Yesterday, May 11, 2004, Murdok reported on Google launching their official blog. This came on the heels of the search engine re-launching the updated Blogger.com. The second post ever of Google’s blog spoke about the negative press surrounding outsourcing and Google’s opening of a research and development facility in Bangalore, India.
The main complaint about Google’s decision to locate in Bangalore is that Google is out-sourcing US jobs. Of course, these complaints were never made when the search engine announced it was opening R&D facilities in Switzerland, Ireland, or Japan. This a point that did not go unnoticed to the Google braintrust.
The blog entry stated that Google had found themselves wrapped in a debate about outsourcing. They issued NO apology for opening facilities in a county that has “a lot of brilliant computer scientists who don’t care to relocate to the States.”
With thanks going to Andy Beal at SearchEngineDownlow.com for pointing this out, it seems that Google’s blog has been edited for content. The paragraph that contained these arguments is now a goner. Readers now have what originally was the first and third paragraphs to read. Google’s explanation for its R&D choice is now presented in a more press release format.
I, for one, preferred Google’s more open response. Why was there no outcry when Google announced its other facilities in other countries? Is it that India has such a negative connotation in the tech industry that the press assumes Google’s outsourcing simply to save money?
If that is truly Google’s approach, then why would they be hiring computer scientist for research and development right here in the United States?
The following is the text that was edited out of blog entry:
Interestingly, when we announced our engineering center in Bangalore, we found ourselves knee-deep in the debate about “outsourcing” — the practice of cutting a company’s American operations in favor of cheaper labor elsewhere. India in particular has been a subject of a lot of press coverage on this topic lately, which we find to be pretty unfair. It’s not their fault they have a lot of brilliant computer scientists who don’t care to relocate to the States.
Murdok | Breaking eBusiness News
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