A Belated Definition

I was going to give replies to all the people who've asked me questions and given suggestions, but then I realized I havent defined 'Outsourcing' for the purposes of this column. I hang my head in shame and offer these few lines as repentance:

Outsourcing: This is when one company contracts another company to do the formers work. Usually, the former (hereafter referred to as the Outsourcer, or client) pays money to the latter (the Outsourcee) in lieu of the work.

The scope of this column is limited to the outsourcing done for intangible 'software'. That means I'm not going to talk about outsourcing of manufacturing work, like how Nike shoes are produced in China. I'm going to talk about computer software, about legal documents being processed, about Call centres, about X-rays being scanned by doctors, and so on. Software of all kinds.

I'm not talking about a company setting up a branch in another place because its cheaper. As long as the work stays within in the same company, it isnt outsourcing. In case this definition gets shady, I'll use the following test: Whose name is on the final product? If at all times, the persons who worked on the product are employees of the same company whose name is on the product, then it ISNT outsourcing.
[Thinking of more caveats and clarifications overnight - comments are invited]

Now, given this definition, lets tackle the questions we have. I am posting the questions, suggestions etc which I have so far, in my next post. Replies and related questions are invited. I am going to be editing these posts over the next day or so, answering them as best as I can.