Microsoft's new math on offshoring

Steve Ballmer was in Banglalore, India on Monday to announce deals with Infosys Technologies Ltd. and Wipro Ltd. The two companies are going to buy Microsoft products to build applications for their outsourcing customers. Meanwhile, Microsoft plans to step up its hiring of Indians in coming months. The Microsoft campus in Hyderabad, which employs about 1,500 people, eventually will be home to approximately 3,000 programmers.

That's straightforward enough. But earlier this summer, Microsoft denied it was sending technology or jobs to India. In August, the Seattle-based Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTech), said it had company documents proving that Microsoft employs close to 2,000 people in India -- far more than the 970 Microsoft earlier claimed were employed.