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U.S. Approves IBM/Lenovo Sale
MartinB writes with the "Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review result: unanimous approval for the sale to go ahead, with no further external approvals needed. No compromises were required over the location of Lenovo facilities in sensitive research areas, nor were limits put on Lenovo's ability to sell PCs to U.S. agencies."
Happy times are here again.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
.............just kidding ;)
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approved the sale of Slashdot to Elbonian investors. New color schemes will be in earth tones. "Yes, different colors of mud!", stated one of the eventual new managers of the enterprise.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The x86 is done.
As I understand it, this sale is more of a few-years lease.
Orgnisations with bucket loads of money get a decision they want. Film at 11.
Beep beep.
THis was only on the "security" issues...
In truth, most all of the materials are now made in China, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, etc.
So in such light PC and component manufacturering really doesn't pose a "security" risk. Which is what this was ALL about.
The jobs aren't there to begin with...so no worry over loss of jobs moving to China.
You don't have to be Carnac to guess most motherboards, CD drives, DVD drives, PSUs, cabinets and wiring is already being manufactured in the PRC.
Chances are the keyboard and mouse you used in your posting, as well as the screen you are viewing, came from there as well.
i for one welcome our new Lenoverlords!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm surprised that they even thought of stopping the deal. I've always viewed USA as a country that tries very hard to support businesses.
Um... "Sound business decisions" in a business sense are all about making money. If this "decision" puts money in the fatcat's pockets then it sounds like a "sound business decision" for him.
In the larger market sense it may or may not be a good thing, but that certainly depends on your POV. However, I disagree with the prevailing sentiment here that all mergers are inherently evil and motivated by monopolistic greed. Sometimes the logistical considerations are such that a merger can benefit everyone.
What will become of the beloved Thinkpads? Will Lenovo continue to maintain the same level of quality that IBM has?
More interestingly, I'd be interested to see if IBM started producing affordable powerpc laptops and desktops running Linux. It seems Microsoft can no longer wield the Windows tax against IBM.
The article is ~ 5 minutes old, and there's 10+ anti-china/america sold out posts already.
China and Taiwan ~already~ mass-produce the vast majority of systems components, their final assembly was pretty much the only remaining domestic manufacturing process. Also, IBM is being VERY wise in this regard, cashing in a unit that has very little future projected revenue growth and miniscule profit margins, and will gain the capital for some future expansion. PCs are a commodity business, and with the exception of Dell are probably a loss-leader for most companies now (e.g. IBM, HP/Compaq).
This is a wise business move by IBM, and it was wise for the US gov't to involve themselves in the sale. The technology is 20+ years old, the industry is commoditised, and its all open-standards based... there is no strategic threat here.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Does this deal leave IBM free to persue building a new PC based on Cell Processor and/or PowerPC technology, instead of the increasingly less efficient x86? If so, selling off the trailing edge x86 business would just be a smart business move, wouldn't it?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
IBM is faced with the same dillema HP faces.
The only way to make money in the PC biz is by selling directly to consumers, bypassing the supply chain of stores, merchants, etc. But this conflicts with, among other things, IBM's consulting business which relies upon dealing with people, building relationships, rubbing backs, etc., etc.
HP faces a similar problem. The only way for them to make money in the PC biz is to sell directly to consumers. But this conflicts with their need for pushing printers and printer supplies which requires using the supply chain.
Instead HP is shedding money with their PC selling business and not doing so well in the printer biz. Good job Carly! But I digress.
Let the Chinese have the fun task of competing head on with Dell, IBM will do what they do best.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
American Manufacturing died to day after a long illness. Repeated attempts to save American jobs and secure a domestic manufacturing base in case of war were repeatedly rejected by the new American ruling class who no are no longer responsible to a once powerful American middle class. Spokesmen for the powerful said that the death of manufacturing promotes growth, despite the fact America had higher growth rates when it did manufacture things. In related news, illegal immigration and guest worker visas rose dramaticly and new tax breaks for the super wealthy were enacted. Stay tuned to official news sources like the New York Times and Fox News and don't bitch.
P.S. doesn't China have at least 4 different dialects and regional cuisines?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Windows isn't really done, but this was my thought when IBM put their pc business up for sale. Back in the day, it was this group because of pressure from Microsoft that would put up internal ibm roadblocks to their own OS/2. I imagine they initially weren't that friendly to Linux, either. Dumping this low-margin business though has the added benefit of letting IBM focus on their hardware and services. If IBM wants to sell Linux, OS/400, Windows, etc, there's not much msft can do about it legally or otherwise now.
Yeah, they probably don't actually use MSG in all the restaurants over there. You will probably notice the food looks a bit more rustic than the local Ho-Lee Chow or a can of La Choy.
The BBC has been carrying a number of analysis articles on China, where the economy is booming and where it isn't. Still shooting for 7% growth this year and they'll probably make it, while the rest of the world scrambles to sell them raw materials. Notice mining and steel companies are suddenly hot items?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So IBM developed the PC and brought the current rendition to market. Fortunately for us and for all PC users they allowed their designs to be copied (clones anyone) thus putting apple forever in the dark. Since they did this, market forces have determined that IBM should no longer be in the PC business. Frankly, who cares? There are thousdands of other businesses that makes PCs now. The only reason I would care is if Lenovo gets the IP that encompasses the PC they may try to charge royalties for anyone using their IP to make a producat (go frivalous patents!).
I am d3matt
Oh. Oops.
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
Sorta. The division itself is being sold outright, but the ability to badge the computers as IBMs is a five-year deal.
Happy times are here again.
Words can be found here
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So, does this mean that IBM is finally out from under the Microsoft joint-development agreement, that dates back to the days of the original PC and PC-XT?
Chip H.
Let's all hope that a plump Elbonian is taking a walk when CmdrTaco lands there after being tossed out of the plane.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
However, I also disagree that share price should be taken as the only metric of company success. Any single metric that becomes too dominant will imbalance things and have ultimately negative consequences. In this specific case, I think it's part of the general hollowing out of American industry and strengthening of Chinese industry--which mostly reminds me of what happened in America before the Civil War. The South became a militarily-strong, industrially-weak debtor.
From the more narrow perspective of IBM, my main concern is that this deal could weaken IBM's "empathy" for customers in lower-margin businesses. Unfortunately, the way the numbers work, most companies are average or below by any specific metric, which in this case means that most of IBM's corporate customers are involved in relatively low-margin businesses. IBM won't share that situation with them after this.
One more thing in the "other values" category. For example, one of IBM's other non-share-price values is "supporting diversity" by deliberately hiring many kinds of people. Well, I think that "supporting commodity computers" is also a value that was worth supporting and something that benefits a lot of people, even if the profits are slim. However, in IBM's specific case, all of the high-margin businesses depend on computers, so there's a strong and direct benefit from that support...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I don't understand the negative reaction. Production is no longer in the US, but that is not where the money is. IBM realised that they could make a lot of money (and, incidentally, create a lot of relatively high paid, relatively pleasant jobs) by abstracting further up the value chain, to supply services and consultants. It matters not a fig to most companies who provides their computers, but many large companies cannot operate without IBM services. So we have a company that no provides high skilled, high payed jobs to the US workforce instead of low payed, low skilled manufacturing jobs.
Yeah, they probably don't actually use MSG in all the restaurants over there.
Fat chance! Where do you think the idea came from? They use piles of it, literally. There's often a mound of it next to the stove, where a Western chef would have his salt/pepper/herbs/spices.
But I'm sure you'll get over it quickly...after all, this is Slashdot.
owie. the IBM logo hurts my eyes.
Yes, but for generations the USA business support was dressed up in attacks on Communism. IBM is a symbol of American business (the "B" stands for "Business") - selling their PC biz to a Chinese company is a little strange, in that light. But it really just shows how "Communism" and "Capitalism" are just the ways to describe how governments do business, which would be an unacceptable mix in a pure version of either system.
--
make install -not war
Look at them now. Sure they got cheap labor and upturned local markets everywhere, but globalisation is distributing the riches from the first world countries right down to the poorer nations. They never really figured that out quite rightly.
Yes, yes, the people in control are of course getting richer but the avg guy is actually earning less. Also this phenomenon is so apparent local America. It's pathetic how anywhere you go in the US you get the same Denny's, Mac, BK, TacoB, OG, etc... In most of the places, the local cuisines and restaurants are all dead. Most American downtowns are going that way too. A drive through them on the weekends portrays them as ghost towns literally.
My point? ThinkPads are definately going in the drain. 20 years ago most garments sold in the US were made here. Most stores guaranteed them. Today you see no-one guarantees anything because everyones is unsure of who's pulling what outta whose arse. That's what's gonna happen with Lenovo too.
Where's my free iPod!? Until then, I'll settle for a kiss...
The IBM/Lenovo sale is IBM's strategy to sell past China's protectionist trade barriers. It's gotten wide support because it's probably unique in requiring the Chinese company to move some operations to the US, to allow IBM to use them to reach the Chinese market with the rest of their products and services. It's kind of odd how your pro-globalism post bashes people suspicious of IBM sending essential industry to China, but doesn't complain about those Chinese protectionist barriers. Is your "globalism" really just a cover for a culture war you prefer to actual free global trade?
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make install -not war
Chinkpads
go ahead, all you PC-people... mod me into oblivion, even though you smiled when you read it.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
But it's not funny. Even had it been a japanese company, it's barely recongizable as a joke :p And it's irritating because it just serves to further untrue stereotypes.
I can take a joke. i won't take easily avoided misinformation.
There are lives at stake here!
The Chinese language has many dialects. The government decrees mandarin as the official spoken dialect. http://chineseculture.about.com/cs/language/a/dial ects.htm
"We Delivery"
At least the food is better, if not as diverse.
diversity is always in the eye of the beholder. i mean, all the food may look the same, but you'd be surprised how different all those stray dogs taste.
I thought that IBM laptops were already being built in China. So any informal "technology transfer" would have already been going on. This is just selling them the business side of the operation. What, you're worried that they'll learn secrets American shady accounting practices and stock manipulation? Where the hell are they gonna outsource all their jobs to to pump up their stock?!!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The word is IBM is using the Lenovo connection to get into the China market. And from the whole WAPI thing, the Chinese government might just be anti-western-dominated-standards enough to support a POWER-powered desktop on the mainland.
But they are outruning their infrastructure. They dont have the power distirbution, water, roads, etc to support that kind of sustained growth. It should be interesting to see what happens.
US caves to new Superpower China. No Film, as our new overlords won't allow it.
Feh. Silly Humans.
You haven't looked in Chinese kitchens in China. Its one reason they cook everything including the water.
At least that's what we're planning for the huge flag on the side of the building to greet our new Overlords.
The funniest irony of all was that the PC Division, that rathole they poured billions down which rarely if ever made a profit finally made a huge chunk of change selling itself off and as a result those employees are getting the largest bonuses in the company, on a division by division basis. Lesson learned? Fuck your business up until someone buys it at firesale prices then claim a huge a victory, rake in your pile of cash. All the other IBM divisions should learn from this.
Yeah, they probably don't actually use MSG in all the restaurants over there.
Of course, you do know that Doritios has more glutamate than you'll find in any Chinese restaurant? Lipton soups, progresso soups, McD's chicken sandwiches, KFC, all of these have enough glutamate to trigger reactions for those sensitive to MSG. But of course, none of these products say they contain MSG. More info here.
Of course, MSG is used pretty freely in China and Japan; if you want something without MSG, you'd better ask, since it's pretty much in everything.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Can believe China's technology was so...
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
I traveled to China recently. I'll say this: Chinese food in the USA is nothing like real Chinese food.
I particularly remember some sweet/sour chicken I got there. In the US, you get these pretty nuggets of white meat and sauce on them. In China, you get... well pretty much the whole chicken. It's like the took the whole thing (minus the feathers and major organs) and chucked it into a shredder. Spinal cord and all.
It was an odd experience.
One of the best meals I had there was Kangaroo Tail.
Back in 2001/2002 IBM desktop manufacturing was sold off to Sanmina-SCI.
Shortly after that the manufacturing moved out of country.
The Lenovo deal transfers those serfs known as engineers, product testers, and world wide tech support from IBM to the new company.
It remains to be seen if the engineering and product support are shipped off to China.
In my experience working for a Taiwanese OEM/ODM, the Chinese OEM's are not interested in quality-oriented design features unless their biggest customer demands or somehow provides it.
They aren't very interested in providing anywhere near the level of customer service of an American company either.
They see huge profit margins if they remove those quaint American features called "quality" and "service."
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Lots of metrics, though the obvious one is political donations--and to the best of my knowledge IBM does not donate to political parties or encourage employees in any way to donate
IBM doesn't have a PAC, which is probably a good move since typically these organizations end up donating to both sides to hedge their bets. But it does participate extensively in lobbying, which I see as just as bad as campaign donations, and have less oversight.
However, I also disagree that share price should be taken as the only metric of company success.
I agree, since share price is more a representation of sentiments of how the company is perceived, rather than a metric of actual company health. However, the shareholders are the ones in charge, they are the ones the CEO has to please. You need to balance, running the company, and not disappointing shareholders.
In this specific case, I think it's part of the general hollowing out of American industry and strengthening of Chinese industry--which mostly reminds me of what happened in America before the Civil War.
I see it differently, the South never changed, it stayed with it's cotton fields taking advantage of its supply of cheap labor. The north changed, gave up the lower value items for the south to produce and focused on higher value industries. In the 70's and 80's electronic manufacturing moved to asia to take advantage of cheaper labor markets, and the US focused on using the cheaper goods for more value added industries such as software. As software is becoming a commodity and being outsourced, domestic companies can focus on more value added activities such as consulting.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
"which mostly reminds me of what happened in America before the Civil War. The South became a militarily-strong, industrially-weak debtor."
Great example and a point I have been trying to make. Local optimizations sometimes can cause global catastrophe.
Well, it isn't the greed so much as it is an outright transfer of intellectual property to a company subsidized and controlled by the Chinese government.
Beyond the obvious foolishness of purchasing computer hardware built in a country who may become a combatant enemy, (don't start. it isn't red-baiting) the United States already has 160 billion dollar (USD$160,000,000,000) trade deficit with China.
But I guess it doesn't matter much nowadays. What with the US being morally bankrupt, we may as well become fiscally bankrupt to complete the picture while we slide into third-world country status.
I hate this, now the Chinese are digesting our good companies, and we're letting them.
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
Did you see the MSG sign with the line through at the bottom of the page you linked?
I agree with those who view this as a smart move by IBM. Here's why:
... but I digress.
... anyway, that's hopeless speculation. Although, economically we are similar to Rome militarily. ... but now this is just the rambling of an IT guy who majored in History.
1. They sell a branch of the company that was often losing money for cold hard cash.
2. They get 19% of a Chinese company, giving them a way past China's trade barriars. They get a headstart on everyone else providing high end technology services to a booming Chinese economy that lacks said expertese and has the means to pay for it. Meanwhile HP languishes under two divisions of PC manufacturing (HP & Compaq.) Way to go Carly
3. Did I mention that this gives IBM a way to sell products and services to the Chinese? Potentially billions to be made before the Chinese technology providers mature to IBM's level. (Note: I'm not saying that China lacks intelligent people, it's just that the US/Western world has spents decades longer training thousands more techs. It won't take them long to catchup though.)
4. If the US screws up their economy too bad IBM has a lifeline! I really hope that letting the dollar fall in value helps with the trade gap and makes it possible for US manufacturing to pick back up. I do not think that the US economy will crash in 10 or 20 years. I do worry that it will crash in 50 to 100 years. I also fear that the US will decide the best thing to do is plunder a few countries via conquest with their surplus military equipment
The Romans were so confident in their legions that they stopped inovating. After all, they conquered everyone worth conquering, right? Wrong, they got beat by wandering nomads who actually fought differently than the Romans were used to: how dare they?! Western based companies, often spear headed by American companies, have dominated the economy for fifty years now, but people are starting to play by their own rules. Will they be able to compete or will the 'barbarians' decimate their legions with unorthodox tactics. I honestly hope something in the middle happens
I thought it was three: Mandarin, Szechuan, and Cantonese. At least, these seem to be the three styles usually offered by Chinese restaurants I go to.
Yes. They're increasing their military budget while exhausting their infrastructure and spending more than their GDP can generate government revenue to cover. What a silly thing to do. Seems like there's another country which is doing something like that as well...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
China has been, for hundreds of years, excepting a few decades in the second half of the 20th century when they shut themselves off from the barbarians of the west who were carving up their country into colonies. Expect much, much more to come.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
At least in the female aspect of you post- when I lived in china a few months ago, I had no fewer than 10 girlfriends. Really, finding a girlfriend in china is like the proverbial shooting fish in a barrell... I guess, unless you are a complete dorky loser.
As for the dialects and food- true. But you can do well learning the main dialect (Mandarin), and English will get you by in Shanghai, Beijing and perhaps Shenzhen/Guangzhou.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
You know of course that wholefoods.com wants to scare you to death about generally safe substances in order to sell you their overpriced foods? And that glutamate occurs naturally in a truckload of foods? A very very few people have problems with MSG. The rest of us could eat it at levels twice what you find in any Chinese restaurant.
Vote Quimby!
Are they scared to say what they say and put their actual pseudonym or even their name to it ?
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
I agree very much on the argument that this deal takes IBM out of the realm of being in the same boat as many of its customers - that of knowing what a low-cost, high volume business with margins that grocery retailers are used to, is like. This may be a very good thing, especially to IBMs accountants - oops, executives (the days of sales guys running the company have long gone - they are all bean counters now). In my experience I think that IBM has essentially lost money in the PC business every year since about 1987. The venture into MicroChannel based PS/2 systems was an effort to reclaim the heady days of 70% market share, and keeping the market in the modest volume, high margin end; they sold a million PS/2 systems in the first year, and it cost them 100M USD to do so (I recall Ed Lucente standing up and saying that). But my observation is that the high volume business is where real innovation comes from. It gives the whole company an appreciation of the speed that product development has to run at, to make money in this world. We don't have the luxury any more of research efforts taking years, and product development taking years after that. I remember when IBM Greenock, Scotland was in the business of competing in the OEM marketplace (and if you think that retail PC is tough, wait till you sell components to PC manufacturers). Product development went to 6-3-3 (6 months development, 3 months ramp, 3 months volume production before End Of Life) and then to 4-2-2. It was scary stuff for a company who came from 3:1 or 4:1 price:cost ratios, but they were determined to succeed, and the effects of that transformation in the way product was developed and manufactured rippled down (up?) the company. Where exactly did PowerPC come from ? Sure - IBM had POWER - but the initiative to deliver huge performance in a commodity engine came from the joint venture with Apple and Motorola. Affordable 32- and 64-way machines like p690 and Squadron can trace their heritage to IBM trying to make it in the high volume low margins business. An absolute ton of appliances that keep our precious Internet running, are based on embedded PowerPC solutions. Apple clearly has survived in the epic struggle of the PC manufacturers with their machines based on that technology. Where is the next technology going to come from ? Without the striving to survive and to succeed; without the huge amounts of invention, self-reinvention that keeps a company making money by developing products in this IT world; unless you continue to compete in the high volume business, and invent to keep your margin and your edge, you are doomed.
No I am thinking that as much as we would like otherwise the world is aligned on country boundries. I live here the Chinese live there. Unlike companies that have cleaner mutual interests in economic relationships, countries have a different usually non-economic layer of politics that effects the companies relations between countries.
What can happen and what I was suggesting that for important industries, there may ba a conflict of interest that comes up between coutnries that effects the companies dealing cross border. A good case in point is the border wars we have between the US and Canada over fishing rights. I worked for a US subsidiary of a Canadian company and we would run into trouble on the border sometimes getting pulled into rooms and questions why we were going up to Canada to do work that Canadians could do. Apparently on occasion these two friendly countries would make the common folk suffer for political disputes.
In the case of China we have several as I mentioned area's that could cause major political problems between the countries that could have major fallout on companies doing business cross border. I understand that China is currently involved in a very large "movement" within the party where all the party members are having to meet and probably go through a 'self examination' process. I think they are worried that the rush to capitalism is going too quickly and graft and corruption in the government is increasing and things are getting out of their central control. You also see that thier retoric around Taiwan is heating up and becoming more intransigent. I personally think we could see a major set of policy shifts in the near future and I would venture to say, we will be blindsided by them.
So no US not better but we have to look at the risk of important comodities and services not under your control. As any good programmer you do defensive programming.
IBM for one welcome our new Chinese laptop overlords.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
look up the inflation rate between 1935 and 1975.
Way to cherry-pick an era. The US has had three major protection stages and you managed to miss all of them. The first, in the 20s, precipitated the Great Depression. The second, in the 70s, caused stagflation, which had just begun in 1975. The third, in the early 80s, shows how protection can be properly used - to protect struggling industries (e.g. Harley), where the protection is removed after a few years.
If you're not xenophobic, then why are you opposed to immigration both legal and illegal? The only reason you don't like what they're doing is because they don't live here, which is xenophobia (not racism, which I'm not accusing you of).
Nah, it'd be simple to find a wife, depending on what you are looking for. Being a foreigner (laowai!), you are a hot commodity. Foreign passport, foreign money, opportunities. Of course, you might not WANT the attention of people just looking to advance themselves socially, but it'd be simple to find a wife.
Also, there are AT LEAST 4 different dialects: mandarin, cantonese, fuchanese, taiwanese, hakka, jin, etc etc etc. But luckily, most people can speak mandarin, so you will be ok if you can just learn the one. Plus the written langauge is more or less the same across all the dialects, so don't have to worry about that. Of course, that's assuming you can remember the thousands of characters necessary just to read a newspaper.
As far as regional cuisines, every region has it's own food, and almost every city is "famous" for some special food. Beijing is famous for it's duck, some other city is famous for it's rice balls, Lanzhou is famous for it's pulled noodles, etc etc etc. People take their regional tastes pretty similarly. (I regularly hear things like "I don't eat noodles, because I am from the south!")
That's what I did.
Lots of the tech companies need English speakers with some tech skill, to help communicate. As long as you are willing to settle for a salary much less than your fancy US salary, you could probably find an opportunity over here. I spend my days doing a mix of technical work, and communicating with US customers about the work, then using SLOW, CLEAR english, re-explaining it to my Chinese coworkers (I know a tiny bit of Chinese, but not enough to communicate about work).
The food being better? Well, I'm starting to get tired of cubes of congealed pork blood, and large amounts of tofu. I'm not so keen on the pig intestines either, or the cubes of fat. The dog hotpot wasn't so bad, if you can get over the gutted dog hanging on the display rack. And I'm not sure what you mean about the food not being diverse. The local food is incredibly diverse (they have a lot more things than your local chinese carry-out would like you to believe), and there's plenty of foreign food (all with a bit of a Chinese taste, just like our American "foreign" restaurants all have been American-ized).
People here are generally really friendly towards foreigners, especially ones that look foreign (my white face and big nose earn me plenty of "Hello!" and stares as I walk down the street). If you learn the tiniest bit of Chinese (Mandarin), and can operate chopsticks, people will think you're pretty cool. Then learn to sing karaoke of one of the 5 popular western songs (My heart will go on, Yesterday once more, Sealed with a kiss, Take me to your heart, Hotel California), and you'll be in great shape.
the hard drives from Maxtor or Seagate or WDC
The software is mostly from Microsoft.
I could go on and on here.
the only real technology challange is the thermal design. How do you get the heat out.
IBM is not selling technology to China.
If someone is worried about security and back doors, their PC is going to be a major security risk regardless of the nationality of the Brand on the box. If someone wants security they should not be buying a PC with Windows.
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
We outsourced to IBM and they are already dealing with China directly. They were not waiting for approval, they were already in full swing. When the Chinese New Year struck we had to wait for hundreds of IBM hardware orders to ship while the Chinese factories simply shutdown. Thanks to 'Just In Time', IBM didn't have any in stock in the USA and had to wait for the Chinese shipment.
All of the shipments still go through customs. I ordered an Apple PowerBook online to get the cheaper model and upgrade it to the backlit keyboard. I had to wait about 3 extra days due to customs delays. Not fun, watching FexEx package tracking simply stall!
China has been throwing a hell of a lot of money into their military machine lately. We are talking about a hell of a lot of overkill! Certainly much more then is needed for mere self-defense. China has been threatening Taiwan more aggressively as well. China is still a Communist country and as such cannot be trusted. These are the same people who killed all those student protesters with tanks! They have sophisticated submarines an enormous army and nuclear warheads.
China is fighting to keep Hong Kong and Taiwan under control because they are the technological centers of China. They see the potential of capitalism in regards to the economy but they still don't trust diplomacy. Russia is similar. There are a whole lot of old communists that just don't 'Get It'.
China has also got it's sights set on the Middle East and Africa. They are going to need natural resources like oil, copper, etc. China is not a major threat at the moment, but that can quickly change in a short decade.
Of course, that's assuming you can remember the thousands of characters necessary just to read a newspaper.
I dont know why so many people think it would be hard to read a newspaper in an asian language. To read a newspaper in english you have to remember how to spell each word. It is just as complicated to spell a word as it is to read an asian language.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
You're making a pretty big leap saying that Whole Foods wants to scare you into buying their food, when Whole Goods specifically caters to people with special dietary wants and needs. The price of their food reflects the fact that they make a lot of it themselves, seeing as how if it was generally available, you could buy it anywhere for a more affordable price. Most people aren't glutamate sensitive, but most people aren't allergic to gluten or lactose either.
Hey, I'm not saying it'd be any harder than it is in English. I'm just saying it'd be much harder to read a newspaper than it is to read left, right, entrance, exit, and noodles.
A newspaper is just a good benchmark for your fluency in a written language.