Over here or over there

Offshoring is that rare phenomenon capable of inflaming social critics, the general press, technologists, and even politicians. It affects our livelihoods, our prospects, even our identities. It’s an incendiary issue. It’s also a very personal one. Most of us know people whose tech jobs have been outsourced. (I know even more people whose jobs have simply gone away, but that’s another story.) I don’t think those jobs are coming back.

Nor do I believe that my own tribe of editors and writers is immune simply because we’re versed in the vagaries of slinging nouns and predicates. English is rapidly becoming the universal language; a well-educated citizen of a foreign county, schooled in the King’s English, will command less money than I.

So I have no illusions about the matter. But railing against the tide is pointless. The trend is not reversing; it’s accelerating. According to IDC, offshore IT labor will deliver $16 billion in value to U.S. companies this year. By 2007 that figure should reach $46 billion.

Like it or not, offshoring is an IT reality. Simply put, you need to deal with it.

In that spirit, we present this special, single-topic issue. With no hand-wringing, little proselytizing, even less flag-waving, we’ve attempted to home in on a few points: When does offshoring make sense, when doesn’t it, and how can you make either approach work most effectively?

Our centerpiece, “To offshore … or not,” looks at both scenarios from a practical point of view. Part I, “Weighing the benefits of outsourcing,” examines the most-promising offshoring scenarios, offers a bird’s-eye view from Bangalore, India, and even runs down a few of the Web-based tools that can make remote software development go more smoothly. Part II, “The option of staying stateside,” looks at the kinds of jobs and projects that are best kept local and suggests some effective strategies for staying competitive.

Not to be outdone, the Test Center’s “Closing the collaboration gap” digs into two prominent software configuration management apps from Merant and VA Software. SCM is a critical tool for distributed software development — key for offshore projects. This deep-dive review paints a clear picture of each package’s respective strengths and weaknesses.

Our columnists take their whacks as well. Ephraim Schwartz chats up a venture capital general partner and an offshoring company CEO to present a cautionary tale about outsourcing run amok. Jon Udell puts a human face on overseas development and offers some broad prescriptions on how the United States can compete. Chad Dickerson offers his take on the challenges of software development, here and abroad. And Tom Yager follows with some hardheaded observations about the forces and conditions that are advancing the trend.