EE Times -India software firms on terrorist radar — Underreported story with major implications.
BANGALORE, India –Police in India’s capital New Delhi who shot and killed three terrorists on Saturday night said that some of Bangalore’s software firms had been targeted by the slain terrorists.
According to a top police officer in New Delhi on Sunday, the terrorists had visited Bangalore in December and surveyed the locations of many software firms here. The police gathered this information from a diary seized from two captured associates of the slain terrorists. A military training academy was also a target, police said.
They said the killed and captured terrorists were from a well-known terror group called the Lashkar-e-Taiba. The police officer said the reason for targeting software firms in Bangalore was to hinder the country’s economic development.
Maybe there’s other objectives… Namely because many US firms now outsource so many IT jobs to India – could a company become in any way crippled, or at least it’s work in any way made more difficult, and as a result, less profitable, if their outsourced business is hit in India?
If so, this may be a concern to the US, because, with the notable exception of September 11, most terrorist attacks have been made in countries with far less security than the US – Ethiopia and the like – so called ‘softer’ targets… – or well established terrorist organizations – Spain for example. India
I don’t know, I was a programmer for many years, therefore I tend to be paranoid… I hope the US pays attention to this kind of possibility.
If you’re thinking this could slow down outsourcing. I doubt it. At the very worst, corporations will simply get insurance to cover such a problem. At the best, corporations will simply find a new place to outsource.
I don’t mean to throw cold water on someones business plan, but some of this global expansion just isn’t the greatest idea. U.S. tech companies have been outsourcing and setting up shop overseas in places like India for years. Sure we have our share of nuts here hellbent on destroying stuff in the USA, but we also have a working security system and some stability. I wouldn’t want to risk expanding overseas. You have people in other countries that won’t give a second thought to blowing up a whole facility full of people. All they see is an American company and think target. I think companies are taking a tremendous risk pouring investment capital into places with real security problems. India has security problems, so do other nations. Sony is building new stuff in Pennsylvania, so I would think that HP could make printers in California or Pennsylvania. That may seem radical, but made in the USA isn’t something new. I think the smart money will invest here and avoid all of these problems. Just look at Boeing and how well they have done here in the USA. Our country imports a great deal of junk. Quality pays for itself with more security, starting with job security. Made in the USA still counts for a lot. Sony has this figured out. It seems like U.S. companies can’t wait to ship jobs and plants out of the country. It is highfalutin thinking and looks good to the CEO who has a love affair with cheap labor and is haunted by high labor costs. You get what you pay for and if you want 50 cent an hour labor, you might get more than you bargained for. I’m sure India makes some great stuff. I try buying American when I can. Many of these executives love demoralizing the U.S. worker and giving speeches about how rotten our labor people and unions are. Move your whole shop to India or Taiwan, just don’t blame the workers here when it falls apart or gets blown up. Charity begins at home. Take care of your own. No company can save the world, we leave that up to the folks in Washington. Politics still ends at the waters edge.