John W. Colby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Sat Aug 6 09:36:56 CDT 2005
Shamil, I do apologize, of course "reasonably priced overseas" is true, however "reasonably priced overseas" to someone looking for offshore work is "as low as I can get". They don't go overseas to get a price close to what they get here. Let me give you a (painfully) real example. I worked for a company here in Connecticut that made screws. I worked for him for about 2 years and moved him from a POS non-relational thing designed by the stock room guy to a fully relational, complex database for tracking most of the phases of his business. We parted ways. A year or so later he came back and asked me to move the whole thing to SQL Server. I told him it would take me 3 or 4 months to do that. The system was designed (by me) using all the tricks that Access allows but which don't necessarily port easily, and there was significant work to be done. My quote was about 12k to 15k. He thought that was unreasonable and went away. I discovered that he had contracted with an Indian firm (in India) to supply 3 programmers, was quoted 3 or 4 months (with 3 programmers working on it). Because of their wages, the "total cost of the project" would be significantly less than my quote, even with 3 programmers. He took it. A YEAR later it wasn't finished, he was flying to India to meet with the team etc. etc. A YEAR LATER three programmers were unable to do what I estimate would have taken me 3 months. Given, I wrote the original. I knew it inside and out. I knew how to attack the problem to minimize the work involved. As far as I can estimate, he has probably spent 50K and it still isn't done. I have no sympathy. The moral of this story is that the business owner only saw one thing - a firm that claimed experience capable of doing the job, who would throw 3 guys at the problem for 50% of my hourly rate. He got what he paid for. Unfortunately this is the mindset you (and I) fight against. It is not my intention to discourage you, only to say what I see. It is my belief that as long as there are wage disparities of 5x or 10x, jobs will move to that lower cost area. It is particularly true in manual labor where all that matters are simple skills. In the case of software, India and Russia have excelled in attracting this kind of work because of their educational systems ability to train workers that can do this stuff, and at least in India's case, because they (kind of) speak the same language (English). I am emotionally torn with the whole situation. Russia and India need the work, need the wages, need the currency. So do I. It is my belief that the only way that jobs will quit moving is to have wage parity between all countries around the world. That has so far never been the case, and I see no sign that it (wage parity) will be the case any time in the next century, especially with China coming on line with BILLIONS of laborers. I do think that it is slooooowly happening though. In the free market system, work creates wealth which creates more work which creates more wealth - an endless cycle. As wealth goes up, so do wages. India is beginning to see increased labor costs as they pull money out of the more affluent countries into their economy, the laborers start to ask for higher wages etc. It takes time, but it does happen. Look at "made in Japan". The cost of labor in Japan is now so high that the jobs moved on. I wish you well Shamil. You know that I admire you greatly, I hold you in high esteem and I pray that you find the means to keep your family in a style appropriate with your obvious abilities. Likewise, I pray the same thing for myself. <grin> John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com Contribute your unused CPU cycles to a good cause: http://folding.stanford.edu/ -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Shamil Salakhetdinov Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2005 6:46 AM To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] FYI: Friday technical reading: Hitting the highnotes... <<< Unfortunately that does not bode well for your "high priced overseas" idea either. >>> My(?) idea is not "high priced overseas" but "reasonably priced overseas" against what I see and what I'd call "abusive priced overseas" with real money going to all kinds of mediators and managers controlling "semi-slave but effective(?) overseas programmers workforce"... Hopefully Andy will not find this thread as off-topic because the rates we are working at as software programmers professionals all over the World - this question is really a technical question in the sense that reasonable fair rates create fair competition and what happens now as I see it - this is more using advantages of developed world to abuse developing countries than to give the people of developing countries real opportunities and involve them in free Worldwide competition where only experience and talent what really matters. I know that sounds idealistic, sorry (I know Hindman will not agree - I understand his position). So I'm for reasonably priced overseas or Worldwide programmers market, which I'm sure will create a lot of new opportunities to you there and which will not "suck and steal" some of your jobs from there and from here - will not "leak"(that much) the most talented people grown and educated here as it happens now... I do believe this fair market will be created sooner or later and I wish it happened sooner for me to have opportunity to work in it.... And I wanted to invite you to work on this market foundations together for mutual advantage for us and for the coming generations...( I know it sounds pathetic, sorry) Shamil