Eventhough Indonesia is predicted by McKinsey to overtake Germany to become the 7th largest economy in the world by 2030, Indonesia was not even mentioned in the book. It does however, mention Indonesia’s smaller neighbors Vietnam and Philippines.
The book was written in 2006-2007, but I still wonder why the author did not include Indonesia in his analysis. My assumption as to why is because Indonesia was too small in the technology sector back then. It might be true. When I started IT outsourcing business in 2006, there were very few players, and even very few freelancers.
Now however in 2012, Indonesia’s tech sector is much hotter. Investment flows into the industry, there are many more technopreneurs and tech companies, and thus there are many tech workers being created to fill in those demand.
Indonesians also in general command good English comparable to Chinese. This is not based on any statistics, but based on my experience having visited China several times. I also have many friends and relatives living or studying in China, and they mostly will agree with me that Indonesians even have better accent when speaking English.
Indonesian wage is also lower than in China. Now if Indonesia has huge talent pool, command good English, and have competitive wage, we should include Indonesia if the book “Source code China” is to have version two.