Have a lot of interesting stories I could tell about working with the Chinese in those early days (1st went there in 1989 just after TienAnMen).

They were a PITB to deal with at first and the ones IBM hired could be accused of being an 'arrogant elite'. But the changes that occured there between 1990 & today as so staggering as to contradict mt early opinions as to how far they had to shift to 'get real'.

The people one deals with there today are so transformed that the 15 year interval seems like a complete lifetime.

IN the past 3 years, the programmers my employer of that period empolyed (HK Telecom), were right on top of all the latest trends and technologies. If anything they seemed to be forging ahead compared to what I knew of IT back in Australia and what IT is still like back here now.

Re India
In the 1980s - I often had to train groups of Indian programmers in CICS Cobol & DB2, in New Zealand, brought in to do bulk contracts for short periods. They were also 'best of best' type people. I also spent time in India at different places and was always staggered by how hard the kids had to work to get on 'top' academically. (Saw same in China). I would never want to work continuosly as hard as I saw HK people work (one bad habit I saw in HK was that even when very sick, they would come to work (& spray germs on the rest of us), alsoIi often saw them forgo leave, they would rather be at work except for special family type holidays).

In Australia today there is a political bruha boiling over the fact that Australia's big Telecom company (1/2 govt owned) recently cut 400 or so IT professional jobs by outsourcing a chunk of the work to IBM who let the actual contract to an IBM joint venture with TISL (Tata Information System Ltd) in Bangalore India. Tata are an Indian conglomorate every bit as big as the traditional Jap & Korean Zaibatsu & Kiretsu.

The IT spokespeople here in Australia are making a lot of noise about this deal & some polititians are demanding the contract be reversed (no hope).

Things are changing for us in IT, it is a good time to keep a finger on the pulse of IT evolution as roles are undergoing significant changes.

Doug Marker