Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[Teri Garner]

Overseas outsourcing could pose problems for tech sector

Jeff Meisner
Staff Writer

When Rajeev Agarwal left Microsoft Corp. in March 2000 to start his own custom software development firm, he knew it would be difficult to find qualified programmers here.

"They wanted $100,000 per year plus options," said the founder and CEO of Redmond-based Maq Software Inc. "At that time, I couldn't come up with a business plan that made sense with that cost structure."

A few months later, Maq opened a software development facility in Bombay, India, where Agarwal said the costs of recruiting talented programmers is one-fourth what it is here.

Today, the 50-employee firm has 10 workers in Redmond, with the balance in Bombay. Several other Puget Sound-area companies -- including Amazon.com Inc., vCustomer Corp., RealNetworks Inc. and Click2learn Inc. -- also have large numbers of employees overseas.

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2003/08/11/story3.html