" Equal-Opportunity Globalization Historically, companies in the United States, Europe and Japan have led globalization, because those countries pushed products and services into developing countries. As the business of offshore sourcing grows, globalization is beginning to become widely accepted elsewhere. With "nearshore" and offshore sourcing, the global equation has changed. Enterprises in developing countries and emerging markets are now reaching into developed economies, offering a talented workforce at a fraction of the price. Developed and developing economies are exploiting each other's markets, economies and labor forces. It is natural to expect that those disadvantaged by globalization - irrespective of market - will protest and make known their issues. Likewise, local politicians and political parties may try to protect jobs and obtain votes through legislation such as the bills currently being debated in four U.S. states aimed at blocking the outsourcing of government work to offshore enterprises. Moreover, unlike previous instances of globalization - in textiles, products and manufacturing - the latest round is occurring almost instantaneously over a vast and sophisticated communication network. This has enabled business, projects, tasks and jobs to be transferred to virtual workforces across the globe quickly and transparently - a trend that is occurring so rapidly as to disorient entire professions, societies and organizations. Changing Nature of Technical Work Another factor making outsourcing attractive is the changing nature of technical work. By 2006, service-oriented architecture (SOA) will be at least partially adopted in more than 60 percent of new, large and systematically oriented application development projects (0.7 probability). The proliferation of Web services and SOA is causing software to be developed in smaller units that are easier to map to business processes. These smaller units are also ideal for an offshore envi