Kumar Venkat in the San Jose Mercury News asks in Silicon Valley can still stay relevant:
Whether it is software development, chip design or technical support, the lure of countries like India, Russia and China is the availability of large numbers of well-educated knowledge workers at extremely low cost. Good engineers can usually be hired in these countries for about $1,000 a month. These wages are just a fraction of what similar engineers would earn in Silicon Valley. The potential for cost savings is enormous, and we may well be in the early stages of a substantial movement of high-tech jobs out of the valley.
High-speed communications technology, much of it developed here, has made it almost seamless to interact with co-workers and customers in any part of the world. Even if a company is still headquartered in the valley for historical reasons, the “virtual” company may be global these days with physical offices in different corners of the world.
An interesting point. I do believe that while much of the new technology innovation will still happen in tech hubs like the Silicon Valley, the centre of gravity of the new technology markets will definitely be in the world’s emerging markets like India, China, Russia and Brazil. Of course, these markets will need low-cost solutions. Can Silicon Valley stay relevant by crafting these solutions?
