Google Bangalore Zurich

outsourcing or cheap labour

[ds98127]

hi just saw an old thread on google's centre in bangalore , the topic was closed (for good reasons may be ) but i had something to ask
1-) when google opened a centre in Zurich why were no such questions asked
2-) Do those who talk about "intellect " know how many indians are working in google in USA and what percentage of new hires happen to be Indians(in USA) purely on basis of merit..
3-) I know people have their doubts about others intellect but honestly being a webmaster is very low on what yu call "tech" ...
Where does adobe's latest offering in publishing come from? Where did GE decide to shift its european research centre to( was that for cheap labour as well)? Where does Aston Martin plan to design its cars ( i mean of course the luxury end segment has money on mind ..isn't it )? plus a lot of blah blah blah..Just check out how many fortune 500 companies are opening R&D centres in India?

What kind of a guy thinks somebody invests in R&D for cheap? Some webmaster who knows php mysql flash html ..and a long list of "diplomas" as we call them...

By the way just look out for where 10% of IBM's patents come from ... its just one guy ...the next3 % come from his brother incidentally .

It is really strange how some "SOME" guys can pass judgements about high end tech and the merits of those decisions ..

There is a problem that has been flummoxing people for decades ..involves RSA encryption and finding out if a number is prime .. some 22 year guys fixed it.. confirmed by Bell labs themselves ... these guys rejected offers from MIT for a phd .. go get a break..
before talking about cheap labour or intellect ... learn that there is no correlation ... Would you invest even a million to get a new product line just because someone does it cheap...?
Just questioning a few assumptions ....
Prost
Niko

[Sinner_G]

>1-) when google opened a centre in Zurich why were no such questions asked

Do I really understand your question? Are you really asking why nobody thought the move to Switzerland was about cheap labour? Can't really believe that.

[ds98127]

The Zurich issue was not about cheap labour. Having lived in switzerland i know what costs are ..(specially chips are so expensive grrr..)
The issue was that people argued on the need to go to india cuz there are enough people available in USA ...same thing holds for zurich too.
(Please don't bring up the language issue ..algorithms and "hi tech" work is in english and there is no dearth of german, french and other language speakers in USA who are great programmers as well...)

[Sinner_G]

Sorry, but I will have to bring up the language issue nonetheless, as I don't think there are that many good programmers in the US who speak english AND french AND german fluently.

Then, there are economics to be taken into account. No really large firm that wants to be international can afford to concentrate its R&D in only 1 country. Even in the time of the worldwide web, companies have to get a feeling for the different markets.

And finally, there are lots of Europeans who would never emigrate to the US but would consider a move to Switzerland.

As to why Switzerland and not another European country, this has been discussed at length in the Google News thread [webmasterworld.com].

[ds98127]

I am all for the move to switzerland ... i posted on that thread myself . Your argument on establishing foreign bases has sound logic . The issue was that noone wondered as to why Google needs to shift to zurich when so many programmers ara available in USA while these very people where hell bent on this in the google bangalore question.
About language issues as far as tech is concerned .. No
As far as a language market proliferation is concerned ..YES ..i dare say that if you look at presence/Research need ratio it is much higher for zurich than bangalore.
The issue is that compared to manhattan european presence is cheaper as well...
"A lot of europeans could shift to switzerland but not to USA "
I am sorry but for such a niche critical intellect base ... these issues do not come into prominence...(europe/usa location)
It is not about normal jobs. May be this is because of I am an indian myself ..but i find it hard to believe that someone has a great intellect , is passionate about this sector but would work for "myfriendlyneighbourhood" company in europe than USA ...
keeping politics aside , my personal experiences with most hi tech people in europe convinced me that the desire for USA is as passionate amongst a majority of europeans as Indians are accused of having :-)...it is genrally those who can't make it who gripe about" my lovely village with forests etc etc " ..i respect these choices but would appreciate it a bit more if these guys "had" a chance...there is a lot of hypocrisy pretty blatant on that count in europe.."sour grapes" may i say ... It is about a system more than anything else and funding available for core ideas. There is a reason why switzerland with such high salaries had to start with "COME " or "NCCR" unless all their good guys were movin to USA .... i have seen the spending on the 16 or so core projects and it is HUGE , and my own project leader is moving to USA next year...
Coming back to "i would work in europe not USA " it is not at all just a european privelage... a lot of Indians can have that too...Just that it "might" be difficult to believe... I gave up my job woth daimler chrysler at their "VRCC"(virtual reality competence centre) in Ulhm.. Of course if I would work for their new centre in india it would be cheap labour ..
The problem is never amongst those who are truly in the circles that belong to this high end sector ... it is mostly amongst the middle and low level snobs who complain about it ... I am sorry but these jobs are not even available for most of these guys who complain ...
cheers
Niko
P.S
My wingmate works for google ..... I know this guy would shift to India in 4-5 years ... would yu count that as cheap labour then... People everywhere in this world make choices on where they could work..and a european choice is not holier than an Indian...plus we don't go into pubs talking about ethnic communities...most europeans i knew where trying hard to shift to USA ..far more than i saw amongst my fiends ... one works for google..another is dep rank 1 at stanford ..bla bla .. Those who work in such communties know and give credit where it is due ..it is the middle rankers who anyhow would not get it that complain... my 2 cents

[troels nybo nielsen]

I can assure you that there are many Europeans of very high intellectual (and otherwise) level who would never dream of emigrating to the USA. And I am sure that exactly the same is true of India. An American company that is not inhibited by provincialism or ignorance about history might consider this to be a very good reason for outsourcing to India and to Europe.

Who cares what WebmasterWorld's members think and say and write about Google's decisions? I don't. I don't think you should either.

[ds98127]

neils : i respect those choices ..made by those who do "have" them ..and can appreciate and understand it as well... about opinions of members here ... i know i can't infuse reason or tolerance .. nor do i have time to preach .. but if members of the webcommunity and specially "webmasters" feel like that, it is a pity..
there are so many projects people work on that aid development amongst people who can't afford them ..including medical software that prevents poor from being at the mercy of these monoliths (MNC's)
and most of the people who work on these are rich, (I am a brown so can i say) "white" (to make it blunt ) techs ...... why the hell do they do that..i always found the web community to be a standard for benchamrk..
cuz if the guys on internet have such a parochial view ... there is bad news for humanity....
I can understand feelings against "call centre" job shifts ... but in kind of jobs like "google" ...?
... if yu think they are to cut costs , yu are naive ..
that workers here are cheaper is incidental ... and makes it a great busines decision ..the value is only incremental.... google is a brand .. yu think they would allow an yearly saving of 10 million dollars to mar it with stupid indian guys ....we will see it at the IPO ... distinguish between manufacturing and R&D..

cheers
Niko

[lawman]

Whatever point(s) was/were trying to be made have been. Thread locked.