Mercury News column on benefits of offshoring jobs

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Column for Politech
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 17:33:45 -0800
From: Helft, Miguel <MHelft () mercurynews com>
To: 'declan () well com' <declan () well com>

Offshore complexities: Jobs there mean jobs here

LOOK AT STARTUP TASMAN NETWORKS AND YOU'LL SEE THAT KNEE-JERK CRITICISM IS
SIMPLISTIC AND MYOPIC

By Miguel Helft

When critics point fingers at companies that send white-collar jobs
overseas, they focus their anger on America's technology giants.
That's understandable. When an HP, an IBM or an Oracle hires workers
overseas instead of here, it's easy -- too easy -- to lash out indignantly.
Here's what the critics often say: These are hugely profitable companies
that could absorb the higher costs of keeping more jobs in Silicon Valley,
if only they cared. They could earn a little less for their shareholders or
pay their executives more reasonable salaries. They don't because they are
greedy, callous and unpatriotic.
But it's harder to slap the ``Benedict Arnold CEO'' label on Paul Smith, the
45-year-old chief executive of Tasman Networks, a San Jose-based startup
that makes routers and is competing with the likes of Cisco. Yet Tasman's
story shows why the knee-jerk criticism of any company sending jobs overseas
is simplistic and myopic.
[...]
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/columnists/miguel_helft/8206487.htm

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