Gawker: valleywag, outsourcing

Indian Kids Work Cheap for Google

Ryan Tate — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:49:39 EST

It's great that Google has contests awarding money and computers to schoolchildren. Less great: It gives the victor in India 1/20th of what an American kid gets for winning the same contest.

Puru Pratap's design to spruce up the Google logo for a day (see below) beat out designs from other Indian contestants. It ran on the home page Saturday and Pratap got a laptop for himself and the equivalent of $2,100 for his school. His counterpart in America, meanwhile, will take home a laptop, $15,000 for herself and $25,000 for her school. Granted, a dollar goes further in India than in the U.S. But $2,100 vs $40,000 is a huge divide.

Asked Shalini Singh at the Indian website TechGoss: "Are we children of a lesser Google?" Maybe. Or perhaps Google is trying to deliver India's kids a lesson in the harsh realities of globalization.

(Pic by Anil Jadhav)

Startup hires Nasa to build its X Prize vehicle

Paul Boutin — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:20:00 EST

Odyssey Moon is an international partnership of guys with space cred on their resumes. They've hacked Google's $30 million Lunar X Prize contest brilliantly: Instead of hiring private contractors to build a lunar rover better and faster than Nasa's risk-averse bureaucracy, Odyssey Moon has hired Nasa to do the job as a contractor. Everybody wins! That is, as long as you think Odyssey Moon's vision of the Moon as an eighth continent paved with solar farms is a win.

Worried about outsourcing? Then stop telecommuting

Tim the IT Guy — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:00:00 EDT

A recent WSJ article and countless horror stories chart the tricky waters that outsourcers must navigate to move jobs outside throat-choking range. Although nervous-nelly IT workers take comfort in these tales, don't forget the basic math of outsourcing: A job that can be done remotely by you from home for $X can probably be done remotely from Mumbai for $X/10. So how do you make your job outsource-proof?

You need to create a role that requires your presence. The only way to do that is to show up — the more, the better.

Some IT professionals got into IT to avoid having to develop their people skills. If this sounds like you, it is time to shift some paradigms. Woody Allen said "80 percent of success is showing up." He should have added "especially when you don't want to." Too many WFH days and you might as well hang a sign on your chair, "Stop paying for this seat! Call 1-800-OFF-SHOR."

Two dead in synchronized bomb blasts in Bangalore

Paul Boutin — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:20:00 EDT

In Bangalore, India's high-tech capital, two people have been killed and at least nine injured in sychronized bomb blasts. A police commissioner told the AP that the seven grenade-like blasts occurred within minutes of each other across the city. Bangalore is home to several U.S. tech companies' Indian offices, as well as outsourcing firms which do business with the U.S. (Photo by The Hindu)

Why outsource when you can replace humans entirely?

Jackson West — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:40:00 EDT

When online shoe retailer Zappos isn't paying newly trained employees to leave the company, it's replacing them entirely. Robots developed by Kiva Systems zip around a Zappos warehouse picking up items and deliver them to their meatbag underlings for packing, and then move the packages to another small group of primates where the boxes are shipped. The only problem I foresee is that the robots have wheels, so when they inevitably take over, they won't be buying any shoes from Zappos. [CNET]

Yahoo hands the phone to Jajah

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:00:00 EDT

Mountain View-based Internet phone company Jajah will soon provide the technology, billing and customer care for phone features in Yahoo's instant-messaging service Yahoo Messenger, the AP reports. The deal is part of Yahoo management's cost-cutting plans to turn much of its feature development over to third parties. Yahoo Messenger has 97 million users, but Yahoo won't say how many actually use its Internet phone service — probably because the number isn't nearly as impressive.

News Corp Loses $5 Million Over Call Center

rabruzzo — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 15:06:27 EDT

TechGoss is noting a slip-up by News Corp's Austrialian newspaper Telegraph misreported the Australia And New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) had outsourced its call center to India. ANZ responded with a correction stating it's call center was still Australia, only it's software development was done overseas. Telegraph editors stood by the story, so ANZ decided to make a withdrawal of AUS$5 million dollars in advertising.

[TechGoss]

Last one to India's a rotten company

ndouglas — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 15:03:51 EST

Dell didn't get the outsourcing memo. SAP CEO Henning Kagermann says he's pulling jobs out of India:

India is slowly getting expensive.

Dell CEO Kevin Rollins, meanwhile, is hiring 5,000 more employees in India.

The time is ripe to consider a manufacturing centre in India.

SAP CEO: India is getting expensive [Computerworld]
Dell facility in India this year [Financial Express]