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North American Developers Must Innovate to Keep Jobs


By Charles Stevenson
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October 15, 2005 —  (Page 1 of 3)
If you were going to buy a new truck, and you went to your local dealer, received a price quote and then went to a dealer 50 miles away from your home and found another dealer that would offer you the exact same truck for $5,000 less, which would you buy? Surely you should support your local dealer. But you also want to get the best price you can. Most of us would choose to buy the truck from the dealer farther away and save $5,000.

Let’s now address the anti-American sentiment toward the outsourcing trend. Most of the recent coverage around the issue has focused on outsourcing’s negative impact on the technology industry in the United States. The debate has reached such a fever pitch that some politicians are getting involved, and some have even gone so far as to call the move to offshoring IT work un-American.

Yes, there’s an undeniable “us versus them” attitude toward offshoring in the U.S. development community. However, engineers in China, Czechoslovakia, India and Singapore are people, too, with the same hopes and dreams for a better life for their children. These engineers are well educated and develop applications the same way Americans do. Should we, then, really buy into the mentality that Americans are better or more important?

We live in a world where businesses function globally and are all a part of a global community. There are many companies that play a significant role in the American technology community but receive a majority of their revenue from other countries. For many small software companies, roughly 57 percent to 65 percent of revenue is derived from territories outside of the United States. Should these companies not be loyal to those territories that buy their goods and services, even if they are not American?

The American development community is upset because many companies take advantage of offshore engineering and IT services. But just as you would buy your truck at the dealer that offered a lower price than the one in your local neighborhood, so too should businesses hire or buy services from whoever offers the same services at a lower cost. Please remember, the developers located overseas have received exactly the same training and hold the same certification levels as American developers.




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