UK) to more complete solutions. In my current position I talk to many European companies, and I think its much the same in Europe generally.

On a non-IT note, the UK is outsourcing Call Centres (of all types) to India in ever increasing numbers.

 

[Tarwn]

It's all a secret plan for world domination....




-Tarwn

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[sleipnir214]

Here's a good article, newly published, on the subject:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/04/15/HNprotectionism_1.html

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!

 

[Tinso]

from Canada

My perception is that everything costs more in the US. We have found that we need to be 20% below the U.S price to compete. Americans are loyal to their own.

Outsourcing creates opportunities and niches. A crudely outsourced service may hit a low price point but it leaves gaps in service. Not to be cynical but the outsourcer has poor management and cost control on these niche services. There is money to be made!

It is a misconception that there are vast hordes of starving but highly skilled I.T. pros in India and Russia. They have skilled people and they have jumped through the same hoops as us to get where they are. If they have the skills they deserve a shot at the work.

 

[Polu]

Hello all.

I'm from Spain but I have been working in Spain, Germany, Mexico and now Argentina (maybe Italy next!).

IMHO only "low skill" jobs are now being outsorced. Call centers, pure coding and low-scale projects are being outsourced and this will be more and more common. In Latin America programmers are as good as (or as bad as) in USA or in Europe, and are *CHEAPER*.

However, I think that high-scale projects, analisys and design, management and such "high skill" jobs will stay in US and Europe a few years more.

Regards.

Polu.

 

[CajunCenturion]

No one is disputing that the economy and IT are in a recession. IT has particularly been hard hit for a number of reason, most of which have already been cussed and discussed in other threads.

There is no question that its a tough, challenging, and competative market. There is also no doubt that the business cycle will do exactly that, cycle back. Not to the inflated levels of the mid ninetly, but back to reasonable levels when business will recognize the need to quality professionals in key IT positions, and will begin to re-invest in their IT foundations.

The one's that will prosper will be the other 3 of the 10, who maintain positive and professional attitudes towards their peers and their profession.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[Tarwn]

I'm positive their will be a good market again. The need for computer professionals has grown at a pretty solid rate (the real need, not the passing trends) as computers are used in more and more levels of business to do more and more tasks. For a while the market was bloated, IT people everywhere you turned. Now people are leaving the field and less people are joining, before long the need for IT will again pass the actual amount of IT turning an unnoticeable climb in new jobs into another period of to few people for all the jobs. I'm not sure it will ever equalize, but that is what it has looked like to me. Periods of a lot of people jumping in until there were to many people, followed by a many people leaving, fewer people joining until again it was obvious there was a high need.

I just wish I knew how long and when the next glut would start so I could get into a company I really want to be part of (at higher pay of course) as everyone else is scurrying from job to job, giving me a bit of time to get out of the group that will be subsequently unhired or layed off...

As time goes by I think companies will get wiser to these spikes and that will soften the unnatural growth and fall of hiring, leading torwards a period of mostly equalization between job growth and IT professionals available. Again, I'm not an expert on these things so I could be wrong, this is just my opinion.

-Tarwn

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[iza]

from France ... (and i worked in Belgium & Scotland as well)
- moving low tech jobs (and no so low tech) overseas : there's been recently a paper on this subject (for french speaking people :

http://www.lemonde.fr/recherche_articleweb/1,9687,317825,00.html

- maybe you could try a tool like altavista's babel fish but i'm not sure it's efficient enough so i'll shorten & translate -->) explaining, basically, that
* american companies that have a french "office" (i mean, sub-company) and biiig companies (Cap Gemini Ernst & Young - Valtech - Atos Origin) tend to move these jobs in India
* but french companies fear troubles like cultural difference, translation, time lag and they prefer to move these jobs in Romania, Spain (... Polu, come here, your pay will raise !...), Marocco ... or in "Province" (France has 2 parts : Paris and "Not Paris", that is also called "Province". And in Paris life *is* expensive, your salary is higher, you often quit a company for another, and big companies have their main office. In province, life is sweet, inexpensive, but your salary is lower, and you tend to remain in the same company. The paper says companies gain 20% if they move low tech jobs out of Paris)

- about "there'll be a good market again" ... when i started working (about 1996) companies would hire ANYONE that had a high enough diploma, even people who had never heard of computer sciences. Then they would send them to a client, where they would learn their job (i've seen & lived it, maaaan this is tough to work with someone who can't figure out what an object is ... what a function is ... what a variable is ... ). And even if it's NOT politically correct at all, i'm glad there's been this small recession, as (hopefully?!) these guys will have moved (i shouldn't write that ... i shouldn't ! but you know who i'm speaking about, the "one who doesn't want to learn&quot .... Even client companies were getting tired of this, and started to think that computer sciences are just something that's never working, that's awfully complicated, and that's sooo expensive for nothing ....

 

[jack1955]

What defines low tech and high tech. I don't consider myself in a high tech career. I worked in a manufacturing company supporting the business through the business applictions. Many people are complaining that high tech jobs are disappearing, but I think jobs are disappearing. Many folks think we are all ex-dot commers and just because we got megabucks a few years ago, we are complaining because our salaries are coming back to earth. But I didn't follow the dot com thing, stayed at my long term career (20 years, same employer), my salary, benefits, perks, stock options weren't outragious. I didn't get meagbucks. I still got laid off.

 

[gunthnp]

we are going thorugh the same growing pain as most fields

there where 100's of car company in the 20's in the usa now 2 and one thats half US and half euro

every one has a machinest, engineer, or maker now its IT
it will work its self out over time

gunthnp
Have you ever woken up and realized you where not alive.

 

[jack1955]

It's that over time business that's tough. I'm in good shape financially, but many who are not cheap or frugal like me are hurting. On other boards, people have been saying that this offshoring of jobs is good for a global economy. It will raise the standard of living for other countries. This is true. However, people who have lived high on the hog from the dot com and explosive 90's stock market have big mortgages to pay and extensive car payments. Some will declare bankruptcy and start over. Some won't. It's the starting over. IT, engineering, accounting and finance were touted as safe, dependable, long-term careers. Now those jobs are going to China, Russia, India. What careers will replace them and when will it happen?

 

[AIXSPadmin]

Before I was downsized people at work used to laugh at me because I was making a high-five figure income and bonus. I routinely purchased my tennis shoes at Payless for $11 or $13, while they laughed at me for making that kind of money and not paying $80 like they were. They laughed because of a discrepancy with my bank statement for $3 and spending a half-hour to get my money back. They laughed that I bought my clothes at Target and Kohl's, paying $15 for a dress shirt instead of paying $60 at Von Maur's.

One guy that was downsized with me, him and his wife (she doesn't work), they have 3 kids and they overextended on a mortgage, over $2000/month. They did this because they were making so much. One guy continually (he is still there) lived on overdraft checking because he spent too much.

Guess it does pay to live frugally and be called "the cheapest man alive."

 

[chiph]

Guess it does pay to live frugally and be called "the cheapest man alive."

I agree -- there's nothing like the feeling of having cash in the bank.

But at the same time, I find that (most) name-brand clothes, shoes, etc. fit better and last longer than the no-name ones. As a compromise between my frugal side and my fashion side ;-), I shop at stores that specialize in overstock close-outs like Goody's and Stein-Mart. Target & Kohls can be good, too. But not Wal-Mart or Kmart. :-(

Anyway, back on topic.

I think the recovery in the IT sector won't happen overnight. It'll be a long drawn-out process as companies catch up on projects that have been delayed due to cash-flow problems. Plus there's that dot-com resentment to get past.

Chip H.

 

[Tarwn]

Hmmm... I buy my shoes median, generally about $50, but they also last me a couple years at a time and after the first month only get polish once a week, so I guess I can live with the extra $30 to have shoes that look nice right up until the soles wear out

I missed the .com thing. I'm sorry I did, I would have loved to have gotten a little extra money in the bank, then again I was one of the nay sayers that knew it couldn't last (course I have that outlook in a lot of areas, that time I just happened to be right )

I still believe the market will grow, and the field under IT will continue to expand until it will be hard to tell where IT ends and other fields begin. Other fields are soon going to be taking over things that right now only belong to IT as computers become more and moe integral to business. I can only hope that one day MIS catches up with either management or IT, as unfortunatly mismanagement seems to be the biggest quesiton mark in my mind concerning the future of IT. We may all be the greatest people in the world at our jobs, but mismanagement and ignorant sales people will hurt (are hurting) us badly.

-Tarwn

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[dilettante]

Is this still the "good old days" discussion?

Oldest machine I ever wrote programs for and operated was an IBM 1620 (Model 1, vintage '59). See:

http://www.computerhistory.org/old/IBM1620/

I first got my mitts on one back in 1972. A teacher I had for Math and Physics in High School put me onto this monster sitting about a mile away at the local Junior College. He got me a key to the room somehow, and after school I started heading down there to play with it.

It had 20,000 digits of magnetic core memory (it was a decimal machine), a card reader/punch, and a moldy old console typewriter based on IBM's B2 (a product predating the Selectric). This one had been augmented with a disk pack drive as well, a 1311 I think. There was a 407 accounting machine with an 80-80 list plugboard in it to print most output (from cards punched by the 1620). Characters were stored using 2 digits of memory, in theory allowing 100 different characters to be represented.

It could be programmed in Fortran II-D or SPS (assembler), and I wrote several Fortran programs but I couldn't locate the SPS manual. There was a lot of junk on some of the disk packs, including a weird lunar lander program you controlled by flipping on or off the 4 console sense switches.

This thing would boot from binary cards, or to boot from disk you had to either use a short binary card deck, or type in the bootstrap code from the console typewriter. There was an initialization mode that let you type directly into memory.

The thing not only did software division, but also software addition (and subtraction) and multiplication... based on a pair of lookup tables that had to be initialized in main memory. For the real masochist I think there was a way to enter programs directly from the panel too (several of the "lights" on the panel were actually illuminated push-buttons).

Later on a group at JC got hold of a Burroughs B220 for cheap. I messed with that a bit, but the console lacked a typewriter (only switch-buttons) and the card reader wasn't working, plus no disk at all. Didn't get as far with that thing.