Fast crash

So much for the debate on whether it will turn out to be a fast or a slow crash. You could say the fast crash has happened to me. The entire R&D department got axed, including myself, my wife, even the CTO (and later on, his wife too), and another two long-time colleagues.

We have built a software platform to be proud of, which has been deployed to hundreds of customer sites worldwide - with major customers including Sun Microsystems, HP, and Motorola, among others. We have reduced costs by integrating open-source libraries into the system. We have automated almost everything that there was to be automated - builds, testing, everything. But all that is in the past now ...

I have been blogging on the race to the bottom, on the massive job cuts happening across the tech industry, on how India and China have been 10x cheaper than the Americans and at least 2-3x cheaper than even us in Singapore. Well, it's happened - that particular wave has hit. R&D activities will soon be moved to China - and the Singapore R&D team is to be sacrificed.

Comments:

This is the beginning of the end.

Posted by Lee Gwun Wai on March 09, 2005 at 11:30 AM SGT #

Ouch! Well, I'll keep coming to your site every day! It is in my Mozilla multi bookmark for the day! Good luck on finding a new job! It shouldn't be too hard! You seem like an exceptionally smart guy!

Posted by Mats Henricson on March 09, 2005 at 08:22 PM SGT #

This is silly! It's not that cheap over there anymore. The time for outsourcing has come and gone, actually. Whoever tries to convert these days will be ultimate loser. Ask about loyalty of IT workers in Bangalore. Ask about how much a two-bedroom flat costs there. If China is lagging behind in this regard, they'll catch up soon. A price of roundtrip ticket for management will nullify any perceived savings.

Posted by Denis on March 10, 2005 at 03:36 AM SGT #

I hope you succeed in the hunt soon! If anything, your site has made me more aware of peak oil and the other side of technological issues.

Still, I believe you shouldn't give up writing totally.

Posted by Vernon Chan on March 11, 2005 at 11:19 AM SGT #

Bad luck mate - hope you find a new job soon.

Remember - the next wave for the software industry is building web based services (think Salesforce.com) - you should have skills that can be applied in that area - find someone who is starting a company along those lines - or start one yourself.

Posted by Big Gav on March 11, 2005 at 09:24 PM SGT #

Hi Ee Mien,

Remember me? Your old course mate from NTU. Been reading your blog. My coy have a headhunter dept, maybe u like to sent me yr email address and i make contact with them for you.

Cheers!
Weng Kong

Posted by woo weng kong on March 13, 2005 at 09:44 PM SGT #