As I pick my way through Indian news and newsmakers during my visit here, it's becoming abundantly clear that looking at India as a source of competition for the West is only half the story. Consider the following major outsourcing deals struck in 2007, all happening in India:
IBM wins five-year Vodaphone outsourcing deal mentioned above; value unknown, but expected to be several hundred million dollars
IBM wins a 10-year outsourcing deal from a large local mobile communications player, Idea Cellular, worth between $600 and $800 million.
The fact is, India (and China, etc.) present a huge opportunity not just for US corporations to offer their wares and services, but also for US technology workers willing to look beyond US shores. As the "wage arbitrage" between US and Indian salaries continues to dissipate and US corporations like IBM, HP, Dell, and others make increasingly wider inroads into the Indian markets, it seems only a question of time before US IT workers find opportunities to help large Indian outsourcing deals succeed, and to share their expertise with Indian companies implementing cutting-edge technologies in areas such as business process management, complex application architecture, enterprise data management and business intelligence... significant cultural and other differences notwithstanding.
The opportunities will arise, but the question is, is the US technology worker willing to brave the journey?