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Paula Rooney at InformationWeek – Microsoft’s Oasis Pushes More App Dev Offshore:
Microsoft is pushing more of its internal application development work offshore as part of a project called Oasis.
Oasis aims to hand over more of its internal systems development and business application development work to a handful of global systems integrators including Infosys, Wipro, Tata, EDS and BearingPoint, said sources familiar with the plan.Partners that currently engage in application development work for Microsoft’s IT group must now go through a new process, sources said. Oasis, however, has no impact on Microsoft’s product development efforts or partners that develop products with Microsoft, sources said. “The initiative is being pushed by Microsoft’s internal IT organization,” said one source familiar with the Oasis project. “The IT group is pushing business units to work through key partners to ensure privacy and security standards are met and Microsoft is getting the best cost deal.”
A Microsoft spokesman indicates that the “offshoring” aspect is secondary to the procedure change.
Reuters via CNET:
That all changed in 2005, in what became a string of investments in local partners aimed at advancing or cementing its software and Internet businesses.
In the latest, Microsoft said Monday that it and International Finance, the World Bank’s private sector arm, would together invest $35 million in software maker Chinasoft International.
In May, Microsoft announced the creation of two ventures for its MSN Internet service in China, saying the development would allow it to offer services running “the full gamut of a true Internet portal” in the market–including services targeted at China’s 370 million mobile phone users.
In June, the company unveiled plans to team with Indian software outsourcing leader Tata Consultancy and several Chinese partners to form an IT outsourcing firm, which the investors hoped would serve as a model for Chinese firms hoping to replicate India’s outsourcing success.
And in July, Microsoft agreed to invest $25 million in Hong Kong-listed Lang Chao International, a unit of a larger Chinese software maker.
More on Microsoft’s ups and downs in China by following the link.
Story from Reuters via CNET:
HYDERABAD, India–Microsoft plans to double its staff strength at its Indian centers in Hyderabad and Bangalore by March 2006, a company executive said late on Saturday.
“We aim to ramp up the strength at the India Development Center (in Hyderabad) by another 1,000 professionals,” Tess Field, Microsoft’s head of human resources in India, told reporters on the sidelines of a management convention.
Gene Johnson of the AP reports Ex-Microsoft exec alleges incompetence:
In testimony during a hearing on Microsoft’s lawsuit against Lee and Google, Lee said he wrote a memo to another Microsoft executive saying he was “deeply disappointed at our incompetence in China — that we have wasted so many years in China with little to show for it.”
Lee went on to say in the e-mail that he was embarrassed by Microsoft’s business practices and that people in the government joke about Microsoft’s internal politics. But he provided few details in his testimony Tuesday about what exactly the Chinese government was frustrated with.
The former executive testified that one of the lowest moments of his career with Microsoft was a conversation in which Gates yelled at him and said that the company had been “f—–” by the Chinese people and its government. Lee did not clarify the context of Gates’ comments.
…
In his testimony, Lee also complained that Microsoft had more than 20 business groups operating virtually autonomously in China, with little cohesion.Among other problems, Lee said, was a commitment Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer made in 2002 to outsource $100 million in work to China. Within the last year, after it had become clear that Microsoft wasn’t fulfilling this promise, Lee said, he was put in charge of outsourcing jobs to China.
Why does this seem like a particularly nasty divorce trial? I guess that’s what it is.
Update: Ina Fried notes an interesting email between two of Lee’s former Microsoft employees and Todd Bishop reveals that even the godfather made an appearance.
