United Press International has a rather gloomy and perhaps somewhat accurate description of the state of technology industry.

bq. “Is high-tech offshore outsourcing a threat to innovation and economic prosperity?” asked a New America Foundation forum on Thursday. Rather the question should have been: Given outsourcing, the relative cost structures, and its current modus operandi, is the U.S. tech sector headed for long term decay?

The article which like most others is quite alarmist, and raised some relevant questions.

bq. Whereas the workers in say an assembly plant in Malaysia are unlikely to develop the capability to compete with the plant’s U.S. owner, Indian software engineers and researchers, with education very nearly as good as that in the U.S., and with experience at a responsible level in a U.S. company, will quickly acquire the capability to compete with the U.S.