Outsource: Competing in the Global Productivity Race
By Edward Yourdon
Prentice Hall PTR October 2004
272 pages, $27.99
The best thing about this work by consultant Yourdon, author of Decline and Fall of the American Programmer, is that he puts the issue of outsourcing into perspective. As he points out, the concept isn’t new: After all, England “outsourced” textile production to its American colonies. A quick trip to your local Wal-Mart will show you that mass-market goods are produced wherever good quality and low labor costs meet. The latest hue and cry about outsourcing, of course, involves knowledge workers. But that, Yourdon argues, is just the logical next step as we move to a knowledge-based economy. Want to protect your job? Make yourself invaluable, he argues.