Obama wants less offshoring, as vendors see U.S. shift
President Barack Obama is trying to encourage U.S. companies not to send work overseas. This might not be as hard a job as it seems for some types of IT work.
A number of vendors believe offshore outsourcing is becoming less attractive and are working to make the most of this shift. Among them is a former CEO of the large IT services firm Keane, Brian Keane, who is setting up a new firm, Ameritas Technologies, to address the domestic IT services market. The Keane firm was recently sold to Japanese-based NTT Data Company.
Keane said his company will be "focusing on jobs that have gone offshore, but should have never gone offshore." Some software applications are strategic to a company and require extensive interaction with users, Keane said. Offshore developers "just don't understand how the application is being used," he said.
Stephanie Moore, an analyst at Forrester, agrees with this view. Read more...
High-skill visa reform needs action by Congress, Obama says
President Obama's administration has been tweaking U.S. immigration policy and making little changes where it can to try to encourage the type of immigrant it wants.
But Obama on Tuesday said that real changes to high-skill immigration policy will require action from Congress.
"On the high-skill immigration area, that's not something that we can necessarily do on our own," Obama said at a meeting of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
"We can expedite some of the visas that are already in place and try to streamline that process to make it move faster," the president said, but "we may need some legislative help on that area." Read more...