IBM moves 5000 programming jobs

WSJ: “…International Business Machines Corp. has told its managers to plan on moving the work of as many as 4,730 programmers to India, China and elsewhere. The unannounced plan, outlined in company documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal, would replace thousands of workers at IBM facilities in Southbury, Conn., Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Raleigh, N.C., Dallas, Boulder, Colo., and elsewhere in the U.S.” And: “A former IBM executive in India, Pawan Kumar, now chairman of closely held vMoksha Technologies PLC, an outsourcing firm there, says IBM has 9,000 people in India and plans to increase that to 20,000 by the end of 2005. Mr. Kumar says the cost advantages of hiring Indian programmers aren’t as large as the salary differentials imply, because building in India requires more investment in infrastructure and more spending on supervision to smooth communications between U.S. customers and workers in India. He says the true costs amount to about $100,000 in the U.S. and $50,000 in India for people to do the same work.”