I've been debating for several days whether or not to post this message. Well...here it goes, we'll see what develops.
I read a disturbing article this last week in Time magazine. It seems to be available online at
Now, before anybody beats me over the head with a digital club, please know that my intention here is to understand the trend and what it might mean in general. As a small business owner facing the need to hire engineers (FPGA/embedded) within the next six to twelve months I have to ask myself if my competitors have exported these jobs? If that were to be the case, competitive forces alone would almost dictate that I (and others in my position) look for offshore solutions.
Of course this isn't an issue just in the U.S. I imagine it affects other markets where wages and the cost of living and doing business is higher than for some of the offshore providers.
What is interesting and ironic is that some of the technologies that have enabled this (I'm thinking Internet) were invented, funded, deployed and developed by the U.S. Now, improved communications and all related technologies make the all but most barriers to doing business evaporate. The same applies to software, operating systems, tools, etc.
That's another issue: software piracy. The widespread offshore availability of very expensive software for virtually nothing is certainly a factor in shifting the business equation in favor of these providers. I've had to pay tens of thousands of dollars for all of my development software and I know that there's someone out there who paid $6 (if at all) for what cost me $10K. A level playing field it is not, by far.
Where is this going? I'm all for globalization and economic prosperity at every point on the globe, but there are ways of doing it right and, it seems to me, this isn't one of them. This feels like a nasty big knife cutting our own throats on a daily basis. How do we do this so that everyone wins? And, how does someone like me support his local talent pool without going out of business?