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Don't underestimate India

I understand that there is a lot of resentment going on in the U.S. these days because of off-shore labor, but don't let it fool you or let you make wrong assumptions (which, I regret to say, verge on racism). Brains have no borders, and the U.S. doesn't have a monopoly for quality in software or skilled professionals. After all, let's not forget, India has nuclear weapons, and it takes VERY skilled people to make them.

India is overall a very poor country with severe educational and infrastructure problems, no doubt. But with a population over 1 billion people, any tiny fraction of it with access to better schooling and living conditions still makes A LOT of people who can successfully compete with the First World's workforce. India, like China, has critical mass for ANYTHING.

This is why, for your information, India has the world's largest population of Ph.D.'s - I don't recall the exact figures but I remember reading that it was 2 or 3 times the population of American Ph.D.'s. It also has a large number of Nobel prizes in all areas, but particularly in Physics.

Let's not forget that the numbers 0-9 we still use are often called "Arabic" numerals but they are actually Indian. It was also the Indians who invented the zero and thus founded arithmetics as we know it. And the greatest mathematical genius of all times has to be Ramanujan, a poor and uneducated man from southern India who was a Mozart of numbers. He died of tuberculosis at age 33, but left copybooks full of scribbled theorems that still puzzle mathematicians 100 years later.

But that's a glorious past. In the present, the quality of off-shore work in India is improving tremendously. The credits for Acrobat 6.0, for example, almost only have Indian names - and I don't think Adobe has been hearing a lot of complaints about their software's quality.

Indians have been extremely flexible and quick to learn about their foreign clients' needs, customs and preferences (something Americans are definitely NOT good at doing!), and are adapting very fast. So, don't make the mistake of underestimating them, even if that makes you feel better for a while. If they were as bad as you think, no matter what they cost, they would already be out of the market by now. And what you see is the exact opposite...

Posted by: goyta   Posted on: 03/24/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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