TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
There seems to be a rising tide of incidents of information security problems when offshoring is done hastily and without proper controls. About a week ago, for example, there was a story about one company who had its core application code misappropriated by a contractor in Eastern Europe.
I know from personal experience that most software from the West is available in Russia and Ukraine approximately as fast as it is available in the U.S.--generally for under $2 per CD. When visiting Kyiv, Ukraine, on two occasions, I saw vendors in flea markets and at subway stations hawking the latest apps from Corel, Adobe, Microsoft, and Oracle, just to name a few.
When I was tech writing for Nokia, inadequate supervision of the contractors from India was resulting in millions of dollars in overpayments each year just for one of the switches whose software engineering was being done there.
Personally, I would think that anyone contemplating moving programming jobs offshore should consider it only for those activities which are not core to their business. The supervision and control of these core businesses simply seems to me to be better controlled locally.
David
-----Original Message from Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>-----
I don't this stands up very well as a "reason not to
offshore." Lax security and careless handling of data
are hardly unique to foreign countries (hell, most of
the "data-related" crimes you can think of were invented
in the US), and the poor management that produces them
would probably happen no matter where a badly-run firm
set up shop. I think our personal data is just as safe
in India or Ireland as it is in Dallas or Chicago
(which is to say, not very safe at all).
RoboHelp for FrameMaker is a NEW online publishing tool for FrameMaker that
lets you easily single-source content to online Help, intranet, and Web.
The interface is designed for FrameMaker users, so there is little or no
learning curve and no macro language required! Call 800-718-4407 for
competitive pricing or download a trial at: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l4
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
