In the debate over high-technology work migrating abroad, there has been widespread agreement on at least one thing: The jobs requiring higher levels of skill are the least at risk.
Routine software programming and testing jobs, analysts agree, are the ones most susceptible to being grabbed by fast-growing Indian outsourcing companies. By contrast, the people who devise the early blueprints for projects -- the software architects -- have been regarded as far less likely to see their jobs farmed out.
But Microsoft contract documents show that as far back as 2001 the big software maker had agreed to pay two Indian outsourcing companies, Infosys and Satyam, to provide skilled "software architects" for Microsoft projects. The documents were obtained earlier this month by WashTech, an organization of technology workers based in Seattle, which gave copies to The New York Times.
"The policy prescription you hear from people again and again as the response to the global competition of outsourcing is for Americans to move to high-end work," said Ronil Hira, an assistant professor for public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
"It's important to dispel the myth that high-end work is immune to offshore outsourcing," he said.
"What is not clear," Hira added, "is how much of that high-end work will go abroad."
A Microsoft spokeswoman, Stacy Drake, said that as a matter of policy the company did not comment on individual contracts with suppliers. But, she said, "We often use outside companies for projects."
The outside contractors, Drake said, are used to bring in specialized expertise Microsoft may not have in-house or to bring additional technical support onto a project.
Still, Drake said, building the "core intellectual property" in Microsoft products is left to full-time company employees.
Though definitions vary, software architects are highly skilled workers who often earn six-figure salaries in the US. The Microsoft contracts with Infosys and Satyam show that the work of software architects, senior software developers and software developers was being done by employees of the Indian companies working at Microsoft facilities in the US.
Their work did not come cheap for Microsoft, which was billed US$90 a hour for software architects, or at a yearly rate of more than US$180,000. Senior software developers were billed at US$72 an hour and software developers US$60 an hour.
The on-site work, said Hira, an expert on offshore outsourcing, is usually done by Indian software engineers who come to the US on H-1B visas, which allow foreign workers to be employed in the US for up to six years.
The Indian workers themselves are paid a fraction of what their employers collect. The top annual salaries paid by Indian outsourcing companies to Indian software experts working in the US are US$40,000 or so, Hira said.
The contracts also say that for short stints of work, less than 90 days, Microsoft will pay for round-trip economy airfare for travel between India and the US.
The contracts also include work done in India, by project managers and by software development and testing engineers. The billing rate for this work ranges from US$36 an hour to US$23 an hour.
A spokeswoman for Infosys said the company did not comment on its contracts, and a Satyam spokesman could not be reached.
Critics of the outsourcing trend regard such agreements with Indian contractors, with work done both in the US and in India, as a step toward shifting more and more skilled technology jobs overseas.
"Microsoft has hired vendors whose whole reason for being is to transfer work offshore," said Marcus Courtney, president of WashTech, an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America.
The foreign competition for work at Microsoft, Courtney said, will help the company's management put more pressure on wages for its American workers and reduce employee benefits. Last month, Microsoft announced that it planned to cut costs by an estimated US$80 million a year by trimming prescription-drug benefits, tightening parental-leave policies and making it more expensive to buy Microsoft shares through the employee stock purchase plan.
Despite its use of foreign contract workers, Microsoft expects to add 3,000 to 3,500 full-time employees to its US payroll of 37,000 in the fiscal year that ends next month.
POLITICAL AGENDA: Beijing’s cross-strait Mid-Autumn Festival events are part of a ‘cultural united front’ aimed at promoting unification with Taiwan, academics said Local authorities in China have been inviting Taiwanese to participate in cross-strait Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations centered around ideals of “family and nation,” a move Taiwanese academics said politicizes the holiday to promote the idea of “one family” across the Taiwan Strait. Sources said that China’s Fujian Provincial Government is organizing about 20 cross-strait-themed events in cities including Quanzhou, Nanping, Sanming and Zhangzhou. In Zhangzhou, a festival scheduled for Wednesday is to showcase Minnan-language songs and budaixi (布袋戲) glove puppetry to highlight cultural similarities between Taiwan and the region. Elsewhere, Jiangsu Province is hosting more than 10 similar celebrations in Taizhou, Changzhou, Suzhou,
The Republic of China (ROC) is celebrating its 114th Double Ten National Day today, featuring military parades and a variety of performances and speeches in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei. The Taiwan Taiko Association opened the celebrations with a 100-drummer performance, including young percussionists. As per tradition, an air force Mirage 2000 fighter jet flew over the Presidential Office as a part of the performance. The Honor Guards of the ROC and its marching band also heralded in a military parade. Students from Taichung's Shin Min High School then followed with a colorful performance using floral imagery to represent Taiwan's alternate name
COGNITIVE WARFARE: Chinese fishing boats transmitting fake identification signals are meant to test Taiwan’s responses to different kinds of perceived incursions, a report said Chinese vessels are transmitting fake signals in Taiwan’s waters as a form of cognitive warfare, testing Taipei’s responses to various types of incursions, a report by the Institute for the Study of War said on Friday. Several Chinese fishing vessels transmitted fake automatic identification system (AIS) signals in Taiwan’s waters last month, with one mimicking a Russian warship and another impersonating a Chinese law enforcement vessel, the report said. Citing data from Starboard Maritime Intelligence, the report said that throughout August and last month, the Chinese fishing boat Minshiyu 06718 (閩獅漁06718) sailed through the Taiwan Strait while intermittently transmitting its own AIS
CHINESE INFILTRATION: Medical logistics is a lifeline during wartime and the reported CCP links of a major logistics company present a national security threat, an expert said The government would bolster its security check system to prevent China from infiltrating the nation’s medical cold chain, a national security official said yesterday. The official, who wished to stay anonymous, made the remarks after the Chinese-language magazine Mirror Media (鏡周刊) reported that Pharma Logistics (嘉里醫藥物流) is in charge of the medical logistics of about half of the nation’s major hospitals, including National Taiwan University Hospital and Taipei Veterans General Hospital. The company’s parent, Kerry TJ Logistics Co (嘉里大榮物流), is associated with the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the
RSS