[ColinCera]

Every problem he mentions, except the timezone difference, is exactly the same when you're outsourcing to large IT consulting companies in the US. The only difference is the US companies charge 5x-20x more for their crappy deliverables.

How many people here have worked with a major IT consultancy in the US? How many were satisfied with the process and result? I would be astonished if even 5 out of 100 projects outsourced within the US turn out so well that customers say, "That was great, we can't wait to work with those consultants again."

As a veteran of half a dozen such projects using half a dozen different IT consulting firms, my experience was they were all terrible experiences, with rampant price-gouging (novice programmers billed at $300/hour, "senior" people at $600-1,000/hour), conflicts of interest, poor communication, etc., and the work products in every case were massive total failures (and no, they do not give refunds).

I don't put much stock in this article as a specific critique of India, but as an article about outsourcing in general it's dead-on accurate.