Outsourcing in a more connected world

In today's issue, we highlight a couple of stories on outsourcing. It's been interesting to watch the market evolve over the last few years. I remember interviewing a Silicon Valley CEO a couple of years ago who made the case that while salaries for engineers were much lower in India than in the Valley, it wouldn't last forever. It now appears that salaries are beginning to rise in India and outsourcers are beginning to look for talent elsewhere--many are turning to China, Canada and even back to the United States. It's clear that India's value will have to expand beyond delivering just cost advantages if it is to continue to attract the demand it has so effectively and aggressively garnered over the past 5 years or so. Indeed, the global outsourcing market is poised for change in the next year or so and that the action will no longer be the exclusive domain of India. We'll see a lot more companies find partners in China and many will begin setting up shop in the U.S or Canada--just as Wipro announced it would do this week and as Microsoft reported a few weeks ago. To further prove the new trend, Francisco Partners, a technology investment firm, has said that it would invest $48 million in private equity into DarwinSuzsoft, a Chinese IT outsourcing firm. Please feel free to bring me up to date on your offshore outsourcing plans...I'd like to provide as full a picture as possible about the evolving outsourcing patterns. Enjoy the issue. -Patty