In an article published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jim Breyer, managing general partner of the Palo Alto venture firm Accel Partners puts it bluntly:

“There isn’t a board meeting that goes by that we don’t ask, ‘Why aren’t you being more aggressive (with software development) in India and China?’ ”

It’s been a few years since the article was first published, but, given today’s economic climate, a team in India may just be what you need to impress the investors.

oDesk posts a map that highlights the cities, fees, approval ratings, and language proficiency of developers around the world.  

Although there is some skewing going on (I believe English proficiency is self-reported), the infographic is fascinating.  

the map

the full oconomy 

With the LA Times article running today, we’re getting a lot of new visitors.  If it’s your first time here, don’t waste your time reading everything.  Here are a few of the best posts:

• Outsourcing is Dead
• Look for no
• The world is not flat
• Save now, pay later. 

Our comic, Doubtsourcing, was recently featured in TechCrunch:

Something that you don’t often see a lot written about in new media is the strong trend by startups to outsource a lot of their work. Digg for example was originally designed by Kevin Rose outsourcing the job on elance, and sites such as Slideshare, illumobile.com have gone down a similar path.    

 This post lead to a 100+ comment debate about Indian IT.  Overall, the TechCrunch community had a lot of interesting things to say.   It’s clear that a significant percentage of Web 2.0 entrepreneurs have tried working with an Indian team.   While the results are mixed, most of the community agrees that, when managed well, the cost efficiencies and scale that a global team can bring are worth it. A few of my favorite comments from the post are below. 

Mr. Recycle tells people to get over the fear of getting their idea stolen: 

I’d say outsourcing (or offshoring) is more of a fortunate reality than an unfortunate one. And should you really care about the protection you get in third world countries? Do you think your idea is that original anyway? Guess what, it isn’t. It is your execution and vision as a business that matters, not your code base. You could hand Facebook’s codebase to 100 entrepreneurs today and you would probably get 100 failed start-ups.   

Fabio Rosati (CEO of eLance) talks about low bidders:

 A more appropriate generalization supported by our data, is that buyers who consistently hire the lowest bidders for a particular class of jobs tend to have lower success rates.   

Raza Imam stresses Fabio’s point about highvalue vs. low cost. 

Outsourcing is tricky, but it’s like anything else in life. It takes practice to get it right. Outsourcing is about high-value, not low cost. If you pay someone ten bucks an hour and expect great code, you’re kidding yourself.    

We’re about a year, 500 attack ads, millions of dollars, and dozens of celebrity voicemails away from next year’s election. Yet, it feels like the right time to begin covering each candidate’s position on ‘outsourcing’ (r.i.p.).

It’s only appropriate to start with the current frontrunner.

Recently, Hillary’s stance adapts like time. IST, she’s pro; EST, totally against. PST, and we’re back to pro again.

Roll some context: the 90s The Clintons have a long history of support for free trade. NAFTA and increases to the H1B program are probably the strongest examples.

“Clinton’s positioning on outsourcing dates to the 1990s, when her husband’s administration aggressively pursued free trade agreements such as NAFTA that union workers today consider the start of a huge exodus of U.S. jobs to cheaper overseas competition.

During the rise of the Internet, the Clinton administration also distributed temporary-worker visas to hundreds of thousands of Indians who came to the United States for jobs at high-tech companies.”

source 1999 Clinton realizes a new-found love of the Indian community to begin the millenium:

“As Clinton pursued a Senate seat in 1999, the Indian American community stepped up its giving. Indian businessman Sant Singh Chatwal raised $500,000 for her in his Upper East Side penthouse, including $210,000 from 14 entities connected to him.”

Chatwal and the Indian community have continued to support Clinton’s presidential run:

“Chatwal is now a finance co-chairman for Clinton’s presidential campaign, and Clinton aides said they have counted more than $2 million in contributions raised at Indian American events.”

CONTINUE READING

Working with a global team is hectic.

If you run a small business, your work now transcends both the job description and the time zone. You spend days meeting with customers, refining requirements, pushing sales, and cleaning up finances.

At night, your team wakes up, and it is time to manage projects, have strategy meetings, and enforce (nag about) deadlines.

Somehow, you find time for a few hours of sleep before waking up to do the whole thing over again.

If you’re in the Bay Area tomorrow (Thursday), come find out why we still think it’s worth the effort (or not).

Finally, an Indian-American movie I am excited to see.

more info here

You do it every day and never think twice: buy something that was made in another country.

Maybe you make a big purchase, like a Honda or a BMW. Do you then refer to your car as your ‘outsourced’ ride? When you drink with your friends, do you get uncomfortable knowing that your champagne has been ‘outsourced’ to the French? How about when you eat a mango or a banana?

Of course not. Germans make better cars. The French know their wine. And produce comes from where it grows (or where people can pick it cheaply…California).

So why think of software that way? Global IT teams support cost advantages and time efficiencies that domestic teams simply cannot compete with. Done right, software can be developed more quickly and efficiently this way. From cars to wine to software, the principle is the same. It will inevitably get done where it can get done best.

As long as we refer to our work as outsourcing, we are stigmatizing something that is as old as civilization. What the monsoon winds did for the spice trade, the Internet does for software development.

So, let’s agree. Outsourcing is dead (long live outsourcing).

[and yes, this blog will soon have a new name]

Hey there, Mr. Entrepreneur. Ms. Risk Taker. Mr. Mover and Shaker. You (and me) - with your hot-shot IT consultancy or Web 2.0 startup. Think you know what it’s like to scoff at the status quo? Take them risks? Push that bar?

Next time you start feeling like you’re cool, think on Narayana Murthy.

India is still a baby. A few years ago, you decided that you disagree with Mr. Nehru…communism won’t work for your country. So, you decide to follow the solid desi path: open an IT consultancy in India. Only catch: it’s 1981. The Internet? Right. Good luck finding a desktop computer within 50 miles of that run-down two bedroom apartment in the city.

“We were huddled together in a small room in Bombay,” says Murthy, “in the hope of creating a brighter future for ourselves, for the Indian society, and perhaps, we dreamed, even for the world.”

Idealistic for a tech guy. Remember, I mentioned that a few years earlier, he (like almost everyone at the time) believed in Nehru’s socialist vision for India.

“Remember one thing: All of us believed in central planning; all of us believed in socialism because we were all children of a different generation. We were all mesmerized by the charisma of Nehru. Nehru believed in central planning, Nehru believed in socialism. Nehru believed in the Soviet-influenced model of development. So it was not at all unusual for an idealistic man to be completely bowled over by these principles.”

After a lot of thinking, some life experience, and 24 hours in jail (for talking to a French girl on a train about a few of the ills of Communism), Murthy decided that global trade would be better for his country:

“Entrepreneurship, resulting in large-scale job creation, (is) the only viable mechanism for eradicating poverty in societies.” (note: he believes the European version of socialism works well.)

Call it outsourcing, or call it what it actually is…globalization, defined by Murthy:

“…sourcing capital from where it is cheapest, sourcing talent from where it is best available, producing where it is most cost effective and selling where the markets are without being constrained by national boundaries.”

CONTINUE READING

From a debate at Howard university last week. It was refreshing to see almost every candidate stress education and removing tax breaks as the two keys to helping America compete for technical jobs.