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Disagree. Time will tell. Boots on the ground to walk to a users desk and help them with a problem are simply something that cannot really be easily outsourced.
Bull. I walked into a site in the US outside of the DC a few months ago. Noticed the entire staff there was Indian. Spoke to an associate at IBM who told be there were nearly 200 people there in L-1 visas.
I'm a mainframer and my job was supposed to be extinct years ago. But it's still here.
As for the OP, there will be good and bad people in every field. In my experience, some programmers just don't understand the infrastructure side of things. They may be able to write great code, but don't understand whats behind it all.
Many jobs in IT become automated with time. Outsourcing still goes on, but there are many more specialty areas than there used to be. I believe wages are stagnant in some areas, while for others there is still a good paying salary. If you choose IT as a career, you just have to keep up with the trends in order to keep your skills current and marketable. Things do change quite fast even with just a few years passing.
Many jobs in IT become automated with time. Outsourcing still goes on, but there are many more specialty areas than there used to be. I believe wages are stagnant in some areas, while for others there is still a good paying salary. If you choose IT as a career, you just have to keep up with the trends in order to keep your skills current and marketable. Things do change quite fast even with just a few years passing.
You make outsourcing sound like a bad thing. It's one of IT's biggest success areas.. and a major success for the modern economy.
IT and computer science aren't exactly the same. IT folks generally aren't expected to know as much as a computer scientist. If you ever watch the IT Crowd (free if you have Netflix), it provides an example with humor of life as an IT person. They live in the basement, and are managed by someone who doesn't know what IT is. Most calls are handled by Roy who's famous phrase is "have you tried turning it off and on".
I didn't think he was making it sound like a bad thing, and I don't believe it is as good a thing as you made it sound.
That said, I am dying to hear how you figured it was one of IT's biggest success areas and a major success for the modern economy?
Outsourcing IT meets two goals:
1. Outsourcing turns the people doing the actual IT work into the product (of the company that the work is outsourced to). This creates an incentive for these companies to invest into their staff (via training, education and other methods). IT outsourcing contributes to creating a larger population of highly skilled individuals. It's great for the IT crowd because they are generally more employable with all that training.
2. Outsourcing makes IT more efficient. Maintaining IT staff is incredibly expensive. You can't cost-effectively retrain employees for each new IT project... especially when they are dealing with completely different projects. Having the ability to bring in experts in that particular area and have them start working immediately is more cost effective.
The reason why outsourcing is IT's biggest success areas is because it enabled businesses of all sizes to adopt and maintain technology at a much more affordable and efficient rate than they would have otherwise been able to do so. I like to use companies like IBM, Dell, HP, and Cisco as examples when discussing the positive impact of outsourcing. These companies spend millions of dollars per a year investing in their employees so that companies like Johnson & Johnson, General Mills, and Fisher Price don't have to. Companies like Johnson & Johnson, General Mills, and Fisher Price would have to spend a fortune understanding IT and maintaining a staff. Outsourcing helpdesk and networking to companies like IBM and Cisco is much cheaper because that's what IBM and Cisco are great at. It's rare that a research company like Johnson & Johnson would have the skills to pull off IT as efficiently. If they tried to, it would have a negative impact on what they are good at. It would redirect unnecessary resources away from the revenue stream.
FWIW the IT industry in the US is dying. Once you get your BS, find something to get certified in as the degree alone isn't worth much. Be prepared to end up moving somewhere else to get a job. Keep in mind you have to stay ahead of India, so choose wisely. FYI DBA is still a six figure income.
I have to completely disagree with the first sentence of the quoted statement. I think this user is confusing IT with computer programming. Information technology spans many different professions. Companies need network administrators, network engineers, systems analysts and more. All of these jobs can't simply be filled by people in India who are thousands of miles away. Can support and programming easily be filled by outsourcing and overseas contracts? Yes. However, hands-on and face-to-face management of information systems is still a local thing.
Outsourcing in this context is not necessarily bad, but the term "outsourcing" is most often associated with offshoring with all the negative consequences for the American worker. Many IT jobs have been outsourced to companies in India and China, reducing the number of IT jobs in the USA and creating security issues as well.
Outsourcing in this context is not necessarily bad, but the term "outsourcing" is most often associated with offshoring with all the negative consequences for the American worker. Many IT jobs have been outsourced to companies in India and China, reducing the number of IT jobs in the USA and creating security issues as well.
I saw no indication that they were talking about jobs in India and China. They simply said "outsourcing". While offshoring is an extremely small part of outsourcing, I can only assume that people familiar with IT know the difference.
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