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Dot ComBack, Or More Of The Same?
adamsmith_uk writes "The FT features Wall Street's renewed love affair with dotcom stocks on Monday with the latest in a $6bn string of acquisitions that has helped set light to the once-defunct online commerce sector. Could this be the signs of the tech ComBack ?" But hold onto your hopes; ekarjala writes "According to this CNet article, a recent survey by theInformation Technology Association of America indicates that IT hiring in the US is expected to remain flat or decline slightly over the course of 2003. The main drivers are lack of demand for IT products/services and outsourcing IT functions offshore."
IT hiring in the US is expected to remain flat or decline slightly
Just because people are not being hired in the US does not neccesarily mean the industry itself is going downhill. I know the US is a large chunk, but the IT industry could stage a comeback in the rest of the world while staying flat in the US, couldn't it?
Even if the economy starts growing faster, it'll still be a while before companies start hiring. That's usually the last thing that gets better after growth resumes. Even now there are signs that things are getting better, but there's still a hell of a lot of people without work. That sucks. I didn't work between August and December of 2001, and that was bad enough.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I used to work for what could be termed a .com company that is listed on the NASDAQ.
.com boom are probably more likely to survive in the future as they have had to re-work their business plans and be more conservative about their growth prospects and, as such, not leading (misleading) the market makers into over-valuing their stock. This then generates these companies some respect and their stock rises.
:-)
I got made redundant with 2000 or so shares which I still happen to keep. Those shares have risen 80% or so since I left the company late last year.
I realise that I can't place my experience as the norm, but it is at least one example of a company recovering and nearly reaching profitability.
Overall, in my view, the companies that have thus far survived the crash of the
Go figure
It is not possible to send all jobs overseas. There are real limitations such as communications, schedules, culture, and language differences that serve to mitigate the cheapness of labor. Also, the more jobs that are sent to India, for example, the higher the price labor will demand there. There's not that many places in the world where you can find large supplies of high quality programmers, so once you exhaust a particular region, you have to move on. At some point every company is faced with the fact that they can get better programmers for a lower total cost right here at home.
It sucks to personally lose your job because it went overseas. But there's no reason to panic about all jobs moving overseas. It just can't happen.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
You don't seem to realize that that wasn't what the .com bubble was all about. It burst because there WASN'T stuff being sold (or at least, not sold properly). It was all lies and hype, and buying/selling of stock to go along with it.
:)
Therefore a 'ComBack' of that would be with people buying and selling stock. It doesn't matter if the company sells stuff or not
There isn't going to be a second boom like 1999. The collapse took out all the smaller weaker companies and we're pretty much left with the survivors: Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, heck toss Microsoft, AOL, Dell, Apple in there. Now it's just time for the big companies to pick and choose what stragglers that are still left treading water (which, implies they have something worth owning) and buy 'em. We're just going to see the bigger companies get bigger. Sometime in the next century there will be another speculative boom but I'll doubt it'll be web-based. Anybody pumping net stocks today probably lost a crap load the last time 'round and is bitterly trying to make up what they lost ... or they're just dumb.
Whenever a "quantum leap" in communications technology takes place, economies suffer until the market learns to adapt to this new communications technology and the speed with which information can now be disseminated.
It happened with the advent of the Railroad, and it happened again with the advent of the Internet.
The problem is the time between news breaking and a market reaction. Thanks to the Internet, it is now incredibly small, and in many cases negative, and that creates difficult conditions for companies to work in.
This will be the case until market forces figure out how to operate a stable economy under these new conditions. This will happen "naturally", it won't require any one person or body to anything in particular.
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Everything can be done elsewhere. There is nothing special about where you live to make it possible to do something ONLY THERE. (Ok, there might be a few exceptions)
:) Wow I got offtopic there.
You have to figure which have a decent likelihood of being done elsewhere. Management tends to stay in one spot, since they don't like to vote themselves to having to relocate, and they wouldn't outsource themselves. Lower levels get moved to cut costs.
Especially if management sees you as a blue-collar worker, you're going to get moved. Unfortunately, programming is often seen by people who don't program as a rather easy process. Ideas go in, program comes out. The programmers are just more people on the assembly line. It's a different kind of factory, but still a factory in the eyes of the management. Factories are staffed by monkeys, monkeys can be hired for cheaper in other parts of the world. Therefore, outsource.
So yeah, the key is figuring out which jobs management thinks require intelligence and skills, and can't be done by just anyone. Programming isn't one of those.
I blame the # of people who tried to prove them right by rushing to get a degree in some computers/tech field and polluting the job pool. If your answer for "Why did you get a degree in X" is "For the money", I hate you. I program because that's what I like doing. I don't care about the money, as long as it's enough to eat. Unfortunately people who got their CS degrees (or whatever your university called it) and might have maybe learned the mechanics of writing programs and how comptuers work, but not how to design programs that work well are the problem. Eventually they'll be fired as the incompetents they are, and the people who know their stuff will get hired/promoted.
At least, that's what I keep telling myself while looking for a job.
at least according to this Computerworld article, "Postwar Iraq seen as big potential tech market."
"Every business-minded person is looking at Iraq after the war because it is a very rich country," said Riad Safar... Iraq's market potential, as it moves to replace out-of-date business and health systems, is bigger than that of many of its neighbors, including Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and perhaps Saudi Arabia....
The senior official at Kuwait-based systems integrator International Turnkey Systems, said in a telephone interview today that he thinks "it's going to be a huge market."
And that's just one of a number of articles I've read lately salivating over the prospects of Iraq as a market for American goods.
Maybe the broadband Internet will be up and running before the water is.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
In my area, the engineers that Lucent and Motorola laid off are fighting over $7/hour retail jobs. The guy I bought a suit from Friday had 12 years' experience programming embedded systems (I am really not kidding).
I'll bet those guys are asking the same question you are, only they have families, mortgages and car payments.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Hey jack-ass. The people who are doing it for the money hate you too since you are trying to make programming seem as if there is something more to it than there is. Get off your high horse and relieze that programming ain't some type of artistic pursuit.
The world has gone nuts.
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Here's what my local government is doing to address the jobless situation in Peoria, IL
http://www.icecentricnews.com/workforce/e_article
To summarize their findings: Jobless problem is due to lack of qualified people. People aren't educating themselves enough, so companies aren't attracted to the area. They go on extensively how to create better educated people.
Meanwhile, large employers such as caterpillar, Maytag, Butler, and others, have been closing shops here and moving them to Mexico.
And the only answer they could come up with: "People aren't qualified enough!" I'm convinced the people running things have gone nuts. Have completely lost traction with reality. Chicago Trib often lets staffing companies publish "helpful hints" for job seekers. One gem went like this: "Consider taking a vacation if your job hunting as a break from job-hunting." Let them eat cake! Crazy people.
I don't know what to tell you. Stay in school forever. Avoid Illinois like the plague.
The president may or may not be responsible for the current state of the economy. Perhaps he is completely impotent and could have done nothing to reign in the gross corporate corruption that caused the dot.bom, Enron's energy market manipulation and Enron-esque accounting fraud.
However, he is in control of those bills that he writs and sponsors himself. If you think "the very rich" is defined by Bush II as someone who makes more than 50K, then you really need to get your head out of your *ass.
Bush is currently pandering to people that make at least 10 times that much. It's not at all clear that any of that will do anyone else a d*mn bit of good either.
As far as the "war president" goes. Bush II has been riding a war rally wave since 911.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
What's even more ironic about this boom and kind of scarey to me is the same companies that are producing SPAM security/prevention software are also (a few) producing mass mailing software that tricks sendmail. SPAM advertisers are hiring lots of IT people right now, particularly in Texas, from what I can see on hotjobs.com
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I started out in the tech sector. Unix helpdesk manager was my previous job. After the bubble burst and the WTC went down I quit the desk job and bummed around for a while until I became a bicycle messenger (that's a whole nother story).
Anyhow, because of my new job, I've met a lot of ex-Kozmo messengers (in Chicago). They talk about how great it was to get tipped (messengers generally don't) and how dangerous it was to ride at night (when everyone was at home ordering movies). They talk about the times they spent bumming around their base getting paid to do nothing and seeing the company buy progressively more and more shit that wasn't going anywhere. They saw management buy scooters that nobody used, hire extra messengers they didn't need, and all manner of completely idiot things that management types tend to do.
Coming from this all discussion betwixt the lower ranks is a simple conclusion: the people who started it had no idea what they were doing. It's not a matter of having a business plan drawing a napkin as you say; I mean Kozmo had marketers galore and real potential.
Too big, too fast. How did they grow so much without profit? Enormous Venture Capital flow. Sure, it seemed like a good idea, heck it was a good idea, but greed was the real impetus and thus its downfall.
My point is that Kozmo could have succeeded, like ebay, and radically transformed the world of home delivery options. Unlike ebay, it was grown way too fast because of investors looking for quick returns. And possibly CEO's and VP's wanting to make it to that IPO and cash out quick.
[pink beam of light]
I'm surprised no one has mentioned it thus far.
There are IT jobs that can never be outsourced. Why? Because they require security clearances and those can only be given to US citizens. While they may not pay you top commercial dollar, they will certainly pay you well. However you usually must already have a security clearance, but you can't get a clearance without sponsorship. Chicken and Egg.
However I believe if you are willing to move, you can find a secure job. Possibly even companies that will sponsor you for clearance. Most likely this will mean that you are working for the government or military, and will have to put up with background checks.
But it keeps you employed, no?