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Oracle To Add R&D Centers In China 223

Posted by timothy from the you-mean-there's-data-in-china dept.
stoborrobots writes "Reuters is reporting that the big O is planning to open new R&D centres in china. Initially aiming at the domestic Chinese market, there is potential to resell the technologies developed beyond the borders... Is this the next wave of outsourcing?"
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Oracle To Add R&D Centers In China More

Oracle To Add R&D Centers In China

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  • Simple Question, Simple Answer (Score:5, Funny)

    by jmt9581 ( 554192 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @03:45AM (#9736126) Homepage
    "Is this the next wave of outsourcing?"

    Yes.

    • Re:Simple Question, Simple Answer (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      when you think about it, eventually every country will be outsourced

      • Re:Simple Question, Simple Answer (Score:4, Insightful)

        by DraconPern ( 521756 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @03:52AM (#9736150) Homepage
        There is one thing that can't be outsourced. Culture.

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @03:58AM (#9736168)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Simple Question, Simple Answer (Score:5, Insightful)

          by mc6809e ( 214243 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:35AM (#9736263)
          There is one thing that can't be outsourced. Culture.

          Don't be so sure. People are surprisingly quick to adopt the cultures of others.

          That happens to be one of Radical Islams greatest fears: cultural imperialism. Our ideas about freedom have been called "Murderous Germs".

          From an article about the origins of fundamentalist Islam: [newyorker.com]

          In his essay "Between Yesterday and Today," Banna [founder of the Muslim Brotherhood] wrote that the colonialist Europeans had expropriated the resources of the Islamic lands and corrupted them with "their murderous germs":

          "They imported their half-naked women into these regions, together with
          their liquors, their theaters, their dance halls, their amusements, their
          stories, their newspapers, their novels, their whims, their silly games, and
          their vices. . . . The day must come when the castles of this materialistic
          civilization will be laid low upon the heads of their inhabitants. "

          The Brotherhood's slogan was, and remains, "God is our objective; the Koran
          is our constitution; the prophet is our leader; struggle is our way; and
          death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations."

          Or how about Osama's Letter to America [guardian.co.uk]:

          (2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.

          (a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest.

          [snip]

          (iv) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom. You have continued to sink down this abyss from level to level until incest has spread amongst you, in the face of which neither your sense of honour nor your laws object.

          [snip]

          Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he 'made a mistake', after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?

          If culture couldn't be outsourced, terrorists would have must less to be angry about.

          • "They imported their half-naked women into these regions, together with their liquors, their theaters, their dance halls, their amusements, their stories, their newspapers, their novels, their whims, their silly games, and their vices. . . . "

            Rock on! Kind of makes you proud to be a Westerner, doesn't it?

            • Re:Simple Question, Simple Answer (Score:5, Funny)

              by mc6809e ( 214243 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @06:22AM (#9736485)
              Rock on! Kind of makes you proud to be a Westerner, doesn't it?

              What's really bizzare about all of this?

              1. Bush says "they hate us for our freedoms" but he doesn't believe it.
              2. It's actually true, so he is accidentally right about something.
              3. The Osamas of the world think America is morally too socially liberal.
              4. so do conservatives in the US.
              5. The US conservatives are fighting people they can somewhat agree with to protect the freedom of people they disagree with.
              6. The political right doesn't realize it.
              7. The political left doesn't realize it.

              • Umn. The american right thinks the american left is too socially liberal. The Islamo-fascists think the American 'right' is *far* to liberal.

                All depends on POV. Liberal to one group != liberal to another.
              • That's true and that's why it's bizarre. The funniest is when Bush and other necons try to bring liberalism to Iraq (and others). How can conservatives ever bring liberalism to a country? The answer is, they can't.

                Speaking as a leftist, I think most people on the left realize the paradox in this. The reason it happens, I think, is because both conservative forces are reactionary. Reactionaries will get rid of anyone--even people close to them. For example, the greatest and worst wars have always been wi
              • > "they hate us for our freedoms" is actually true

                No it isn't. Bin Laden published his reasons for 9/11 and freedom was not one of them; not his fault if you won't accept them.
          • Hey - that would be a neat slogan:
            If you reject the acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, the terrorists will win.
            Of course, that means that Bush's idea about preventing homosexual from marrying and his call for young people to abstain from sex are actually his way of supporting terrorism!

          • Although you are basically right that radical Islamists reject Western culture, often so pathologically, your (probable) conclusion is not.

            Every society is overpretective of its own culture at some point, and it has nothing to do with religion.

            When a society falls under a siege mentality, or feel that it is under attack, feeling insecure about its own culture, or is undergoing social upheavels, the result is often disdain for any form of culture that is important from a perceived "other".

            That "other"

        • There is one thing that can't be outsourced. Culture.

          Tea. Porcelain dinnerware. The oxblood and hunter green drawing room. Lacquerware. Sofas.

          All elements of classic British culture.

          All Chinese.

          And for those about to point out the negative aspect of such tranference of Chinese culture to Europe in the form of opium, I'm afraid that that culture is Greco-Roman and came to China in exchange for tea.

          The fact, however, that opium is now so firmly embedded in the Western mind as a distinct aspect of Chines
        • Coca Cola, Pepsi, Mc Donalds, KFC

          You have franchises instead.

    • Yeah, but what's the point with all that outsourcing.
      Finally it's just an adaptation to a new way of working, like it was during/after industrial revolution. Nothing really special I mean..

      What do you think would happen to outsourcing if we had teleporters ? :)
      • I'm hoping teleporters are developed soon because it is better for the workers. Teleporters will allow movement of labour. Right now, the so-called free market is one way: Capital can move but labour cannot.
    • True (engineering) talent is universal and is always in demand everywhere*. If you're good enough, there will be a place for you.

      * obvious exaggeration, but you get the point

      • Postgres (Score:3, Funny)

        by Rei ( 128717 )
        .. and Oracle sure could use it. Perhaps the Chinese will *finally* make Oracle not be a pain to install and maintain.

        It's almost laughable when you contrast Oracle with, say, Postgres. Apart from running the RPM command, all you have to do to get Postgres running publicly is edit two files in its config directory, one to turn on tcpip sockets and the other to tell it what authentication method to use. There's no monstrous pages out there with hundreds of errors comprising a very incomplete set of "how

    • Re:Simple Question, Simple Answer (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tarunthegreat2 ( 761545 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:15AM (#9736214)
      Not really. Most people think that China will be the "Next India" when it comes to IT/BPO, but there are lots of reasons why they won't be.

      1. Language. Indian languages come from Sanskrit, which according to all credible sources is a sister language to Ancient Greek and Latin (Dental in English refers to Teeth. Tooth in french is "Dent". In Hindi, the equivalent is "Dant" which is pronounced almost like the french word. The same applies to counting and numbers. This, coupled with 250 years of British Rule, means that Indians pick up English/Western European languages a lot faster than Chinese (poor accents and grammar aside).

      2. Culture. Chinese people as a rule are more homogenous than Indians, and by all anecdotal evidence are much more disciplined. This mindset means that replicating a manufacturing process comes very easy to them. Life in India, however consists of "Jugad". This is a hindi word which can loosely be translated as "Improvisation" or to a person in the CS field it would be called a "Hack". As much as we'd like to pretend that programming and development are simple ordered processes, we all know this is far from the truth. There are many solutions which require some improvisation, and this again means that Indians are better suited to software.

      3. Government. India is a democratic republic, following a parliamentary system based on the British system. It has the three branches (legislative, executive, judicial) that are familiar to most (Western and) other democracies. China is more of a pseudo-communist/totalitarian-capitalist. This makes it easier for businessmen attempting to outsource, as they can operate in a framework they are familiar with. (In practise, this hasn't worked out, because India has not been going out of its way to attract business like China was doing...it is definitely easier to make fast decisions quickly in a communist country than in a democracy.

      Anyway those are my two cents. Thank you for your time

      • Re:Simple Question, Simple Answer (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        That's a somewhat close-minded view of China, IMHO.

        1. Language -- It doesn't really matter that the Indian languages come from the same roots. They're sufficiently different now that most Americans can't understand Indian anymore than they can understand French, Italian, or for that matter, Ancient Greek and Latin. Or Chinese. One of us will have to learn to communicate with the other, regardless of where they're from.

        There are Chinese people who can speak perfect English. There are Indians who can to

        • Re:Simple Question, Simple Answer (Score:5, Informative)

          by tarunthegreat2 ( 761545 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:59AM (#9736315)
          There's nothing close-minded about it. I'm simply saying India has the strengths conducive to software, whereas China is better with the hardware. The reason you don't know about any Indian inventions is because you must be American, and have never seen it on Fox News. Chess, and some significant additions to Mathematics [google.com] originated in India. On top of there is Vedic Mathematics [wikipedia.org]. And just because "Indian" is incomprehensible to you, doesn't mean it is to others [wikipedia.org]. There is NO "Indian". People in India speak 28 different languages. The fact that there are so many, and also the fact that they all want their language to be prominent forces all of them to learn English. because English is not a particular to any region of India, so there is no bias associated with it.

          • The reason you don't know about any Indian inventions is because you must be American, and have never seen it on Fox News.

            That attitude (and others that I see on your blog) isn't going to get you very far in life. And if you form your view of foreigners from shallow stereotypes, well, pot meet kettle?

            On second thought, keep it up ... forget I said anything. That attitude will help you immensely in international competition ;) Yeah, that's it ...

      • Re:Simple Question, Simple Answer (Score:5, Interesting)

        by JBdH ( 613927 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:05AM (#9736335)
        Although I agree with you, I have to say that I can't agree with the second point you mention. China is not a very homgenous country. It is true that the Han chinese - the top dogs - try to stress homogenity in China, partly to cover up ther (former) imperialistic behaviour. Truth is there is a huge diversity in ethnicity : turkish (uygurs), persian (parsi), arabic, tibetan, nepali, mongoloid (in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia) etc. etc. Also in religious sense I guess there are as many different religions in China as there are in India (muslims, Nestorians, zarathustrians, animists etc. etc.). Again these religious minorities are considered either futile barbarians or a threat to the stablitity of China as a whole by the Chinese (han-)government.
        • My bad. I have to admit, I have never been to China. I've lived in Hong Kong, but I don't think that's representative of China...I guess I fell for the "Party Line";-) But it does seem that you have one predeominant language...this is something which India still hasn't been able to agree on. We have 28 languages with "Official Status"!!!!!
          • Sorry, also the language situation in China is incredibly diverse. Not only do all the ethnic minorities have there own language, i.e. turkish, persian and the like languages, but the Han chinese among themselves have dialects that are incomprehensible for non-dialect speakers. The official Mandarin language is widely tought in school, but has a status similar to Hindi, I guess : a lot of people (mostly Han) speak it as their mother tongue, but nowhere near a majority. For the rest it is a rudimentary ling

      • Re:Simple Question, Simple Answer (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Skankmofo ( 12963 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:39AM (#9736406) Homepage
        As an american living and working in china for the last six months, I have to say that you are generally right, but you forget one thing...there are a significant number of Chinese who immigrated to the US/canada/england, usually after going to college there, and are now moving back to China because of the economic opportunities and the fact that many of their family and friends are still here in china. Working for a company like Oracle, or any foreign company, they can get paid maybe somewhat below US salary, but since everything is so cheap here, they can usually effectively double their salary in purchase power parity, and have more opportunities to move into manager and high positions in the company.

        It is very true that chinese are generally rather homogenous, and I know many engineering and other students who routinely copy each others' assignments. But another thing you have to remember is that there are 1.3 billion people here and if .5% of those people are not homogenous that is still a shitload of people.

        As far as the language, that's a big issue here, and their english is generally pretty bad, but as more and more students go abroad for college (since a lot more can afford it now) and that literally every chinese person i know is constantly trying to improve their english, that will become less of a factor.
      • Oh, the "next India" ... urrgh!

        Chinese/Far Asians cannot code. There may be a few exeptions. They are good at other things. When you need real developer the salary does not count, skill and time is the factor.

        When you leave outsourcing decisions to crappy Asian-hype analysts and business people they will go to China, of course...

        As they know so much about the Indian skills... (a cheap waste of money).

        "Chinese people as a rule are more homogenous than Indians, and by all anecdotal evidence are much more

        • Re:Simple Question, Simple Answer (Score:4, Informative)

          by tarunthegreat2 ( 761545 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @07:00AM (#9736559)
          Nice try at flamebait. Not working.

          Chinese/Far Asians cannot code

          Flamebait,troll,load-of-crap,not-worth-replying-to .

          What is a far Asian? Somebody living a 100 miles away? I've heard of East Asian(Chinese), North Asian(Japanese/Siberian), South Asian(Sub-continental) and West Asian (Saudi Arabia e.t.c.). But never a far Asian. Chinese people as a rule are more homogenous than Indians, and by all anecdotal evidence are much more disciplined."

          haha. Chinese are not homogenous at all, although they look the same to "us". And discipline does not count, it's only important that they do what you want them to do.

          I still stand by this statement. In India, you can cross over to a neighbouring state, and all of sudden not even be able to read that State's language, or understand it. It's written using a different script in some cases. This doesn't hold for one or two exceptions. It's the norm. The wedding customs followed vary. The type of cuisine can change drastically. Much more than say the difference between Sichuan or Cantonese (both are yummy btw). And Chinese people don't "look the same" to me. After having spent 12 years in Hong Kong, it's easy to spot the difference between Japanese, Chinese and Korean, no sweat. Same goes for their written and spoken languages. It's easy if you just bother to use your brain's power of observation. Eastern Europe and the Baltics have a shot, but they'll never be able to compete on numbers - human numbers. Size of most baltic countries = a small-sized city China/India.
          • Consider it as a fact. Asians are bad programmers.

            Programming is culture centric. Perhaps a asian style of programming has to be invented. Far east means China/korea/Japan.

            There are exceptions. The reason must be language. Programming uses a certain grammar.

            Btw: just look how little software is developed by japanese, chinese...

            "In India, you can cross over to a neighbouring state, and all of sudden not even be able to read that State's language, or understand it."

            Same applies for China. China is a bunc
      • I'd like to annotate a bit...

        1. Language. Most Indian languages are indeed Indo-European and interoperate well with English. Many millions, however, speak non-Indo-European Dravidian languages. I would say that educated Indians _and_ educated Chinese speak better English than English and American people, though, anyway...

        2. I agree that India is very heterogenous. China, however, also retains some heterogeneity, and although that diversity is being wiped out at a great rate and with huge brutality, it

      • China is more of a pseudo-communist/totalitarian-capitalist.

        Yes. A friend of mine tried to start an off-shore GIS data conversion shop in Vietnam. At some point the Vietnamese government decided that *they* owned his computers. Businesses are going to be very leery of opening shops in countries where the normal laws of ownership do not exist.

      • Although what you say is true to some degree (some of it is stereotypes though), it doesn't mean much. Under capitalism, what drives jobs is costs. If China can do it cheaply, it will get the jobs--regardless of the differences (with some exceptions).

        You say that so-called democracy makes a difference but does it really? Do the capitalists care what government is used? Not really. One just needs to look at Nazi Germany or modern day Singapore. Even modern day China with massive foriegn investment shows

    • No (Score:2)

      by mabinogi ( 74033 )
      No, no it's not.

      Outsourcing is hiring another company to do part of your work for you.

      Opening a new branch or division or research centre is _not_ and never will be outsourcing, it's expanding. It's almost a polar oposite of outsourcing.

      Perhaps you are confusing outsourcing with "hiring people that are not American"?

      If that's what you mean, then say it.
    • It's worse than that. It's not the next wave of outsourcing so much as it is the next wave of "let's give away even more of our sophisticated technology to a hostile foreign power (and please don't tell me that the Chinese government is an ally of the United States) so they can sustain their economic war against us."

      The thing is, Chinese business has a simple tactic that works very well on us greedy capitalists. They will tell you (that's you, Mr. CEO) that hey, we're a HUGE market, biggest on the plan

  • As long as this continues to be the trend... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19, 2004 @03:46AM (#9736138)
    ... We are foolish not to use all our sway to move to Open Source solutions in our companies and to develop Open Source Software.

    OSS is no longer an ideology, it is fiscal self defense for programmers and IT professionals in general. Open Source allows us to start our own businesses offering support and design services without the middle man of large software companies that will always seek to downsize us to cheaper people.

    I'm sure others may disagree, but this is the way I see things.
    • There was a time when computer programming was so specialized that those who were skilled in the art were very highly paid. As with all things, technology brings commoditization. When you view software as a means to an end, FOSS makes the most sense. Instead of working with highly integrated but ultimately unsuitable software, companies can have FOSS customized for their purposes.

      Companies are learning, albeit very slowly, that they do not need their balls in a clamp held by the software companies. The fut
    • Disclaimer: I'm in India and I'm prolly biased too
      > our sway to move to Open Source solutions in our companies and to develop Open Source Software.

      Anything that reduces the barrier of entry to any company is a threat to existing companies. But a Free market would ensure that they fight fairly. Here geography is overcome to (thanks to a side-effect of US Defence project called DARPANET) ensure that the market is becoming wider and deeper.

      Open Source will open up the market for small players. I d

    • I think open-source software is anti-capitalist so I don't know how things will work. For instance, who has the incentive to develop software if software companies can be easily replaced? I don't know... it remains to be seen...

  • Workaround for US export controls? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by arc.light ( 125142 ) <<dbcurry> <at> <hotmail.com>> on Monday July 19, 2004 @03:52AM (#9736151)
    The US has some fairly daunting nuclear non-proliferation export controls on software and hardware to nations such as China. Larry Ellison, a heavy contributor to the Democratic Party, might be encountering difficulty in obtaining the necessary export licenses, so maybe this is a workaround for those export controls.

    • Re:Workaround for US export controls? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cL0h ( 624108 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:00AM (#9736175)
      Even more relevant is the fact that China have strict controls on imported computer software but are much more lenient on software produced within the country since the company involved can be more closely regulated.
      This is the reason why my company has forty development positions available at the moment in China and an apparent hiring freeze in Europe and North America.
      • F***ing WTO is useless; supposedly members should open their markets and yet barriers like these force companies to relocate development overseas. And China is one of worst violators of its rules.

        BTW imagine what happens when Oracle becomes considered an almost-local company in China. It's going to be a great politically correct source of commercial software and profit for everyone involved (no commercial software => low selling price => no money for "consulting" payouts => bad business)...
        Theref

  • What protection does Oracle have (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Travoltus ( 110240 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:01AM (#9736178) Journal
    from Chinese workers stealing their intellectual property and using it in China, or worse, in a Chinese company coming back to compete against Oracle in the States?

    Just a question.....

    • What protection does Oracle have from Chinese workers stealing their intellectual property and using it in China, or worse, in a Chinese company coming back to compete against Oracle in the States?

      I don't know.

      What protection does Oracle have from American workers stealing their intellectual property and using it in the US, or worse, in another American country competing against Oracle in the US, if they don't outsource?

      • Oracle would sue them from here til next Tuesday, that's what, and that's exactly what would happen in China.

        C'mon, people, the law is the law - do you seriously think that China has no leagal concept of contracts? That the Chinese government would piss off the US government and companies by allowing something like this to go unpunished, were it to happen?

        The benefits (stealing a few secrets from $largeSoftwareCompany) would be completely swamped by the potential loss of foregin investment, etc.

    • Oracle compete thro' excellence not protectionism (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Morgaine ( 4316 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:43AM (#9736285)
      What protection does Oracle have from Chinese workers stealing their intellectual property and using it in China, or worse, in a Chinese company coming back to compete against Oracle in the States?

      Hopefully, no protection whatsoever.

      Oracle competes on excellence and through continuous improvement and customer satisfaction. The day that they call for protectionism is the day that they've started resting on their laurels and deserve to die.
      • Oracle competes on excellence and through continuous improvement and customer satisfaction.

        Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. You've never used Oracle, have you?

        The day that they call for protectionism is the day that they've started resting on their laurels and deserve to die.

        They've been resting on their laurels for a long time now. Oh, the core database product is good enough. But the little bits around the edges that make a polished product are just completely absent with Oracle. It comes across as an amateurish and half finished program. And given that they've had 20 years and billions of dollars to get it right, there really is no excuse for that.

  • This isn't just programming, it's R&D (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mc6809e ( 214243 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:11AM (#9736200)
    That's a much bigger deal than just outsourcing. It says alot about how clever Oracle thinks those from the US are.

    Perhaps too many grow up thinking they ought to be playing tennis or being musicians. Those are the most important people, right?

    Those are the images the media gives them, so it must be true.

    • Re:This isn't just programming, it's R&D (Score:5, Insightful)

      by asterix_2k1 ( 781702 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:26AM (#9736239)
      No there is a big difference here. The article says that Oracle now considers China's domestic market to be profitable enough to invest. I am sure that the R&D centre in China will be more or less focussed on making China-specific products.

      As an analogy, IBM's research lab in India is focussed on making eGovernance solutions, machine translation solns from/to Indian languages, Hindi speech reco etc.

      Also, it goes without saying that it adds to the overall prestige of Oracle as well.

      • There was an interesting article in the NY Times Magazine on Sun 4 Jul 2004. Ted Fishman says in "The Chinese Century" [nytimes.com]: "The Chinese government knows that foreign tech companies can be coaxed into sharing technology and training in exchange for easier access to the Chinese marketplace. The World Trade Organization forbids formal bargains that demand international tech transfers, but it does not police winks and nudges."

  • Who wants a small-town America? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Morgaine ( 4316 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:28AM (#9736244)
    Jeez folks, get out of this recent small-town myopia about outsourcing. You can do better than that. Dell's a good example of how excellent US industry can be if you shrug off yesterday's models and try to be genuinely different and quality-focussed, instead of regressive and protectionist.

    If you complain about outsourcing you're merely buying into politician's agendas, effectively giving them an easy platform of "Vote for me and I will protect your jobs". Make great stuff and you don't need protectionism. And if you really value a free market, restrictions should be the last thing on your minds anyway.

    The world is a tiny place now, you shouldn't be thinking about "keeping jobs at home" any more than you'd think about extracting all your raw materials from home too. That's not today's world. You can't compete on the basis of labour cost, that should be obvious; you need to be better.

    Globalization of both the markets and the production has been immense in recent decades, and no megacorp can afford to chain itself down with yesterday's small-town views nor barriers against free flow of resources.
    • I agree with your stance on protectionism. No government should slug their people to support an inefficient industry.

      But your argument that outsourcing is OK rests on one very flawed assumption: that the people of the world are nothing more than labour.

      From the point of view of the elite who own basically everything, people are just labour. But for the rest of us, there are some very important issues underneath the surface of outsourcing and globalization.

      Look at the countries where the jobs are going.
      • But your argument that outsourcing is OK rests on one very flawed assumption: that the people of the world are nothing more than labour.

        But that wasn't my assumption, pretty much the opposite.

        Different people have different talents and abilities, depending on their personal circumstances and their environment and culture. You can't expect an unfortunate barely literate 3rd-world ex-farmer who came in to the city to pack boxes for a US global megacorp to be designing the latest technological marvels or p
      • because they're getting paid slave wages while working twice the hours that we do.

        You are assuming that the cost of living is the same everywhere in the world. But that simply isn't true. A salary of USD 20,000 isn't much in San Francisco or Manhattan but you could live pretty well on it in Bangkok or Bangalore, because the USD.THB or USD.IRR exchange rate is favorable.

        In the US, working in a call centre is one step above unskilled labour in a factory. In India, graduates of good colleges compete for job

    • Would you like fries with that? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by twitter ( 104583 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @06:02AM (#9736442) Homepage Journal
      Dell's a good example of how excellent US industry can be if you shrug off yesterday's models and try to be genuinely different and quality-focussed, instead of regressive and protectionist.

      Dell operates on the same model as McDonald's. They do a little QC on the cheapest crap they can get their hands on and advertise. Most people, it seems, have been happy eating "downer cows" [mcdonalds.com]. That and an economy built on pure service might be good enough for you, but I want the freedom to do more.

      If you complain about outsourcing you're merely buying into politician's agendas ... Make great stuff and you don't need protectionism. And if you really value a free market, restrictions should be the last thing on your minds anyway.

      No, I don't buy it and yes I demand free markets.

      The real protectionism is in "IP" laws. Restrictive licensing prevents people from actually rating Oracle's databases so comparison is impossible. Worse, I can't compete against Oracle if they get a bunch of bogus software patents. It is only that kind of government protection that makes the logistic headaches of outsourcing possible. In a free economy, most of the current big dumb companies would have been toppled by smaller smarter competition long ago.

      As it is, the big dumb companies survive and feed off each other. The average American worker continues to suffer M$ desktops, mergers and layoffs while their overpaid executives pad their salaries with bonuses from all the money they have "saved" by eliminating their competition, auction proceeds and offshoring. The whole thing is a crock and represents the end of a long corporate looting spree.

      The "service" economy was a lie. The US will quickly become a backwater if it fails to make things other people want. Some people were dumb enough to think that we could simply provide the world with "brains". The definition of "brains" is swiftly being reduced to ownership of ideas that citizens of other countries are increasingly having.

      The ownership strategy is ultimately bankrupt. It amounts to enslavement of the rest of the world, a very unAmerican idea to begin with. It's also impractical. Our ability to level ownership taxes will die as other countries inherit and improve our former technical excellence.

      The hogs running US mega corp and the US government could care less. They are getting theirs while the rest of us are getting the shaft.

    • Between China and the U.S., 2003 trade [census.gov] exceeded $150Bn (from $81Bn in 1999).

      The only thing I do not like about outsourcing is that I can't move as easily as jobs can. No amount of cheap food/merchandise can equate to a good job. In that sense, free trade is not necessarily fair trade (if we can call anything fair).
    • The problem is that the wealth discrepancy is huge so any changes will be drastic. Capitalists always bring up how people need to be innovative but the gap is very large. For instance, your innovation has to be roughly 4x "better" because wages are 4x lower in some of the poorer countries. This is going to be very difficult for those living in wealthier countries. When USA, for example, was competing with Japan in the 80's, the gap wasn't that large. When USA is competing with China, the gap is very large.

  • Oracle is a global company. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by houseofmore ( 313324 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:43AM (#9736284) Homepage
    Oracle outfits companies around the globe. They advertise themselves as a global company. If they open local office, it's hardly outsourcing.

    If my company in New Zealand, or Canada, or wherever, made a billion dollars in the states, and decided it was time to open up a US office,would be out sourcing? Don't be so fucking greedy.
    • If my company in New Zealand, or Canada, or wherever, made a billion dollars in the states, and decided it was time to open up a US office,would be out sourcing?

      If your company made 600 jobs in another country, then fired everyone but a handful of lawyers and marketing people in your country, you could conclude that your company had moved your job overseas.

      If your company also had a bunch of bogus patents and other "IP", your unemployment might be indefinite. Try a year or two of it and tell me I'm gree

      • Outsourcing is contracting part of your work to another company.
        That is the _only_ definition.

        You can rant all you like about IP, protectionism, and off shore jobs, but it still doesn't change the fact that opening a branch in another country is _not_ offshore outsourcing. Even if you do fire everyone in the original country.

        You might well call it off-shoring - Though I would call it relocating - but you most certainly can not call it off shore outsourcing.

        Some facts people need to learn (this portion i
      • But several films made in NZ have been successful in other countries, e.g.
        • The Piano
        • Heavenly Creatures
        • The Last Samurai
        • Willow
        • Fellowship of the Ring
        • The Two Towers
        • Return of the king
        • um... Aces Go Places Part 4 :-)

        Not to mention the forthcoming Narnia series.

        OK, not exactly all NZ IP... so go and persuade the world to rent "Footrot Flats: A Dogs Tale" or "Came a hot Friday" and feel better :-)

  • Alanguagewithoutspaces (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Underholdning ( 758194 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:45AM (#9736289) Homepage Journal
    If you've ever had to create an Oracle application with support for Chinese you know that it's quite an ordeal. The core of the database just isn't suited for a language that, among other things, doesn't have spaces.
    It makes perfectly sense to open an R&D department in China, since there's a huge market there, and of course Oracle wants to fully support chinese.

  • outsourcing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by coaxial ( 28297 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:59AM (#9736316) Homepage
    People fear outsourcing, but the powers that be say "Nah! Don't worry about that. See the Chinese and the Indians will only do what they're good at which is mindless repetitive labor, and we Americans will what we're good at which is innovating!" That argument hasn't been working, and it's obvious why. It's a simplisitc attempt to appeal jingoism and racism. Implicit in that argument is "They're too stupid to do thinking jobs, not like us." That's bullshit, and this move by Oracle proves it.

    The other myth about "free trade" is that it's all or nothing. You have to let companies import and outsource everything, otherwise you're economy will tank. That has never been the case, and it never will be.

    • Re:outsourcing (Score:2, Insightful)

      by sgt_doom ( 655561 )
      EXACTLY!!!!!!! That magical (a k a GREEDY) thinking of the rich elites (and their not-too-bright lower-level minions) suggests that their venal behavior is in everyone's best interests. Well - the businesses in this country are flush with cash (most probably from downsizing and offshoring) - will they suddenly hire Americans - or continue offshoring American jobs and continue to be flush with cash??? The answer should be obvious.....
  • "Most people think that China will be the "Next India" when it comes to IT/BPO, but there are lots of reasons why they won't be . . . " [slashdot.org]

    all interesting facts, all (probably?) true, and all beside the point.

    None of those facts matter to the people who make the outsourcing decisions. Price DOES matter.
    Proof: all of your observed "advantages" of India (over China) are even more applicable to the locally-based programmers whose jobs are being outsourced. But those advantages haven't prevented their j

  • A lot of people dismiss companies when they say the research pool is better overseas, but I think they're right. I'm sure anyone who's been through school recently remembers that (a) studying and getting good grades is hazardous to your social standing, and (b) there are very few American faces in advanced science programs.

    If we ever want to regain our foothold in the research world, we have to import some of China/India/Japan's culture. Most kids in these cultures are pushed hard to study, and it's consid

    • This is BS. Sure, in high school, the jocks get more respect than the nerds, but it all changes in college. While the jocks are busy stocking shelves at the local grocery store, everyone else who wants a real education and a real job has gone to college, and a good percentage of those are trying to get good grades.

      The reason you see so few Americans in science and engineering programs is because it simply doesn't make sense to go into them for most people. For many types of engineering (especially Compu
  • It's all improving the Chinese economy, increasing their wages, creating markets for products which *you* make.

  • Oracle won't be lonely with AMD, Intel, Microsoft and IBM over there as well.

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