Bangalore has two things working against it right now. One, as Chris pointed out, the demand for programmers is so high and jobs so plentiful that wages are rising quickly. Dont like working at Potani? Go down the block to Oracle and demand a little more money. They'll pay it. But Jim is still right that the money they make is still semi-trivial compared to an American programmer. I know last year it cost about $20/hr for off-shore development, that's a far cry from $40-50+/hr for a comparable entry level American - and lets not get ahead of ourself and say the code comming back from India is good, because it's not. So you have to look at that and say "is it worth it to pay a guy $20 more an hour for the same job?"

What are the benefits of hiring the American?
1. He/she probably speaks english as a first language.
2. The engineering who's worked 20 years at the same job will talk to 100 Americans before he talks to an Indian.
3. They're in the same timezone. I didnt realize how much of a problem this was until I was getting up at 5:30 to be in meetings at 7:00 because that was like 3:00 pm off-shore.

The second thing going against Bangalore is it's infrastructure. A Brother that lives on campus (ex-president of the university) spent the summer in Bangalore and said their roads, sewers, water lines, power - etc couldnt handle the explosion of jobs and population. Evidently the city is not the nicest place in the world to live, which means to fix it they're going to need more money - more money means more taxes - more taxes means overhead cost per hour has gone up so an American company pays more for off-shore development.

I guess it's capitalism's way of evening everything out. But as programming jobs are influx, we'll still need people to manage both on and off shore teams. That's a whole other can of worms you dont want me to be on my soap-box on

 

One thing the article I posted says is that the expected savings in outsourcing has gone from 50% to 10-20%. At that level, its much less attractive to move operations to India and have to deal with time zone differences, language problems, etc. In that light, companies will probably choose to keep operations here or find some other new place to send stuff off too, until that place's costs rise as well.

If you leave it alone, the free market usually finds an equillibrium, but too many have been taught to fear unfettered capitalism to trust it. Not saying we shouldn't protect individual rights from corporate abuses at all, but mucking with supply & demand through tariffs and restrictions almost never works out for the better.

 

Being gainfully employed in the industry, I strongly disagree with the 10-20% number. It's WAY higher than that. I can tell you right now that every single project we bid on has to compete with and/or integrate with offshore companies.

 

I disagree.

I live in one of those smaller rural communities that has a super Walmart. This is a community of 14,000, and Walmart alone has employed over 150 people. The majority of these people have benefits (appx 75%). Local companies built the Walmart, and local services service it. The local people who got jobs there are guaranteed job security, and the majority of them have benefits, in an age where more and more companies are dropping their benefits (Me and my son have none).

Talk to the actual employees, and see how they like their jobs, and Walmart. This would really open your eyes. The majority of them love their jobs, as Walmart is very family oriented, and very good to work for. They actually treat their employees with respect, and as an extended family.

Their wages are not high (at least not on the bottom rung), but have allowed alot of these people to have a good standard of living.

While Walmart may put some mom and pop operations out of business, it is not as much as you may think. The majority of small business failures in small communities is bad management, and a lack of a true understanding of the economy in their area. Here in Payson, the busy season is from spring to fall. Other than that, it is dead. People open business's in March, and then fold in December because they did not anticipate the lack of winter customers.

I have seen it time and time again here.

Our super Home Depot is under construction right now. It will also employ 150 people, and the majority will also have benefits. There are 3 hardware stores here currently. For the most part they rape the locals with their pricing, which makes many of them head for the Phx Metro area to shop (about 80 miles away). This actually takes money away from the local economy, as they purchase food, fuel, and other things while down there.

My husband is looking to get on to work at Walmart as a truck driver. It is VERY difficult to get a job with them, as they are VERY picky about who they hire, and very few people quit (most who work their consider it their last job). However, for $80K a year, and excellent benefits, it is worth the difficulty.

 

Oh, btw, as a sign that Fords recovery is working.......... Ford brand cars were up 3% in sales in December. This is the first increase in sales for Ford cars all year. This coincides with better availability of new car models.

Also, the Ford brand had an overall increase of 2% for December.

This says that as Ford starts to give more attention to Mercury and Lincoln, that their sales will start to increase also.

How did Chevrolet do sales wise???

 

I don't know if i should admit this , but two of my last 3 girlfriends were wal-mart employees (Norfolk/Va. Beach, Va), and my cousin had dated one back during our college days (Atlanta)...all in all i've known about 15 people that have worked there at some point in their lives, and only 1-2 had anything good to say about it

 

The discussion was about the rural communities. Sorry I didn't specify.

There is a big difference. In a small rural area like this, finding a job with security and benefits is next to impossible.

This is probably a major factor in the like/dislike of employees. In the major cities, there are all kinds of employment opportunities. Also, the employee makeup is entirely different also. In the big cities, due to the wages, you will find alot of young people working there. Here in small area, we have alot of older people working there. The older people have more realistic expectations when it comes to jobs, due to their experience. Young people have a tendency to think they should get everything for nothing.

Do realize that the above is a generalization, and does not relect the attitudes of all young people. However, it certainly is reflective of many.

 

Thanks to LightningGal for bringing some balance to the wallyword debate.

As for the original subject of this thread, Guy is dead on. GM must get its act together and start building great cars again or the market share is going to continue to dive. The SUV craze has saturated I believe and there's no more share to be gained there.

 

Chevrolet sold 2,763,238 vehicles in 2004.
Ford sold 2,778,678.

Vehicle to vehicle sales:
Impala vs Taurus:
290,259 vs 248,148

Mustang vs Monte Carlo (Mustang was out of production 3 months this year):
129,858 vs 57,679

Cavalier vs Focus:
195,275 vs 208,339

Thunderbird vs Corvette:
11,998 vs 35,276

And in case some of you others were wondering:
GM still sold 127 new Camaros, 206 Auroras, 5 Chevy Prizms, & 109 Firebirds. All long discontinued.

GM's best selling cars: Impala at #1. Cavalier at 195,275 was #2. The new Malibu was 3rd at 179,806 (Classics still sold 88,211)

Ford's: Taurus #1, #2 Focus at 208,339. Third was Mustang ( ) at 129,858. Not bad for a car that missed production 1/4 of the year.

 

Monte Carlo is below Camaro's approx 60,000 mark when Camaro was such a bad seller. And they haven't yanked Monte advertising...

Which is why I think its a mistake to change the Camaro formula too radically. The perceived poor sales were not nearly as bad as we were led to believe. First, advertizing ceased completely, that had to hurt. Second, even w/o ads, Camaro and Firebird were still near 100,000K units annually during the last couple of years. Poor sales was a manufactured situation.

All we really need is an updated, modern take on the original pony car idea and a freaking advertising budget!

 

I have plenty of friends who are working internship/entry-levels jobs in Boston, New York or London. Not a single one is making a real living or has a halfway decent lifestyle. For people that are no longer under 25, that's pretty embarrassing. The sad truth is that it's pretty hard to make a living these days, and despite the admonitions of our elders, the babyboomers had it easier.

 

So true.

 

No, the MN12 Thunderbird was killed due to a manufactured reason: Poor Sales, and a falling coupe market. Consider: The Thunderbird was outselling the Monte Carlo (approx 70,000 cars annually) when it was killed, and had a high customer satisfaction for quality at a time GM seemed to be letting their cars go to pot.

It was relatively expensive to produce, but Ford wasn't losing money on it. Ford simply wanted to boost the sales of it's relatively ugly but huge profit margined Lincoln Mark VIII, and figured that killing the lower margin 'Bird was the way to boost sluggish sales. Guess a better design didn't cross their minds.



The Camaro's last full calender year of productiuon (2001) only 35,453 were sold. 25,743 Firebirds were sold that year. Combined that's just 61,196.

Unlike the Camaro & Firebird, the Monte Carlo is made on the same assembly line that produces at least half million other GM cars with the same chassis & components, not a separate underutilized factory (capable of making 200,000 cars per year!) with it's own chassis and components shared with no other car.

Also, Monte Carlo has a whole market to itself (low & modest priced full sized coupes). Monte is also a single car with single marketing costs, also UNlike the f-body twins. With 4500+ Chevy dealers, each dealer sold only 7 Camaros per year, average to Ford dealer's roughly 35 Mustangs per year at 4,000 dealers or less.

There was a ton of reasons why the Camaro and Firebird died. Ever since I researched that story and came across all the strikes against the cars, I'll say this a hundred times, it's a profound credit to Redplanet and the guys attached to the Camaro program that the Camaro (and Firebird) lasted as long as it did!

By right, it would have died alot earlier.

 

OK, you are right as usual Guy

That's what I get for pulling production numbers out of my cob-webbed brain then drawing conclusions based on my faulty memory!

 

The underutilized factory is a great point... Sharing a platform with more than one other car, like it presumably would do on Zeta, should help rectify that, and present a business case with a much lower sales number needed to be worthwile.