The figures behind US jobs going offshore

In a rare look at the numbers and verbal nuances a big US company chews over when moving jobs abroad, internal documents from IBM show that it expects to save $168 million annually starting in 2006, by shifting several thousand high-paying programming jobs overseas, today`s Wall Street Journal reported.

The report provides fascinating insight into the savings that can be expected from employing programmers in other regions.

IBM will hire 15 000 new employees, 50% more than originally planned, in areas such as software and services. This is because of a rebound in the economy, Reuters quotes a top executive as saying.

Sun Microsystems will begin offering its StarOffice suite of office productivity applications on a one-year subscription for Japanese customers, starting in February.

PC World reports that one-year licensed versions of the application suite will be offered by local distributor Sourcenext for $18.60 through Internet download, retail stores and convenience stores.

New partnerships with server makers Dell and Egenera will be among the displays of Novell`s newly-bought Linux status at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo beginning on Wednesday, reports CNet.

Novell, whose NetWare operating system lost out to Microsoft in the server market in the 1990s, hitched its cart to a new horse with its $210 million purchase of SuSE Linux this month. SuSE lagged behind Linux market share leader Red Hat, but Novell is hoping its cash, customer connections and intellectual property will provide a boost.

Wholly black-owned Johannesburg-based business intelligence (BI) solutions provider, e.com institute, will begin distributing Business Objects` new Version 10 suite of Crystal products in SA and Namibia.

E.com institute is a South African Business Objects partner and claims to be "the only local IT company to have had in-house exposure to both Business Objects and Crystal Decisions".

"With the introduction of Crystal Version 10 suite, the company will deliver proven real-time performance, reliability and scalability, especially since it`s compatible with Java, .Net and COM technology and offers cross-platform support," says Annaliza Janse van Rensburg, BI practice manager at e.com institute.