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Microsoft The Almighty Buck

Microsoft to Invest $1.7 billion in India 383

Posted by CowboyNeal from the currying-favor dept.
piyushranjan writes "Bill Gates has announced that Microsoft will invest $1.7 billion in India over the next four years to expand its operations. The fund would also be spent in making India a major hub of Microsoft's research, product and application development, services and technical support for both global and domestic companies. Microsoft plans to create 3000 more jobs at India, taking it's headcount at India to 7000."
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Microsoft to Invest $1.7 billion in India More

Microsoft to Invest $1.7 billion in India

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  • microsoft announces... (Score:5, Funny)

    by know1 ( 854868 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:16PM (#14202678)
    ...that they are crapping their pants at the state of linux acceptance in india, and the widespread use of the operating system independant programming language java.

    • microsoft announces...

      ...that they are crapping their pants at the state of linux acceptance in india, and the widespread use of the operating system independant programming language java.

      So it's really just a massive bribe?

      Like: "We'll invest a piddly 1.7B USD in your country, to encourage acceptance, by developers."

      Sure, can't miss. Apple pumped a lot of money into public schools 25 years ago and the Apple brand name was established. But... 25 years later they have a minor share of the market.

    • "the widespread use of the operating system independant programming language java."

      How widespread is Java, really? For every Java programming job I see advertised, I see three C# jobs. Visual Basic even seems to be more common than Java. C# is just redundant, and Visual Basic is to programming as the Easy Bake Oven is to cooking, but that doesn't seem to stop people from using them.

  • Reuters news story on CNet (Score:3, Informative)

    by anandpur ( 303114 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:18PM (#14202696)
    Reuters news story on CNet

    http://news.com.com/2102-1014_3-5985482.html?tag=s t.util.print/ [com.com]

  • I'd be curious to know... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by madman101 ( 571954 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:18PM (#14202697)
    how much money they are making in India now. I suspect this is just a reasonable investment for such a big market.

  • Heck... (Score:5, Funny)

    by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:18PM (#14202701)

    Why worry about H1B Visas when you can just buy India.
  • If that headline doesn't send MA a message on switching to OpenDoc nothing will.

    • Re:MA and OpenDoc (Score:3, Interesting)

      by thinkmast ( 662468 )
      Well...they had to catch up intel announcement yesterday that they are investing $1billion in india: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?conten t_id=83365 [indianexpress.com]
    • If that headline doesn't send MA a message on switching to OpenDoc nothing will.

      I may be a bit slow, but I don't get it.
      • A lot of the people working on the various OpenDoc compatible word processors live in MA. None of the Microsoft employees working on Office are located in MA. Now when Microsoft makes a choice to do a large amount of new hiring, you see that they choose to do it in India instead of MA.

        So which should MA do, send $200M in license fees to Microsoft so that the monopoly can send it to India? Or make an open, competitive playing field that is possible for local firms to participate in? Note that I didn't say gi
        • You MUST be a coastie. We in the Midwest well know what OUR government would do:

          Offer outrageous tax abatements, interest-free loans, and grants to attract Microsoft investment to the area.

          Note that this kind of reaction has only created a massive "race to the bottom" in the Midwest, so I heartily enjoin those in MA (where I lived for 7 years) to not take any of Microsoft's bait.

    • Re:MA and OpenDoc (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AviLazar ( 741826 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:42PM (#14202950) Journal
      If that headline doesn't send MA a message on switching to OpenDoc nothing will

      All the other crap about why MA should switch to OpenDoc I did not agree with. Totally did not (got modded down a bunch for my views also)...this reason, is a great reason why MA should drop office for OpenDoc. No reason to send our money to India...and what better way to penalize a gigantic business then by cutting off their gov't contracts.

  • Watch my left hand... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pieterh ( 196118 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:21PM (#14202738) Homepage
    ...as my right hand takes your wallet.

    Cue the debate about US job losses and globalisation. The real issue IMO is the Microsoft tactics of using trade pressure to lobby for anti-competition legislation. "Yes, I'll invest 1.8bn, but only if you ban free software and enable software patents".

    The truth is that India is capable of doing a lot better without this kind of "help". I encourage Indian politicians to reject any such pressure. Indian IT can compete securely on the open market, without favours or protectionism. Software patents, and other anti-competitive laws will only hurt India in the medium and long term.

    • Re:Watch my left hand... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by IAmTheDave ( 746256 ) <basenamedave-sd@yaho[ ]om ['o.c' in gap]> on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:28PM (#14202816) Homepage Journal
      The real issue IMO is the Microsoft tactics of using trade pressure to lobby for anti-competition legislation.

      While I certainly hate to see lobbying efforts effect government laws directly, this is one of those "open, free market" kinda issues. I don't really want to see legislation in India influenced by Microsoft, but if MS wants to do business in India, set up shop, create jobs, increase GDP, etc. - well, is that definately a "bad thing?"

      I know the general karma is MS is bad, but if you believe in capitalism as a fundamental driver of freedom, then markets must be opened, and MS should be allowed to set up shop and do business where they please (within applicable laws.) This can only be good for the Indian economy and job situation (as much as I hate my support calls routing to "Cathy" in India.)

      • "...but if you believe in capitalism as a fundamental driver of freedom.."

        it is not.

      • If Microsoft is trying to influence legislation in India, thus making the market more favorable to itself, how is that a "free market"?

      • Re:Watch my left hand... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @02:48PM (#14204079)
        but if you believe in capitalism as a fundamental driver of freedom, then markets must be opened, and MS should be allowed to set up shop and do business where they please

        MS is not sentietn being. It has no freedoms or human rights to be given or taken away.

        (BTW in India's constitution, they have removed most references of personal property rights in order to acheive better socialism ideals. Look it up on wiki or something)

        Secondly...

        Totalitarianism is not exclusive to controlled economies.
        Capitalism is not exclusive to freedom.

        They can be interchanged fairly easily. My question to you would be, do we want freedom for individuals to do business or do we superceede them with anthromorphized organizations desires for stock price gains?
    • I encourage Indian politicians to reject any such pressure.

      If wishes were horses.....

  • Defensive move (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:22PM (#14202743)
    I expect Microsoft will be making similar investments in China too.

    I see this as partly a defensive move - they know India and China are potentially two big markets for the future, and they don't want them considering OSS alternatives. They will use these investments to twist the governments arms. Although I don't think it will work with the Chinese, it might work in India.

    • Re:Defensive move (Score:2, Informative)

      by halo8 ( 445515 )
      OR
      you could not be paranoid tinfoil hat n00b and realize that Indian labour is cheaper than North American labour.

      its always about linux, OSS, and being evil with you people. theirs more to buisness than just OSS and Linux

      \course.. i think offshoring is pretty evil in and amonst itself
    • I expect Microsoft will be making similar investments in China too.

      Microsoft Research opened in China in 1998.

      In 2002, Microsoft was the first foreign company invited to join the China Software Industry Association. Microsoft Joins in China Software Industry Association [people.com.cn]

  • I wonder if . . . (Score:5, Interesting)

    by EraserMouseMan ( 847479 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:23PM (#14202758)
    Demand will begin to outpace supply in India's IT sector causeing the price of IT skilled labor to increase. If so it will reduce India's competitive advantage and less Indians will see any advantage to coming to the USA.

    • Re:I wonder if . . . (Score:3, Insightful)

      by killjoe ( 766577 )
      No matter how you cut it that's 7000 less high paying, easy on teh environment tech jobs in the US. The indians can work cheap because their economy is supported by indentured slavery and child labor. I too could afford to work two dollars an hour if my house was built by people who worked for pennies, and the bricks were made by people who were sold to the brickmaker and my clothes were made by 10 year olds working 15 hours a day and my garbage was taked away by untouchables.

      The worst thing that can happen

  • Translator? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Godeke ( 32895 ) * on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:24PM (#14202764)
    Of course India is going to be important: the US universities have finally been surpassed by several other countries in the creation of degreed workers. It only makes sense that a large population country that modernizes would be able to eventually do so. I think we are on the cusp of a real shift in power to Asia from the western countries.

    Meanwhile...


    I never thought with so little product companies software services sector will grow so strong as it has grown here.


    Whisky Tango Foxtrot does that mean? I'm not pedantic about language, but that's just absurd. Perhaps the true impact of this shift will be the reduction of English to verb tense confused propaganda?

  • Welcome to economy 101 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PromptZero ( 936799 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:25PM (#14202769)
    The expanding into Asia and Europe is hardly synonymous with outsourcing. It's more like being realistic about where the growth is in IT. I'm suprised they aren't also setting up in Brazil.

    The key markets for information technology in the next few decades are not the US, Western Europe or Japan. The key markets key, as in where the majority of goods will be purchsed and consumed-- are Mainlaind China, India, Eastern Europe and South America.

    Where do I get that idea? Easy, hardware manufacturers. People in the wealthy nations often have a hard time imagining how hardware can get any cheaper and still remain profitable and yet it does relentlessly continue to decline in price. The answer to how it remains profitable is simple, volume. And that volume cannot and will not exist in the highly profitable and yet relatively sparsely populated wealthy countries. There simply are not enough consumers.

    So, as a manufacturer, you simply enter new markets by lowering your costs until the real masses, the billions, can afford your products. And you can bet that WiMax is going to be one of the enabling technolgies that is going to make this push into the "third world" happen all that much faster.

    Which means it makes perfect sense for Microsoft to have a real presence in these markets. In fact, you could argue they're moving too slowly.

    But none of that has the slightest thing to do with "outsourcing". It's just the reality of where IT is going.

    • Take econ101 1st, and toss in some biz school (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Red Flayer ( 890720 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @01:05PM (#14203163) Journal
      " The expanding into Asia and Europe is hardly synonymous with outsourcing."

      You're right, but the word you are looking for is offshoring, not outsourcing. If the product is being consumed here in the US, but made elsewhere by a company located in the US, that is offshoring. Outsourcing is something totally different, and doesn't apply to this .

      " The key markets for information technology in the next few decades are not the US, Western Europe or Japan'

      You mean, the key emerging markets. IT will still be bigger in the 'western world' + Japan for a while, but it's a lot more developed already, and has less opportunity for an entering player and/or initial sales.

      "So, as a manufacturer, you simply enter new markets by lowering your costs until the real masses, the billions, can afford your products."

      You mean, you lower your prices. Lowering your costs is not so simple, it doesn't automagically happen as a given over time. But, in essence, you are saying you need to lower your costs so you can lower your prices to be competitive in a poor market while maintaining profitability, right?

      "The answer to how it remains profitable is simple, volume."

      Again, not so simple. Yes, volume helps, since then fixed costs are diluted with respect to each unit sold. However, your marginal cost of each item sold doesn't change just because you increase your volume -- and labor, raw materials, and energy are not remotely free.

      What's really driving the prices of hardware down is a reduction in production cost, based on new manufacturing processes and new designs using cheaper raw materials.

      All increasing sales volume does is enable you to remain profitable while pricing your goods at a point closer to your marginal cost of production -- you can pretty much remove the cost of, say, administrative salaries, from your P&L analysis.

    • Microsoft have being on Brazil for a long time. They even helped government corruption throug all the 90's (their representatives here got a lot of money this way). Nowadays, we have a very adversarial attitude toward them (not a bad thing), and they stoped investing big here.

      Yes, I think you got something right here: IT has a lot to gain on the fast growing markets. And as US shows signs of weakening, this becomes more true. But you also got something wrong, it does not depend of how sparse the population

  • Funny ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:25PM (#14202773)
    And Microsoft wonders why there are less and less people going into Computer Science and other Computer programs here in the States?

    • Re:Funny ... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by rovingeyes ( 575063 )

      Somehow your statement implies that the computer science programs in India is florishing due to investments by the likes of Microsoft. You couldn't be more wrong. There is a reason why all these tech companies are moving their research divisions to India - availability of quality engineers with PhD. Computer Science has been and still is the most sought after program in India inspite of recent decline in enrollment or demand for it. I know this because I came through that system. In every college, it used t

  • Well that helps (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Billosaur ( 927319 ) *
    From rediff.com:World's largest software maker Microsoft on Wednesday said it will scale up its India operations by increasing the local headcount by 3,000 over three to four years, taking the total strength to 7,000.

    Let's see, population of approximately 1.1 billion [wikipedia.org]... 7,000 total Microsoft jobs. Yes, I can see where that helps immensely!

    India is poor, dirt poor. Even with the fairly decent number of jobs we've shipped there, it doesn't even begin to make a dent in the poverty level. And of course thes

    • India is poor, dirt poor.

      Not true. It has a lot of poverty, but it also has a lot of people with a fairly good standard of living, and some extremely wealthy people.

      When I was travelling in Mumbai I met some people who had been working as software engineers in San Francisco but returned to India because they said the standard of living was better for a software engineer.

      The GDP of India is about 1/3 of the USA's, although of course they have a much larger population.

      http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factb [cia.gov]

      • Re:Well that helps (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Billosaur ( 927319 ) *
        Not true. It has a lot of poverty, but it also has a lot of people with a fairly good standard of living, and some extremely wealthy people.

        You could use the same blanket statement about the US. I refer you to this little tidbit: Poverty in India [indiaonestop.com]. And I quote: "India still has the world's largest number of poor people in a single country. Of its nearly 1 billion inhabitants, an estimated 350-400 million are below the poverty line, 75 per cent of them in the rural areas."

        When I was travelling in Mumbai I

    • Excuse me, but no where is it mentioned or is no one imagining that microsoft's investing this amount to make india richer or create some employment here.
      They're just expanding their operations here, for their own benefit.

      Even if we go by what you say, the thousands of new employees are not going to sit under the sky and do their work. Am sure ms' gonna build a new campus (or extend one if they already have one), which'd directly or indirectly create quite a lot more jobs in whichever area they're gonna pic
    • >India is poor, dirt poor. Even with the fairly decent number of jobs we've shipped there, it doesn't even begin to make a dent in the poverty level.

      I think the important point that was missed by many readers here is that when a big company like MS makes such investments, it increases investor confidence in general, and sets a precedent for other companies to consider similar moves. The cumulative effect of such investments will make a difference over a period of time: the poverty you speak of has been t

  • It's only about $$$ (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gasmonso ( 929871 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:26PM (#14202793) Homepage

    Having worked with a software development group in India for 3 years now, I can honestly say I am not impressed. Many of the engineers there are well educated on paper, but in reality lacked creativity and the ability to work independently. They were definitely cheaper, but the price we paid for that was a huge cut in productivity. We needed 2-3x more of them to get the job of one engineer done here.

    On the flip side, I also work with many Indians here in the US on my team. The differences are startling compared to their counterparts in India. They are much stronger in all aspects of engineering, whether its creativity or pure coding knowledge. It appears that the issues are somewhat cultural and will improve with time.

    Good luck to Microsoft and the others, but we are scaling back our staff in India. It's just not worth it yet.

    gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]
    • the smart people leave India for the US.

      Well, they used to.
      • the smart people leave India for the US.

        Clue #2, there's more where that came from and they are cheaper where they are. It's easier to find bright people when you have a billion to chose from.

        Currently, those you see here are more "motivated". When you have a chance to leave a $3 trillion economy for a $12 trillion economy with one quarter the population, or 16 times the wealth. People in India still starve to death, while "poor" people in the US are fat.

        All this gets around the fundamental problem, t

    • Re:It's only about $$$ (Score:2, Interesting)

      by korgull ( 267700 )
      About the same experience here with working in China. I've been of and on the China for the past 8 years and form our Chinese devision we've never had the quality nor the planning that we managed to get in Europa.
      Currently our company is doing extremely bad.
      We moved most activities to China over the past 8 years and I've spend about 2.5 years in China. I've basically seen the company going to waste bit by bit.
      It's a pitty that it worked out this way because I also believe that with the correct plan and corr

    • Re:It's only about $$$ (Score:5, Insightful)

      by yahyamf ( 751776 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @01:26PM (#14203397)
      I'm from the middle east but I've studied both in India and the US. Here's my perspective:

      The Indians that come to the US are usually the brightest 2% or so from the top colleges in the country. Degrees from the average Indian colleges are usually not worth the paper they're printed on. The facilities available to students are negligible compared to the US. For example, in the city of Hyderabad with a population in the millions, there are maybe 2 public libraries.

      However, with home computers and broadband internet fast becoming commonplace, this is all set to change especially in engineering and computer science. Indian students are no longer isolated from the rest of the world, they now have access to the same software, books and culture as their Western counterparts. The latest textbooks were not affordable or even available and publishers would only sometimes bring out an 'eastern economy edition' or something. But now most technology related ebooks are available for free (due to piracy).

      I was a TA for undergrads in the US and I can tell you that Indian students are much more hard working than Americans, who seem pampered by comparison. My job was more baby-sitting than teaching. Also, for many Indians education is the only way out of their miserable economic conditions, whereas in the US someone can drop out of high school and get a job flipping burgers and maintain a standard of life that is luxurious compared to his Indian counterpart.

      You may be right that outsourcing is not worth it right now, but you'll be surprised how fast this is going to change. Moreover, due to the huge population, if only 10% of Indian students become skilled enough to be globally competitive they will be a force to be reckoned with.

      It's obvious Microsoft and the others know this already.

  • FTS: "Microsoft plans to create 3000 more jobs at India" (emphasis mine)

    India's pretty big, dude. Some even call it a sub-continent (though the Indian subcontinent also includes Bangladesh and parts of other countries).

    I don't think MS is adding 3000 workers at India... in India, perhaps, or at MS's India facilities...

    Anyway, It's a good move by MS for India, though Indians will be complaining in a few years about some of those jobs going to Africa and the Pac Rim.
  • Personally I think that this investment is doomed. That is because m$ business strategy simply does not fit with indian people philosophy. They belive in sharing knowledge (and software), those people are philosophically much closer to OSS ideas. That's why piracy is so widespread in asiatic regions - people simply do not agree that something must be paid for more than once, especially knowledge (which they belive is only worth sharing for free). Of course m$ can make there a big outpost, pay people huge am
    • That's why piracy is so widespread in asiatic regions - people simply do not agree that something must be paid for more than once, especially knowledge (which they belive is only worth sharing for free).

      I really am confused as to just laugh off at this or ignore it. Piracy, sir, is rampant here not because of whatever idealogical things you are talking about; it's due to the same reason you find piracy even in the developed countries - pricing of software (which if it were according to the place you are s
    • Well, Gates came from an academic environment that equally strongly believed in openness and sharing, and we can well see what became of his software efforts (i.e. strongly closed). This result was obtained by the terrible corruption of money. Money can well be used to corrupt enough Indians to create the same closed software culture.

  • One thing is certain... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 70Bang ( 805280 )

    ...it won't improve their software quality. And, they'll have to rewrite each new version because the first one (codewise) will be like a frog in a blender. All of the pieces are there, but if you hope to improve it (for animals, let's think of gene splicing), you're either going to have to carefully put the pieces back together (by someone who isn't thirsty enough to drink a frogtini in the process) who can tell which piece goes where, or get another frog.

    Remember: you can get it fast, right, or cheap.

  • New MS Tech support hire; Apu (Score:4, Funny)

    by fak3r ( 917687 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:30PM (#14202831) Homepage
    Apu: "Yes, I'm sorry, I do not speak English, okay."
    Woman: "But, you were just talking to..."
    Apu: "Yes, yes, hot dog, hot dog, yes, sir, no, sir, maybe, okay."

    The bad thing is that it will be an improvement over their current tech support...but I digress.
  • They should have invested in South Korea [slashdot.org] instead......

  • Not a macro issue (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rhyskegtapper ( 912684 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:37PM (#14202904)
    Microsoft (or any American company) investing overseas is not news. It's foolish to assume that there is such a thing as American protectionism, pride, etc anymore. Whether or not this is a good move will depend on how it effects future software. If we get better Microsoft software that's great they need the help. If not they wasted their money big deal. I'd love to say Microsoft is betraying it's American roots but quite frankly there's nothing left to betray.

  • Investing in India (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RelliK ( 4466 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:38PM (#14202913)
    Gates was emphatically impressed with India's human resource saying, "India has a fantastic pool of software professionals. The world needs to benefit from this. I never thought with so little product companies software services sector will grow so strong as it has grown here."

    Yeah, I'm sure this has nothing to do with India's move to open source software. And I'm sure Microsoft's investment will in no way affect the government's decision. No sir.

  • Sorry, but I find this to be insulting (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WidescreenFreak ( 830043 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:39PM (#14202916) Homepage Journal
    Can someone please explain to me why Microsoft feels the need to do this? Okay, application development is something that probably commands a higher salary in the U.S., but customer service?

    I have a really big problem with companies that continually fork out technical support overseas. Regardless of location, just about everyone will need to be trained and learn the products that they have to support. Americans are no less capable of this than anywhere else. But keeping tech support in the U.S. has many benefits with respect to customer service that I think outweigh the cost savings.

    Obviously, we have language difficulties when outsourcing. The Indian accent can be incredibly thick and very difficult to understand. I'm very adept at deciphering thick accents, but the Indian accent I find to be even more difficult at times than a thick, Scottish brogue. That certainly does not make the customer support experience any more pleasant.

    Additionally, technical support nowadays is often nothing more than reading down a checklist of "did you do this?" Yes, I did before I called. "Well, let's try it again." *groan* Fine. "That didn't work either? Then let's try this." Face facts - anyone can do checklists for troubleshooting. Why is that being off-shored?

    What's really infuriating about this announcement is that Microsoft is doing this as Louisiana and Mississippi are attempting to rebuild. You hear continual complaints about how companies are not moving back which can make sense from a manufacturing standpoint where large, capital investments of machinery and transportation need to be made; but from a services point-of-view, putting tech support and other business opportunities in Louisiana and Mississippi can still be cost-effective since those areas have incredibly low standards of living relative to the rest of the country. Then of course Microsoft would have the positive PR of (A) helping to rebuild an area that needs to be rebuilt, (B) having people who at least have an easier-to-understand (for the most part) accent on the other end of the line, (C) providing at least some type of jobs to an area that so desperately needs them, particularly now. Yes, I'm sure that hiring workers in LA/MS is still more expensive than India, but there's more to being a stable and respectable company than making the bottom line as large as possible. (I know, I know. Using "respectable" to represent Microsoft left a bad taste in my mouth, too.)

    Am I being too idealistic? Well, perhaps. (Hey, at least I admit it.) But it just seems that Microsoft is missing a major opportunity here to do some good right here at home just so save some money that, frankly, it doesn't need to stay afloat. Hell, how large was its profit last year?

    • Face facts - anyone can do checklists for troubleshooting. Why is that being off-shored?

      I'd say the fact that anyone can do it is the reason it's being off-shored; getting the cheapest possible people doing it.

    • They're going through the appeals process in Europe and South Korea over anti-trust issues. They can now put a little pressure on these governments, to the effect of "tell your courts to back off, or we move the jobs elsewhere".

      From a purely technical standpoint, there is no benefit. Microsoft's project management doesn't scale as it stands, and won't support thousands more programmers on the projects they have. They know this - if you want to make a late project later, add more people. It's true of almost

    • When you buy a product, where do you go? Do you buy it from the local mom and pop store? Do you buy it from the large local retailer? Do you buy a retail card or an OEM card? Do you search on the internet for the cheapest place to get it and buy it half-way across the country?

      While I do not like outsourcing, I find that it is us (as a country) that needs to change our ways. Many of us (not all) are hippocritical in terms of outsourcing. We'll buy a product online from across the country when we could
  • Seems to me that Microsoft plans to enter the operating system market. Expect every one to use MS Khidkiyan in 2006.

  • I got an e-mail once.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonym1ty ( 534715 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:50PM (#14203019) Homepage Journal

    I got an e-mail once stating Bill would give me a dollar...
    I never got my dollar.
    Looks like everyone in India will get $1.55.

  • About $1.57 per person if you just gave it away (Score:3, Interesting)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @01:00PM (#14203121)
    If you are trusting the facts given by these sites:
    http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ in.html [cia.gov]
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4436692.stm [bbc.co.uk]
    http://www.dqindia.com/content/top_stories/2005/10 5091201.asp [dqindia.com]
    http://www.x-rates.com/ [x-rates.com]

    From the BBC article, it is about 5344 pounds ($9300 US) annual salary for a software engineer in India. Take that money and you can hire about 182,000 workers in India or give every person in the country $1.50 (or a little less than a pound for 1,080,264,388 people.) Otherwise if you hire 3,000 new workers and pay them that avg. $9300 annual salary, you will still have $1.67 billion left over to invest elsewhere.
  • Microsoft is not the first to do this... everyone is looking to increase their number of jobs in India... but not very many of them mention why they don't have to buy any new desks or chairs to make that possible.
  • Meanwhile the US congress is busy pushing the state department to pressure China and India to do a better job protecting "Intellectual Property". I guess they want to make sure Microsoft keeps making plenty of profits so they can create more jobs... overseas

    WTF!? Way to protect the interests of your citizens... NOT!

  • This artical http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/article.a s p?Feed=AP&Date=20051207&ID=5333660&Symbol=US:CSCO [msn.com] noted Intel and Cisco are doing the same.

    On Monday, chipmaker Intel Corp. said it planned to invest more than $1 billion over the next five years to expand its operations in India and invest in local technology companies.

    Cisco Systems Inc. said in October that it plans to spend $1.1 billion in India over the next three years.

    Such investments are hoped to expand the market thes

  • How can you send billions of dollars overseas? How can you do this to us, when we totally bailed you out a few years back? We sold out US consumers so that your money-printing business model could continue to flourish and feed back into our economy. Now you're sending billions overseas? WMD!! WMD on your ass! Threatenin' the homeland! Terrrizing the economy! Condi, go get my bike!
  • I am surprised that these things are still big news. Intel, Cisco, and many others are all expanding into India & China. Here is another news story from a few days ago:
    http://www.eetimes.com/news/design/business/showA r ticle.jhtml?articleID=174900508 [eetimes.com]

    For example, Intel is designing Xeon2 completely in Bangalore, India! That is an entire product line moved to India. This is very similar to Intel's strategy of moving most mobile chip work to Israel (well, they won the internal product war).

    This

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