MS outsourcing to India
W orld's largest software maker Microsoft on Wednesday said it will scale up its India operations by increasing the local headcount by 3,000 over three to four years, taking the total strength to 7,000.
"We depend on India for manpower that is why we are scaling operations here. We have 4,000 people today and we will be 7,000 over the next three to four years. We are hiring as fast as we can," Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates said in New Delhi at the CII-CEO Forum.
The percentage increase in employees would be the highest in India, he said.
"They will play a key part in product development, research and support services," Gates said.
Microsoft currently has three centres in the country -- India Development Centre at Hyderabad, an R&D and Global Technical Support Centre in Bangalore.
Stating that applications for local use should be done by local developers, he said that with regard to handwriting and speech recognition software Microsoft would work with local experts to make sure it applies to all broadly used languages.
Gates was emphatically impressed with India's human resource saying, "India has a fantastic pool of software professionals. The world needs to benefit from this. I never thought with so little product companies software services sector will grow so strong as it has grown here."
The Microsoft chairman was also appreciative of India's 'decreasing digital divide.' "Digital divide is nowhere today as bad as it was few years ago in India," he said.
Gates said that both government and the industry had a role to play in digital inclusion with focus on low-cost computing.
"We created the fourth research centre in India. We have one each in the United States, Europe and China. We said the there will be low-cost computers and this will lead the way to make breakthroughs," he said.
Earlier, speaking on 'Realising India's Potential,' he outlined four factors, including leadership, productivity, digital inclusion and innovation, as determining factors.
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Seems ironic that MS would do this but at the same time it makes sense. I bitch about companies that export their staff overseas but I really cant do that in good conscience. The company I work for sends a majority of their software and hardware development to Yerevan Armenia and the workers there make 1/3 of what their American counterparts would make. I was also talking to a friend of mine yesterday who was doing some research on companies that process tax returns. She told me that she has found that a majority of them send some of their work to India and that the people there make $100 a month for full time work. She then continued and said something that I've said before, that if they're paying these workers SO little then one of two things would have to happen. Because so many more businesses are moving into places like India where the standard salary for most people is $12,000 or less, with all of this wealth moving into that country, the salaries will either have to increase or they'll start offshoring offshoring. In other words Indian firms, in a struggle to get the lowest cost for their growing economy, have to send their work to yet another country where the annual salary is even lower. The far reaching implications to the US and consumers are pretty evident. Eventually there will be a backlash (which we've seen to some degree.... how many times have you called for support and talked to someone who barely speaks english) or the price of labour in the US will continue on a downward spiral and yet the span between the working poor and the non-existent middle class and the top 2% of the wealth in the world will just continue to grow. Its like looking into the gaping maw that is the future, only this one we can stop, if we so choose.
"We depend on India for manpower that is why we are scaling operations here. We have 4,000 people today and we will be 7,000 over the next three to four years. We are hiring as fast as we can," Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates said in New Delhi at the CII-CEO Forum.
The percentage increase in employees would be the highest in India, he said.
"They will play a key part in product development, research and support services," Gates said.
Microsoft currently has three centres in the country -- India Development Centre at Hyderabad, an R&D and Global Technical Support Centre in Bangalore.
Stating that applications for local use should be done by local developers, he said that with regard to handwriting and speech recognition software Microsoft would work with local experts to make sure it applies to all broadly used languages.
Gates was emphatically impressed with India's human resource saying, "India has a fantastic pool of software professionals. The world needs to benefit from this. I never thought with so little product companies software services sector will grow so strong as it has grown here."
The Microsoft chairman was also appreciative of India's 'decreasing digital divide.' "Digital divide is nowhere today as bad as it was few years ago in India," he said.
Gates said that both government and the industry had a role to play in digital inclusion with focus on low-cost computing.
"We created the fourth research centre in India. We have one each in the United States, Europe and China. We said the there will be low-cost computers and this will lead the way to make breakthroughs," he said.
Earlier, speaking on 'Realising India's Potential,' he outlined four factors, including leadership, productivity, digital inclusion and innovation, as determining factors.
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Seems ironic that MS would do this but at the same time it makes sense. I bitch about companies that export their staff overseas but I really cant do that in good conscience. The company I work for sends a majority of their software and hardware development to Yerevan Armenia and the workers there make 1/3 of what their American counterparts would make. I was also talking to a friend of mine yesterday who was doing some research on companies that process tax returns. She told me that she has found that a majority of them send some of their work to India and that the people there make $100 a month for full time work. She then continued and said something that I've said before, that if they're paying these workers SO little then one of two things would have to happen. Because so many more businesses are moving into places like India where the standard salary for most people is $12,000 or less, with all of this wealth moving into that country, the salaries will either have to increase or they'll start offshoring offshoring. In other words Indian firms, in a struggle to get the lowest cost for their growing economy, have to send their work to yet another country where the annual salary is even lower. The far reaching implications to the US and consumers are pretty evident. Eventually there will be a backlash (which we've seen to some degree.... how many times have you called for support and talked to someone who barely speaks english) or the price of labour in the US will continue on a downward spiral and yet the span between the working poor and the non-existent middle class and the top 2% of the wealth in the world will just continue to grow. Its like looking into the gaping maw that is the future, only this one we can stop, if we so choose.
posted by Bludlust at 12:22 PM
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