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IBM Tries To Patent Offshoring
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Mar 30, 2009 06:04 PM
from the riaa-business-method dept.
from the riaa-business-method dept.
Ian Lamont writes "IBM has filed a patent application that covers offshoring employees. Application 20090083107, dated March 26, 2009, is a 'method and system for strategic global resource sourcing.' Figure 2 gives a pretty good idea of what's involved — it shows boxes labelled 'Engineer,' 'HR,' and 'Programmer' with crossing arrows pointing to cylinders labelled 'India,' 'China,' and 'Hungary.' The article speculates that IBM may apply the methodology to its own staff — it reportedly plans to lay off thousands of employees and has even started a program to have IBM workers transfer to other countries at local wages."
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Relax (Score:2)
Re:Relax (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Honestly though in the global scheme out sourcing is probably a good thing, its only bad for countries who have nothing to offer.
U.S. outsources jobs, fine, "loss of jobs", but what about other countries that don't have say the factories to build large equipment outsourcing to the U.S.? Sort of like WW2, but without the violence. Outsourcing the soldiers, but insourcing the manufacturing.
Re:Relax (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USTrade1991-2005.png [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, but it was good for a laugh...
My point wasn't really to say that it doesn't/isn't effecting the US, only that it's not just the US, or the US is the only one on the negative side.
I'm not an expert, probably not even moderately informed in economics, but I just get kinda of sick of people blaming other countries for the US's imbalance of commerce like the US isn't to blame at all. There are millions of people willing to work, but because of regulations, taxes, insurances, and this ridiculously high stand
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
this ridiculously high standard of living that makes companies outsource
Oh? And what are you willing to do without? Because let me tell you something: to be on par with the standards of living in India and China, you can say 'bye-bye' to having your own place to live. Instead, you and three generations of your clan will be living in a studio apartment. You won't be able to afford a car, you won't be able to afford decent clothes, and you won't be able to afford to eat anything not obtained from a frickin' soup kitchen.
If that's how you want to live, fine. But don't impose
Re:Relax (Score:5, Insightful)
Side note for coding. Coding is VERY easy to export, shipping costs nothing. There are no really special tools involved. Minimal language requirements. All it requires is good brains. So we feel this equalizing force more strongly than other sectors. This results in our average wage not changing much hence our ppp doesn't change. And our wages essentially plummet. Still... those coders in india probably live damn well.
Parent
Re:Relax (Score:5, Insightful)
Except with the little problem that it is NOT fair. One of the reasons why our standard costs so much is because you can't build smokestacks that spew cancer for 25+ miles in any direction, or dump enough toxic waste into the rivers that anything that touches that shit dies. But instead, thanks to the glories of outsourcing, we can pay an "el presidente" to poison the fuck out of HIS peasants so we can breathe clean air. And that sounds fair to you? All outsourcing does is brings miseries on third world peoples. Just see the filthy air in China, the toxic waste being dumped on China and India, the e-waste being dumped on ALL the third world, etc.
The only way outsourcing equalizes anything is equalizing money into the hands of the rich and the corrupt, while poisoning the poor and insuring a nice premature death from cancer and lots of lovely birth defects. There is a good reason why we can't compete with China. It is because we don't let factories dump poison right out the back into the rivers. And I for one thank every Deity I don't believe in for that. I say while they are outsourcing maybe they should just outsource themselves and their products out of the country. But expecting us to compete with countries that have no rules against toxic waste is frankly fucking stupid and a lie cooked up by ruthless multinationals.The poisons our little outsourcing has wreaked upon the world will end up causing more deaths than the bombs we dropped on Japan. Not really something we should be cheering about.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well I like to answer the "better than starving" argument with "we should be offering our poorer neighbors a friendly hand up, not paying an iron boot to keep them down". Because outsourcing is supporting some truly bad regimes by giving the "el presidente" types plenty of cash while the peasants get to enjoy lead, mercury, PCBs, dioxins,etc. And how is it "better than starving" if you poison their air and land so damned bad that it practically is unlivable?
It isn't like they can just clean this stuff up w
Re:Relax (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know how many times you've worked with outsourced software developers, but my experience with them is that:
- If the code done by the outsources needs to connect to code done locally you need to explain them all about the existing code
- Specifically for the teams I work for in India, about 1 in 4 is really good, the rest not really (India seems to be suffering from the same effect as the Internet bubble caused in 2000 - due to the size of the demand for IT professionals, large numbers of people that should never have gone into IT are working as Software developers)
- If you're just outsourcing your coding you need much more detailed requirements and design specs than otherwise. Unfortunately, in this industry good specs (of any kind) are few and far between.
- Any large enough project will have a lot more time spent in requirements gathering, analysis and design than in coding. Actually, with a proper design code is the trivial part.
- You often don't have that much influence in the hiring choices in the remote site. Often enough that means you get landed with completely inappropriate personnel.
My personal experience from working with remotely located developers is that, unless you can give them full, well-specified, self-contained projects, the local developers actually end up spending more time supporting the outsourced developers (due to all the documentation and explanations needed) and reviewing/fixing the code developed in the remote site than they would if they just did the project themselves.
Parent
Re:Relax (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that I pay $300 for Windows while Microsoft sells it in india for $35.
I pay $5 for a pill and they pay $.10 to the same company for the same pill. ( And in many cases- the company is making a profit on that $.10 pill).
I pay $19.99 for a movie, and they pay $2.49 for the same movie.
I pay $1 for an mp3 and they pay $0.00 for the same song (legally!)
I pay $70 for a pair of shoes that goes there for $5.
The corporations have laws passed that make it illegal to buy those pills for $.10 and import them to the US for $1.00 and undercut the company's local prices. Likewise for "region" encoded movies. And I.P. restricted web sites for songs. And "trademark protected" shoes.
So the companies get to hire $5 an hour labor to compete with me at $35 an hour. But I don't get to buy the cheaper products at the cheaper price.
It's bullshit. Our government has been bought and paid for by these companies and is completely corrupt.
They sell the dream that you can get rich-- brainwashing us from birth. But in reality your shot is about 1:1,000,000- as compared to 1:5,000,000 everywhere else.
Insurance is rigged- you are required to take it- but the amounts you pay are grossly over the losses. When the payout exceeds the amounts they owe you, they stiff you or go bankrupt. And "insurance" drives up the prices of every procedure just as "credit" drives up the prices of housing, cars, and everything else.
It will collapse soon. Probably within 12 years. We can't go into debt any more.
Parent
Title way too sweeping (Score:5, Informative)
What wasn't in the summary (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:What wasn't in the summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:What wasn't in the summary (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably more likely that its people from abroad, especially the EU, who really don't want to move to the US with its much less protective legislation. A smart US based IBM employee should be signing up for the move to France, Germany or Scandanavia, better healthcare, that isn't linked to your employer, better food (in France anyway) and a chance to completely change your perspective on life.
Now it would be interesting what the odds are on IBM allowing a US to France transfer.
Parent
How many years has it been? (Score:3, Interesting)
India is on the brink of a revolution. The creation of a middle class between the very rich and the very poor is imminent. The writing is on the wall and the corporations are already moving on to Africa. So I'll ask again, how many years has it been? The elevation of the poorest people in the world to a western standard of living is happening in our lifetime.
Re: (Score:2)
India is on the brink of a revolution.
India has been "on the brink of a revolution" for some time now.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, we know. Who do you think has been paying for it?
The thing about IBM (Score:3, Interesting)
The main problem they will have is making sure their foreign teams are good. On the other hand, that isn't always an easy problem even with teams in the United States.
Sorry if this goes against the typical Slashdot ideology against outsourcing, but the truth is I feel more sorry for workers in developing countries who might not have running water or electricity 24 hours a day, than I do for an American programmer making $80k a year who might have to look a little harder for a job (that includes me). Spread the wealth. There's enough to go around.
Re:The thing about IBM (Score:5, Insightful)
Thing is though is it is entirely possible to gut the first world middle class through off shoring. I mean first the manufacturer jobs now the knowledge worker jobs?
I mean we can't all work at Wal Mart as plumbers or for the government can we? Funny thing is once these short sighted companies seeking to boost the bottom line for next quarterly earnings call with Wall St. succeed they will have destroyed our economy and thus themselves.
Because hiring Indian and Hungarians at low wages is great but selling to them on the same meager wages is not so profitable.
Perhaps their standards of living will rise fast enough to offset the decline of our standard of living but that is really a big unknown. So this just seems like more MBA asshats fucking all of us including themselves. And believe it or not I am not even a protectionist this is just getting to the point of. Hey are these people even thinking this through? I mean it is the consumption of the first world middle class that props this whole shared delusion we call an economy up. It's all a really big ponzi scheme in a way and if us schmucks at the bottom don't keep buying in the whole thing collapses.
Parent
Re:The thing about IBM (Score:5, Interesting)
Some interesting info I picked up doing some research on who was hiring whom, and where. Here's a short list of companies in our industry, and the number of H1-B's they hired in 2008.
Microsoft: 4437
IBM: 1413
Hewlett-Packard: 520
Apple Computer: 291
You tell me - which of these companies has produced the most innovative products over the last decade? By the way - unlike the other three, Apple doesn't offshore their product development - it's all done in Cupertino, Ca. Also, when you call their tech support, you'll reliably get connected with someone who speaks English.
Parent
Re:The thing about IBM (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:The thing about IBM (Score:5, Informative)
Company : H1B/Total Employees : Percentage
Microsoft: 4437/57,588 : 7%
IBM: 1413/130,000 : 1%
Hewlett-Packard: 520/65,000 : <1%
Apple Computer: 291/20,000 : <1%
I also found an interesting article [businessweek.com] talking about how many jobs the ipod creates. The result is 13,920 in the US, and 27,250 outside the US. This breaks down to $753 million in the US and $318 million outside the US. Something to think about.
Parent
Re:The thing about IBM (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't care. Most publicly traded companies are managed by corporate psychopaths ("Snakes in Suits", great book) and as such, they don't care for anyone's benefit but their own. If they can make $100.000 at the expense of the whole economy of their (or any) country, they'll do it. If it means hundreds of deaths, they'll do it. They just don't feel anything for anyone, and before their company tanks they'll have jumped ship already.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But how does that work in a bad economy?
I dunno, let's look at history. See this [wikipedia.org]
Jumped the gun? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
MOD PARENT UP. /. got rolled.
Application #20090083107 (Score:4, Funny)
No wonder why they want to outsource That's a big number. In my day, patents were slowly incrementing in the 7 figure range. I can't wait until they hire monkeys to type up more applications. IBM made the best typewriters...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Granted patent numbers still are in the 7 figure range, I think we're around 7,500,000 ish.
Patent applications have a different numbering system that has the application year as a prefix. This new system only started around 2001.
exterminate, exterminate... beep. (Score:2)
The patent is invalid. Everybody knows you need Crisco to do offshoring right. :\
for the win (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe if we let IBM patent it then everyone else will stop doing it?
This provides for an entirely new strategy (Score:5, Funny)
I'm patenting a "Method for doing business without regard to ethical or moral principles."
The cool thing is that patent trolls now have to come to me first - take that assholes!!!!
"Oh my how the money rolls in!"
Pug
It is like patenting slavery (Score:4, Interesting)
Slavery, both ancient and modern has been only been successful in places where its implementation is predicated by state sanction and overwhelming force if threatened. China, India and SE Asia are developing the nascent foundations of worker's unions and it would not be surprising if this populist sentiment will rise to the point where they are at the throats of their governments with calls for better working conditions, human rights and a greater sharing in the financial rewards. Currently offshoring in manufacturing works on the premise that you have a person making 1/10th to 1/1000th of the wage of the people who ship, retail, and design the products. Does that sound sustainable to you?
Just because an idea makes immediate quantitative financial sense for a select few be them landholders or shareholders, the long term economic value of a process is something quite different. It is very much like the difference between weather and climate where one can model accurately the weather systems and their effect on a specific locale for a few days but can't extrapolate that knowledge beyond a certain limit either geographically half-way around the world or temporally years or decades into the future.
As these country's workers gain skills and begin automating the manufacturing processes and need less people in manufacturing both for local needs and export and begin to design and manufacture more for the local markets we are going to see less and less of a world populated with crap designed for Americans and built by others. To expect the rest of the world to serve America's aggrandized view of itself for much longer at the rates of slavery is foolish and for IBM to attempt to capitalize upon an idea with 1000's of years of prior art is just bad patent law and needs to be regulated against.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So what if IBM wants to help India produce more things of value?
You're trying to tell us altruism, not cost-cutting, is the motivation for globalization?
I want some of what you're smoking.
Solving US unemployement, one patent a time (Score:2)
Journalistic integrity, FFS (Score:5, Insightful)
They are trying to patent a *technique for evaluating* offshoring.
I love reading /. for the news, but the constant need to deliberately misinterpret the news to spin it into some kind of hysteria is tiresome... This place is Fox for Nerds, News You Can Read Somewhere Between the Lines.
Re:Journalistic integrity, FFS (Score:5, Funny)
There is only one sentence with the words "Slashdot", "journalistic", and "integrity" in it that makes sense: "Slashdot has no journalistic integrity".
Alternatively:
Slashdot? Haha. Journalistic? Hahahaha. Integrity? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAOMGWTFLOLBBQROTFLMAOHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Parent
Okay, really? (Score:3, Funny)
Tariffs (Score:5, Interesting)
Its about time that we taxed software and support from US companies that outsource.
You want to outsource your programmers or call center to India? That's just fine. Now show us how many hours your foreign staff has worked. Alright, now we're going to tax you so much that you end up paying 2/3rds of what you would have paid if you had stayed in the USA. We're putting this money towards unemployment benefits and other social programs, to offset the number of workers you dumped so you could hire someone to do it for five dollars a day.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
transfer overseas (Score:2)
> it reportedly plans to lay off thousands of employees and has even started a program to have IBM workers transfer to other countries at local wages.
I suspect that as a business practice this can be made to look really good on a spreadsheet, but is going to monumentally suck in real life, and not just for the employees relocated to Parakou.
Finally (Score:3, Funny)
A patent I can fully endorse. So IBM can corner the market on poorly developed spaghetti, while simultaneously removing the cost advantage to outsourcing by anyone else. The free market is better than regulation!
Re:This is just ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Sad state of the world we now live in... (Score:4, Insightful)
"The US patent system is just broken!!"
Its only broken if we live in a true Democracy. Its totally fine (in the eyes of the ruling elite) if we live in a Plutocracy (ruled by the rich), as then, the people in power, the ones who make the rules, and their rich friends can then buy and control everything (and everyone) with patents and lawyers.
Worse still, as a Plutocracy becomes more extreme it becomes a Kleptocracy (ruled by thieves). After all, its not as if the people who write the laws and their friends in power are giving millions of tax payers money to their rich friends, so they and their friends can prop up their rich lifestyles, while millions suffer the consequences. (Plus few of the rich will be brought to justice for the suffering they cause (after all, their rich friends who write the laws, choose what is considered the law)).
The point is, its far worse than broken. The whole of society is distorted to serve the minority of rich and powerful at the expense (literally) of the majority of people. Therefore the patent system is broken as a symptom of a much larger problem, which is, we don't have a real Democracy (anywhere in the world) as everyone worldwide lives in Plutocracies. Worse still, since the economic problems started, its showing we are at times in a Kleptocracy. It means most of the time, we have been near the extremes of a Plutocracy, which in hindsight makes sense, as the ones in power push as far as they can get away with, until large numbers of people start to see huge problems. Then the ones in power change tactics and move into other areas people can't see, until they become extreme and so on. Currently the patent system is becoming extreme, but its nothing compared with the money now openly flowing around the world, from rich to rich, while millions of other people suffer. Thats new. They are now so openly helping themselves in a huge feeding frenzy they are saying is all for our good. Yeah right.
Parent
I hope it works (Score:5, Funny)
and IBM charge a ridiculous fee for those buisness that want to "use" this patent.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I got three better words: In re Bilski. [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I'm all for letting them leave. That's probably the first original idea they've had in over a decade. Seriously, when was the last time they introduced a product the invented themselves, rather than buying? Get 'em outta here. Give the newer companies a chance t
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Except that that worker is a line worker doing very 'boring' jobs similar to a helpdesk line in the IT world which makes $12/hour tops. The actual wage of a GM line worker is around $25-30/hour but because you need so many of them that is very unsustainable in an economy where 'the other ones' do it at less than half the price. In what sane IT company does a first line helpdesk jockey earn $30/hour when you can hire 2 or 3 for that price?