I think that is our fundamental difference of opinion with Mike, he seems to be primarily concerned with protecting current U.S. technical jobs (a legitimate concern), while I (we?) am more concerned with keeping ahead of the technology curve by not using our resources (people and money) for the care and feeding of older technology (let someone else do the grunt work).
That’s the problem Craig…To become the Architects you first need to have the experience. You don’t hire Architects right out of college. They work their way up through the engineering ranks. If there are no longer any engineering jobs in the US…where are the Architects coming from??? Answer…Where the engineering jobs are!!!
Maybe those whose jobs are displaced should look for other gainful employment. It could still be software, just in a field that is likely to be conducted here.
Some of that has happened…but it’s not that easy to transition to other segments. Cobol programmers are not about to start writing device drivers. People doing embedded chip software aren’t about to start writing windows applications in Visual Basic.
What I don’t understand is why you would want to worry about keeping an existing piece of software under the control of the home office. If it’s cheaper to perform it’s maintenance and updates overseas, why wouldn’t you?
I explain it with an example…
AIG Insurance moved their whole software department overseas with the intent of any new software to be developed here in the US. After a couple of years there was a need to upgrade the software…But for this NEW development to happen they NEW engineers would have to be familiar with the existing architecture. Was it easier to hire new engineers here in the US and train them…OR just have the project done by the current engineering group over in India???
A major disk drive company sent all their device driver work over to India for the older operating systems like Linux and XP. Any new drivers they were going to do here in the states. Well work with Vista being late and also not selling they were late in getting the new drivers written. Turned out it was better to have the drivers written at their complex in India then hire and train new engineers here in the states.
That’s the problem Craig…To become the Architects you first need to have the experience. You don’t hire Architects right out of college. They work their way up through the engineering ranks. If there are no longer any engineering jobs in the US…where are the Architects coming from??? Answer…Where the engineering jobs are!!!
OK, so we will import them from where-ever they are being developed at the moment, or we will export the tasks. Alternatively, folks who want to do that type of work will go where they can get experience and bring it back. Either way, the Architects will have an understanding (culture/language/etc.) of the folks doing the engineering work. I don’t think you are going to turn back the clock on that one. “Routine” software development is probably going the way of manufacturing, it is a very “portable” job that will go where-ever the best labor value (no necessarily the cheapest) can be found. If I was in the software business, I would probably be looking for some kind of niche job to take advantage of this trend. If I didn’t want to travel around the world, I’d find a position that was more tied to a specific location (for the moment). Most of us don’t know where we are going to be in five year anyway. I have an interesting offer to go work in china (which I’m unlikely to accept because I like what I’m doing now).
This is a little like saying that we should preserve U.S, manufacturing so we can train factory managers to send overseas and manage those operations. In reality, people who really want to be factory managers will go live where the factories are. If I want to be a lifeguard, I’m probably not going to move to the desert. If I wanted to be in the manufacturing business, I wouldn’t be living in the U.S. Our generation had it easy (or boring, depending on your perspective), I have no clue where our kids and grandkids will be living.
Mike, if that happens, it will be self-inflicted. American students need to develop more interest in the sciences and engineering. China and India are graduating thousands more engineers each year, all of them super eager to prove themselves. Even in Russia, engineering has more prestige than the humanities. The US has lots of good schools but not enough good students wanting to take scientific subjects.
Engineering salaries in the US as a % of average wages, are pathetic. I once told a Russian engineer that a tradesman working some overtime could easily make more money than and engineer. He was dumbfounded. Our lawyers and doctors make significantly more money than engineers, in Russia most doctors are women partly becuase doctors make so little money most men are not intertested in a career in medecine.
Any country that does not put its engineers and scientists on a pedestal and rewards them well will fall behind. Britain is a good example. Germany and Japan are good examples of the opposite. Engineers are revered in China and in India. The governments know they are the key to their countries’ progress.
May NOT be hurting Intel…But what about the country??? 20 years ago we weren’t too worried about China and their technology because they were so far behind us…But now with Intel building chips there…it won’t be long. Back in the 90’s Digital Equipment Co designed and made the fastest computer chip (for floating point operations it was 1000 times faster then the fastest Intel chip). Digital sold their plant to Intel but kept the design in-house and just let Intel build the Alpha Chips. Within 2-3 years Intel had STOLE the technology from the Alpha chip and started incorporating some of the designs into their chips. Digital sued…and the settlement was that Intel BOUGHT digitals (I think HP had bought them by this time) chip technology.
So keeping the design here is NOT going to work. And now INTEL will be GIVING china a technological edge they didn’t have before. It use to be companies weren’t allowed to sell to certain technologies to China and Russia…That’s moot now…since they can build their own US designed chip…And in 10 years maybe expand on the technology and design and build their own chip that’s far superior.
Agree about the need to keep control over your product development. Over the last 3000 years, for all but the last 350 years, China was the world’s largest and most developed economy. They have now decided to catch with the rest of the world. It would be arrogant for us to assume they will settle on old technology and labor-intensive products.
The Russians got them going on power and aerospace technology during the cold war. They are learning consumer high tech from the West now.
General Electric is a good example of moving up the technilogy ladder. Since jack Welch refromed GE from a stodgy manufacturer of good products to a leading edge organiozation they have grown in size and profitablity. A GE division has to be Number 1 or 2 in its market; if not it is improved, shut down or sold.
With that in mind, Welch shedded the following:
Small appliances sold to Black & Decker (crowded, mature market)
Consumer electronics (RCA, GE) sold to Thomson Electric of France (Asian competition)
Small electric motors (low tech, very competitive)
GE Plastics; this is where Welch started out, but now generic; sold to Sabic of Saudi Arabia
Major Apliances is now on the bloc; Bidders are LG of Korea,Haier of China, Mabe of Mexico, and Arcelik of Turkey. GE is asking $4 Billion. This business is very competive with 2 German, Swedish, several Korean and one Chinese competitors now operating in the US.
GE’s leasing division is now a major revenue earner, with power generation, aerospace, nuclear, and Broadcasting have far more revenue than the minor divisions. GE still hold the light bulb sacred, but will phase out incandescent light bulbs soon, concentrating on LED and fluorescents.
Agree about the need to keep control over your product development.
It’s called REVERSE ENGINEERING. That’s exactly how Intel was able to steal DEC Alpha chips secrets.
It would be arrogant for us to assume they will settle on old technology and labor-intensive products.
There’s a BIG DIFFERENCE between SELLING them technology products to use (like we did to every other country 20 years) then to GIVE them the technology so they can catch up and PASS us.
Where have all MEMORY CHIP innovations come from in the past 20 years??? Answer - Asia.
Where was all innovations for Plasma and LCD tv’s come from in the past 10 years?? Answer Asia.
Those are just a couple of technologies that was invented here in the US that we shipped technology overseas and now they are the leaders in that technology. We’ve basically abandoned it.
It’s amazing how little human rights come into play when money is involved.
Alternatively, folks who want to do that type of work will go where they can get experience and bring it back.
Well maybe…but if you were Born in the US you are NOT ALLOWED TO WORK IN INDIA…And I don’t know too many people who wants to leave a Democratic country and live in Communist China.
“Routine” software development is probably going the way of manufacturing, it is a very “portable” job that will go where-ever the best labor value (no necessarily the cheapest) can be found.
It’s NOT just routine software development that’s going to china. Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, HP all have MAJOR facilities in India and China and they are doing some very very sophisticated software development in the world.
This is a little like saying that we should preserve U.S, manufacturing so we can train factory managers to send overseas and manage those operations.
A little…I’ll admit it. And I don’t like taking the step that way. But if you follow the path to where our companies are going and take it to the end…all that will be left here in the US is service jobs. Our country can NOT survive on service jobs. We need to EXPORT…And if we no longer build anything here what will we export. If things go the way they are…the US will be the third world country before my youngest has children. Great legacy we’re leaving our children isn’t it. I
Companies are trying to grow so fast for the the highest possible profit…they don’t look at the big picture. They’re not growing as much as they are SAVING. HP, IBM, Oracle have the same number of engineers and manufacturing they did 10 years ago…but far fewer of them are working in the US. They’re not growing…they’re saving.
And I don’t really mind many jobs going overseas…the problem is there really isn’t any competition. NO ONE here in the US can work for the wages in China. One company I consulted to 5 years ago had a division in India. The average engineer there (usually a MIT or Harvard Grad) was making LESS then minimum wage here in the US. You get a BS and MS degree and you may may be worse off then the flunky you went to high-school with who got his GED and now works with his dad as a plumber.
Mike, I do understand your concerns but I still don’t know what you are proposing. Do you think the U.S. should somehow isolate itself from the rest of the world to avoid exporting technology? Do you think critical industries should be nationalized to prevent foreign ownership (too late)? Do you think U.S. companies (a meaningless term for the last 50 years) should be legally restricted from sharing technology? Do you expect private companies to voluntarily forgo profits to keep technologies within the U.S. (unlikely and probably ineffective, especially when many of those companies are not even U.S. owned)? IMHO, none of these thing are going to work, and most would probably have the opposite effect. I certainly wouldn’t own stock in any company with these practices, and requiring any of these things would probably just drive entire industries off-shore.
Let’s not forget that the U.S. only represents about 7% of the world’s population and is not the center of the universe (contrary to the opinion of many americans). Becoming isolated is the best way I can think of to be left behind. If they want to stay in the game (and justify their standard of living), they better learn to be competitive in the real world by consistently providing more value that anyone else (and that does not mean just selling products without sharing the supporting technology). If they can’t do that, they don’t deserve to be in a leadership role and will not survive very long in a smaller/flatter world. For example, do you think the U.S. should avoid selling current generation nuclear power plants to china (which they are sure to reverse engineer and copy), knowing that France and Russia are both willing and able to provide equivalent technologies? Are we arrogant enough to think we are the only people on the planet that can provide this technology? Would we rather see china expand its use of coal and oil (as they grow 10% per year)? Wouldn’t it be better to get to work on the following generation of that technology while exporting the current technology to the rest of the world?
This reminds me of they guy in the office who will never share information because he wants to be the “go to” person in his little area. We all know how well that works; in a very short time everyone else figures out he does not really have much to contribute and he is cut out of the loop. Eventually he is way behind the curve because no-one will share information with him. If he wants to play that game, he had better actually be able to deliver something that no-one else in the office can; and he better be able to do it consistently over the long term. You or I would probably just fire this guy and find someone else who knows how to “play nice.”
Over the last 3000 years, for all but the last 350 years, China was the world’s largest and most developed economy. They have now decided to catch with the rest of the world. It would be arrogant for us to assume they will settle on old technology and labor-intensive products.
It would be more arrogant of us to assume we are the only ones in the world capable of providing current technology.
It’s also interesting that china “fell behind” the rest of the world when they decided to isolate themselves; a very bad plan (then and now).
In the 1400s China had ships about 5 times the size of those of Columbus. They sailed all the way to Africa, explored he world, and the emperor decided China had nothing to learn from the rest of the world, orderd the ships burned, forbade building of any more seaworthy ships, and the Middle Kingdom went to sleep for the next 300 years.
Efforts by the West to open China resulted a very reluctant China being exposed to Western advances in the 17 and 18th century. Unfortunately getting them hooked on opium was not the best way to make friends. Stealing their tea plants and introducing them to India was a real slap in the face as well.
Henry Ford succeeded in building Model Ts in China before WW I, and got them familiar with cars. All cars at that time were called Fords, later GM’s cars were called Chevrolet Fords. It was really Deng Chou Ping (who realized Communism did not really work) in 1978 who really opened up the country to capitalism by pronouncing: “To be rich is glorious!” Since the Japanese had been their arch enemies, the Western countries were given the welcome mat first; Volkswagen has been in China for a very long time now.
In the 1400s China had ships about 5 times the size of those of Columbus. They sailed all the way to Africa, explored he world, and the emperor decided China had nothing to learn from the rest of the world, orderd the ships burned, forbade building of any more seaworthy ships, and the Middle Kingdom went to sleep for the next 300 years.
The technology is/was here in the US…this is the battery tehnology available but sequestered by Texico/GM and made unavailable to the rest of us who want “clean” efficient cars/ Run a car on battery and even from an oil/coal fired geneerating plant. it’s equal to $.60 per gallon gas. How much could we make selling these cars to China…(then have them copy and resell back to us) ?
Over 90% of daily commuters can live on this range…and savings. The cost of a NiMH battery is the same as a car engine…life expectance is over 200,000 miles as many Toyota RAV4 EV’s still run well in Cal. on original batterys from 1997.
So let’s just sit and wait for China to take the lead.
1997 EV1 with lead batteries from Panasonic Storage Battery Co., up to 110 miles at up to 80 mph;
1997 HondaEV with NiMH batteries from Panasonic Energy PEVE, up to 140 miles at up to 80 mph;
1999 EV1 with NiMH batteries from GM-Ovonics, up to 160 miles (140 EPA certified) at up to 80 mph;
1997 Toyota RAV4-EV with NiMH batteries from Panasonic Energy, up to 120 miles at up to 80 mph. Last sold in Nov., 2002, these are still running fine, even though Toyota has refused to sell replacement batteries;
At the risk of sounding vulgar, there is a thin line between being inward looking and having your windpipe up your tailpipe, as Tom and Ray would quip.
Could it be that an American company actually knows what it’s doing?
Could it be that the American company is only looking 3 months down the road and don’t even CARE what will happen to the US economy or the US people in 5-20 years??? Now what do you think is more likely???