[minim]

I think it all depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Large scale projects are not well suited to outsourcing in my opinion. There's too many unskilled providers, but my biggest hurdle has been the language barrier. Even when people "speak English", there's a lot of miscommunication based off a few words they don't know, interpret differently or even differences in local customs!

For smaller projects (e.g. developing a website for a local business), outsourcing can be very profitable once you find the right provider. I've had a reasonable amount of success finding good providers in the past and they can cut development times on easier projects if you communicate clearly and provide wireframes / spec sheets. Most recently, I hired a PHP developer from Singapore who was asking for $5/hour and after I saw what he could do (with other languages as well), I immediately raised his rate to $10/hour without him requesting it. Now I've got a long term, loyal developer that works at an extremely affordable price to me and provides quality work. Is it the same quality as a $100+/hour developer in the US? Probably not, but it's very good and I'm happy to always put some finishing touches and modification in myself. I still save tons of time on smaller projects that way.

So to answer your question, yes and no. It depends what you're trying to accomplish and the exact providers you're going to work with.

[eru]

You may even help to raise the quality of work of your partner from Singapore over time. I guess he's not immune to learning.