> btw, did you send the wrong article to the list. the one i read was about
> the brain drain and VC funding drain. subhead: "A loss of venture capital
> funding for technology companies and a dwindling stream of foreign talent
> threatens the region's economic recovery."
>
That article I was reading along with another one, which I now managed to miss in my 50+ open browser tabs.... but nevermind... by the time I found it it'll be next week. ;-)
>
> i agree with you about the fact that they are no more capable. it's true, i
> don't work at the big boys, so i wouldn't know about that segment. but when
> it comes to talent from abroad where i work and in the user groups i
> frequent, they are no more capable or smarter than u.s.ers who went to
> vocational schools. some of them work harder, but others who do contracting
> gigs learn to work the system. that is: they lie. and they learn to do as
> little as possible, only making it look like they're doing a lot, just like
> u.s.ers.
>
Nobody said they were smarter. It's just that there´s lots of keyboard tapping (programming) that was once done in the USA that now is sub-contracted to foreign firms. Or outsourced to US firms that sub-contract abroad. Not to mention the multinationals which open R+D labs abroad.
And the U.S. IT industry has been depending on the foreign influx of tech students for years...
Tom Nadeau has been moaning about H-1B visas for years, even before the dot-com bust. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Seven-Lean-Years/Tom-Nadeau/e/9780967108902
...simply because Americans prefer to get MBAs, and apparently would prefer a root canal rather than getting into an IT career.
Canada is not much better, apparently. See this 2007 article http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/sizzling-it-careers-market-still-evokes-lukewarm-response/103323
"A career in Information Technology (IT) can be very rewarding for those who choose to pursue it, but sadly fewer Canadians today are making that choice. The "strange dichotomy" afflicting Canada's IT sector was highlighted by John Pickett, IT World Canada's vice-president and editorial director, at an event in Toronto."
Canada, 2009 http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/it-careers-arent-cool-enough-for-canadian-high-school-students/135941
"High school students regard cool and fun factors more than salary and job security when considering their future careers, according to a study conducted by the Conference Board of Canada for the Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow’s ICT Skills and Bell Canada"
[Sorry but I cannot find the relevant article I swear I read echoing the same comments about "not enough students taking or even considering an IT career" but referring to the USA instead of Canada.. I'm sure it's out there, I'll keep trying different search strings...]
In the meantime there´s this blog post:
Is computer science the new Latin? http://weblogs.java.net/blog/2008/04/05/computer-science-new-latin
In short, and back to subject... with increasing offshoring and software development going abroad, what is left for an U.S. based IT staff is to have fewer jobs.
When cost is so much lower abroad, all it takes is a fraction of US software engineers to do the broad architectural design of the platform they want to implement, and then make the foreign coders do the heavy lifting and code tapping required, with regular overseeing.
Case in point:
The software industry has skyrocketed in the last six years down here in Argentina... we went from having virtually nothing (of international relevance) by 2002 to having now a regular Game Developer's conference (since 2005) which is something which was unthinkable just 20 years ago where the best prospect for someone fresh with an CS degree was driving a cab.
Most of the current work for local firms ends up being offshoring (delivering software solutions for some firm abroad).
I know a small firm with 80-90 Java programmers working overdrive for clients in Europe (Spain, UK, Czech Republic), LatAm (Brazil, Venezuela), and the U.S. This, of course, in most instances, is not very "fun" it's the sweatshop of the IT industry... but it pays VERY very well for local standards. A skilled Java programmer can several times more compared to what a bank manager with a MBA does.
Here's one such success story: Globant http://www.nearshoreamericas.com/exclusive-globant-ceo-on-saying-no-to-india-inc-dev-studi-and-why-clients-like-google-and-nike-love-his-company/1615/
What's funny is that once you learn how things work in the overall scheme, you notice Argentina is often the last link in a long chain of outsourcing and subcontracting. One example I probably cannot name is an entertainment/movies multinational firm famous for its cartoons. They outsourced some mission/critical system migration to a U.S. firm, which then subcontracted another firm in Texas for part of the work, which subcontracted this one in Buenos Aires.
Argentina: more near-shore than offshore http://news.zdnet.co.uk/itmanagement/0,1000000308,39161721,00.htm
And this: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_05/b3969427.htm
//////
A software industry promotion law introduced in 2004 also gives companies big tax breaks and helped create high-tech clusters in four Argentine cities. That has attracted such companies as Walt Disney, Microsoft, Peugeot, and Repsol [this list is wrong and incomplete there's also India's Tata services, Globant, and many more] seeking Web-site design and software developers. In addition, IT players including Hewlett-Packard , Oracle , Cisco , IBM , America Online , and palmOne have consolidated their regional back-office and customer-service operations in Argentina.
In 2000, Cordoba province persuaded Motorola to build a $40 million software development center there, 1 of only 14 in the world, and in 2005 it scored another coup when microchip giant Intel agreed to set up a software research center at a local university -- just its third such facility worldwide.
"The Argentine authorities understand that technology is an engine of growth, which generates competitiveness in the global marketplace," says Esteban Galuzzi, Intel's general manager for the Southern Cone region /////////
We also have the adantage (vs. Eastern Europe or Asian countries) of being in the same time zone as the U.S. (EST-1).
FYI: local games dev. conference http://www.adva.com.ar/igda/
The problem is that such demand for programmers has neraly everyone employed in the IT sector... so it's really hard to find new talent. That has led the private sector to do some adverts promoting IT related careers, and the government (labor dept) to fund programming scholarships.
http://www.becascontrolf.com.ar (Spanish)
And then, as in every debate, there's the Stupid: ;-)
"While American kids love to play video games, the former head of the United States Air Force Cyber Command frets that a lack of interest in learning to write the code underlying those games is a threat to national security."
Okay, too much typing for a single post... FC