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I confess that I haven't paid much attention to offshoring trends lately and some day that might become the death of my career.  I just finished reading a post on a TechTarget site, SearchCIO.com, that reported some of Gartner's predictions for IT offshoring in 2008, identifying the top 30 countries for offshore services and it looks like this trend is still booming.

Gartner used the 10 criteria below to the countries in the top 30 list:

1. Language
2. Government support
3. Labor pool
4. Infrastructure
5. Educational system
6. Cost
7. Political and economic environment
8. Cultural compatibility
9. Global and legal maturity
10. Data and IP security

The countries listed in the top 30 might not surprise anyone and Gartner had them broken down by region:

• Americas: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico and Uruguay
• Asia/Pacific: Australia, China, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Vietnam
• Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA): the Czech Republic, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Northern Ireland, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine

I was surprised to hear quite some time ago that Costa Rica had become popular for offshoring and here they are.  I had previously read that China was expected to challenge India as the leader for offshoring, but according to the report, China still doesn't have the language skills necessary to supplant India.

I was also interested to read that U.S. firms were increasingly looking for Spanish language from their providers because of a growing Latin-American workforce.  Considering I have lived in the New York Metro area and now live and work in Central Florida, this isn't surprising.

In 2008, Gartner predicts offshore spending to grow 60% in Europe, and 40% in the U.S.  I understand that offshoring is an economically viable option for companies, but wonder at the long-term effect this will have on the IT industry in countries like the U.S. and U.K.

I was heartened to see some reader commentary on several blogs that due to the poor level of service sometimes associated with offshore support, some companies have chosen to pay higher prices for service or support in their own countries.  They seem to feel it is good business; the support staff they're dealing with are much more pro-active & imaginative when it comes to problem resolution and lastly, they don't have as many difficulties with a language barrier.  What do you think?  Would you be willing to pay a premium for support from a provider located in your country?