Offshore Interest Stabilizing?

The services section of the report on its latest IT Spending Survey contains some fascinating tidbits including the fact that the percentage of CIOs expecting to sent a material amount of work to an offshore environment slipped to 63 percent in December from 69 percent in October 2005. The overall interest level slipped to 16 percent from 20 percent in the same timeframe.

In addition, although Goldman Sachs analysts' are reluctant to call it a trend, most of the CIOs with whom it consults for its quarterly report seem reluctant to consider offshore activities outside the traditional areas of application maintenance and development activities. Still, I guess the fact that 21 percent of them would consider moving infrastructure management, software R&D, business process outsourcing or consulting to a foreign location is cause for pause.

Another interesting data point for you from, you guessed it, a different analyst report. Based on the types of transactions (read mergers and acquisitions) it brokered last year, Martin Wolf Securities foresees more interest on the part of offshore firms in buying qualified U.S. services companies. This suggests that the offshore trend, which galvanizes many of you out there like no other, can cut both ways.

What's the offshore scuttlebutt in your neck of the woods? More on offshore I'm sure later this week, when CMP holds its 2006 Global Services conference later this week in New York City. E-mail your feedback to [email protected].