>>>So I came into a new job where I will complement (eventually replace) an offshore outsourced team. I am working on one of their .NET websites. First of all, they are reading Excel data using Jet, which is good because it uses the .NET base libraries. However, I believe they thought they needed to open the Excel document using the Office components before they read the data, which is bad because it requires us to install freaking Excel on the web server. So I opened their solution and removed this dependency, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to actually roll out the new version. It appears they have 2-3 Web projects, all of which roll out to the same folder so the roots of the three projects are the same folder. There is no documentation. I can't request documentation because it's some sort of holiday in India.
>>>
>>>GRRRRRR.
>>>
>>>I blame the outsourced team for being stupid and not showing any sort of consideration (required Excel to be installed on the web server, using the same root, making the rollouts require manual steps) and my employer (not requiring higher standards).
>>>
>>>I need a beer.
>>
>>Glad to see at least one company is on-shoring (??????) some of their work.
>>
>>But it is hard to imagine an American company choosing quality over price.
>
>I wonder. I read somewhere that there have been enough problems with offshore projects that companies are getting a little more astute about it.

I'm biased.......primarily because I lost my job to an Indian who had zero FoxPro exposure, introductory knowledge of SQL and 5 years of COBOL.

My step-son worked at a company that outsourced to India. At the big meeting somebody brought up the quality issue and the "if you can't afford to do it right, how can you afford to do it over?" question. The answer was very open. For what they are saving it didn't matter how many tries it took to get it right.