China's software outsourcing industry is considerably smaller than its much-heralded counterpart in India but it is growing fast, and unlike Indian firms, many Chinese companies are working on cutting-edge product development for the world's major technology firms, rather than information technology (IT) projects for back offices。
"We are going to double our size by the end of this year," said Jacob Hsu, chief executive officer of Symbio, a software outsourcing company based in Beijing. Symbio has about 1,500 staff and more clients place bigger projects with the company. Clients include many major technology companies, such as Nokia, Eriksson, IBM, Microsoft and PayPal. Symbio is not alone. Beijing-based Vanceinfo Technologies has more than 9,000 staff and plans to more than double its workforce to 20,000 over the next two to three years. Its clients include Microsoft, Tibco and Expedia。
China's software outsourcing revenue from the offshore market will climb to $6.8 billion in 2013, or 16.2 percent of the worldwide market, from $2.4 billion in 2008, according to market researcher IDC. That is growth of 23 percent a year, compared with the forecast worldwide average of 6.2 percent over the same period。
Price is not the key factor for Western companies to outsource their software development to China. "Compared with India, in fact, China's rate is not very cheap," said Hsu. In Hsu's view, Western companies come to China to tap a different source of talent. Most Indian firms work on IT projects for back offices, information management systems for their various business processes, said Hsu. These require people who understand the "domain expertise" - for example, how Citibank works internally。
China's engagement with the world economy is more recent. "They have expertise in Chinese business processes but not Western," said Hsu. The domain expertise for developing back-end office systems is not there. Moreover, the language barrier makes it even harder for Chinese developers to work on projects involving Western business processing. "Overall, we expect Chinese firms to face tough competition from Indian IT services firms in this segment," said Wei of JP Morgan. On the other hand, "China is good at basic technology and engineering. There are many universities training students to be great software engineers," said Hsu, "Also, China is a big market for technology products, such as mobile phones, Internet portals, social networks and so forth. Developers here can develop cutting-edge technology products."香港《亚洲时报》7月7日文章，原题：中国的软件技能领先与名列前茅的印度同行相比，中国的软件外包业规模还相当小，但成长却非常迅速。与印度公司不同，许多中国公司在为全球主要科技企业做前沿技术产品开发，而非像印度那样做客户支持IT项目。
软件外包商信必优北京公司的CEO雅各布-许说：“我们的员工人数预计今年年底会翻番。”该公司拥有1500名员工，更多客户将更大项目委托给他们。该公司客户包含诺基亚、IBM和爱立信等。信必优不是唯一一家。北京的文思信息技术有限公司现有9000名雇员，计划在今后两三年内扩展到2万人。其客户包括微软和全球最大网络旅游公司Expedia等。
市场调研公司IDC预测，中国的软件外包从离岸市场获得的收入将由2008年的24亿美元攀升到2013年的68亿，或者说是占全球市场的16.2%。那将意味着每年23%的增长，而在同一时期，全世界的平均增长预计为6.2%。
价格并不是西方公司将其软件开发业务外包给中国的主要因素。雅各布-许说：“与印度相比，中国的价钱并不很便宜。”西方公司来中国是为了利用不同的人才资源。多数印度公司从事后台IT支持和信息管理，许说。这就要求参与人员懂得一些特殊行业的商业知识，比如花旗银行内部如何运作。
而中国参与世界经济是新近的事。“他们拥有中国商业活动的知识技能，却不具备西方的，”许说。他们没有开发后端支持系统的专门技术。而语言障碍令中国开发人员参与西方商业项目变得更加困难。“中国公司将面临来自印度的激烈竞争”，摩根大通的迪克-魏如是说。而另一方面，许说：”中国擅长基础科技和基础工程。许多大学培养学生成为优秀的软件工程师。中国还是一个科技产品的大市场，比如手机、门户和社交网站等。这里的软件开发人员能够研发前沿科技产品。” |