Bangalore: IT experts in both the US and India are still not sure whether the cry against IT outsourcing to India would abate after the American Presidential elections, an author of a book on outsourcing to India said in Bangalore.

"Whether the cry against outsourcing abates after the November elections, this is the question I heard when I went to the Nasscom summit early this year. The same question was asked in New York last month. Everyone wants to know, but not many of them have an answer," author Mark Kobayashi-Hillary said last night (Aug 11, 2004).

Hillary, who has written 'Outsourcing to India: The Offshore Advantage', which he says is a practical guide for managers to know cultural and business issues in IT offshoring, said that the next big thing in IT outsourcing would be Indian IT service firms bidding for $1 billion deals.

"Indian IT firms may either join with multinational firms or join themselves to form a consortium to bid for large contracts, $500 million to $1 billion," he said.

Hillary, along with Ford Motor's European IT Business Strategy Manager Mahesh Ramachandran is currently researching to write a book on 'Beyond BPO' expected to be released next year.

Hillary said despite pricing pressures faced by Indian IT services firms, the country would continue to have cost advantage than Western nations, but warned that only value addition would help India to be ahead of competing nations like China, Russia and East European countries.