She cites figures that Infosys, an outsourcing firm that places workers from India into U.S.-based firms, submitted 5,000 petitions for the visas, out of a total of 65,000 being granted. She compares this to Cisco Systems' 800 petitions, which was ranked 13th in the number of petitions filed. Staffing firms that specialize in placing foreign workers into U.S. technology firms are dominating the efforts to attain workers on the H1-B visa.

San Diego-based staffing firm TalentFuse is one such firm embracing the H-1B visa program. "Our customer's main criteria are qualified IT professionals that can get the job done so country of origin does not matter from a business standpoint," says Brian Margarita, President of TalentFuse. TalentFuse was recently acquired by SQL Star -- a global staffing firm based in Delhi, India.

"From our standpoint -- TalentFuse is its own H1-B company -- we don't have as many visa issues because it's an inter-company transfer when our parent company SQL Star bring students to the U.S. who have gone to school for IT certification in its facilities located in India, Singapore and Australia. These qualified IT personal become SQL Star employees. Many are then transferred to the U.S. to complete projects in the TalentFuse development centers."

The search for talent

The demand for workers is significant and the supply does not seem to be getting much better. Technology firms are working on their own solutions to find talent.

"Next year it can get worse. It's so much disruption," says Charnock. She cites the recent announcement by Microsoft, who just disclosed plans to open up a software development center near Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada -- not far from their Redmond, Wash., headquarters. This comes on the heels of a failure by Congress to raise the cap.

"Unfortunately Congress has been unable to successfully shepherd any of the proposed H-1B program improvements through the legislative process yet" says says Leigh Ganchan, an attorney with the law firm of Epstein Becker and Green's Labor and Employment and Health Care and Life Sciences Practices in the firm's Houston office. "One Senate proposal would have increased the annual numerical limitation from 65,000 to a more realistic 115,000 per fiscal year."

Ganchan feels that anticipating future periods of economic growth is important and that any such legislative proposal needs a market-based cap escalator to take effect in the fiscal year following years in which U.S. employers experience an increased need for H-1B professionals. Such action by federal legislators may need a voice from employers.

"It is vital that employers be vocal with Congress about the economic need for a more realistic H-1B program," says Elizabeth Stern, a business immigration attorney and partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Baker and McKenzie.

Charnock, like Stern, feels that a program with a distinct pool of foreign workers who have a masters or doctorate degree from a foreign institution would be a welcomed improvement in the program. At present, there is a separate pool for advanced degree holders, but the degree must be from a U.S. institution of higher learning.

"Development of visa pools for foreign-based master's holders and high-salaried foreign hires are among the options that need to be explored," Stern says.

Whether a prospective hire has a degree or not, they are just hard to find. The anonymous open source developer we spoke about earlier explained that his job was posted for two years before he filled it on an H1-B visa after jumping through all of the hoops in the application process. "It really put me off, working here," he explains. "I had considered working in Canada."

His view of the whole H1-B process as it is?

"I don't think it benefits anybody."