I agree with Martin in several different ways. I think there is a difference between "offshoring" labour intensive work vs.consulting services. Software development has both, however, the headcount involved in what can be called skilled labour in software services is very large. Software Development or the 'techie' function is divided into Development, Architecture, QA, BA, Maintenance etc. Its typically maintenance types of projects that require the headcounts. But, the software indiustry in India should not be misunderstood as only that. It may have very big volumes in business' requiring headcounts, but it is not only limited to that. Coming to UXD, it's a far more niche segment around the world in comparision to the rest of software industry. In fact, most Design related fields always have been. The largest Design companies (across Design fields) tend to be much smaller than the smallest sized Software Devleopment companies in India. Design, was never about numbers. In theory, I believe the same when it comes to UXD. In India, there is a sort of a small company movement in Design, and it has always been around since the first professionally trained design entrepreneurs set up shop. That movement has also set in for HCI and related Design fields. The interesitng thing is, a lot of large IT comapanies have smaller "Excelence" or "Practice" groups unde the name of UX, Usability or HCI etc; along side small independent UXD consulting groups all ove rthe country. So far, these groups collaborate woith each other very well. Our own group is a good example of such phenomenon. Many of our own clients happen to be IT firms in India who have their own little practices in UX and collaborate with us for advanced specialization or for training. The nature of Design as a profession has been historically about the quality of professionals and their work. That is why I agree with the fact that "offshoring" in this field needs a different kind of meaning and interpretation. It's more of a "intellectual resource collaboration".
Atul N Joshi Design Director, Design Incubator R&D Labs (P) Ltd, Mumbai - India Info: www.designincubator.com Mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
