>My sense is that outsourced work is tedious, mostly data maintenance stuff. Sure it's cheap - but the customer has to do all the leg work - prototype, specifications -,

The front page of the UT could not have been timelier:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech/08/11/training.replacements.ap/index.html

>It may be cheaper - but remember - quality or quantity - North America is as famous for software as it it is for movies and music.
>
>Has India written and produced a "Quake III", "Matrix" (the first movie), "Turbo Tax" or "FoxPro" or "Foxy Lady" (Jimi, ok-maybe thats a UK thing:-)), or a "UT". No - they mostly do batch maintenance and they make their money off the time it takes to develop the design, specifications and debug.
>
>As always, you get what you pay for. I, myself, don't want to compete for low end server maintenance or scripting - it's boring.
>
>When we start using "Made in India" programming tools - then it will be time for a little self evaluation.

Microsoft is already outsourcing to India - whilst it might not be the core tools, OS and Office, it surely will not be long;

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=microsoft+outsource+india