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Google Lawsuit Exposes Microsoft Offshoring Deal
2old2rockNroll writes "In more news from Microsoft's Google lawsuit, it appears that Ballmer's 2003 trip to China may have had as much to do with Microsoft moving jobs as selling software. It seems that the Chinese are not pleased with the number of jobs being moved to China, and one of Lee's duties was to identify jobs for export. Although hiring in Redmond has slowed, a Microsoft spokesperson admits they are "growing their work force" in China. Is it possible that Bill Gates' recent lament over the decline of US CS graduates and research spending was merely crocodile tears?"
How's this for perspective? What kind of company do you think Microsoft would be today if Gates and Ballmer had been born and educated in India or China? What kind of computer geek hiring pool would they have had available to build the company up during their boom years? Do they owe the U.S. anything more than corporate taxes? I say yes, they do. They owe their very existence to the place and culture they grew up in. Instead of copping out with the Everybody-Does-It argument they should be using their business and innovation skills to find ways to keep as many jobs in America as possible, instead of selling them to the lowest bidder.
So Windows XP was put together by the best brains that money could buy and it was OK - not great, not good, just OK. >90% of the worlds computers, for better or worse, run on this operating system, and its averageness has lead to a world where people still think that viruses, malware and spyware are an accepted part of computing and that its the 90% marketshare making it a target that has caused these problem.
Now its going to be designed by the best people money can buy, Microfied (viruses and bugs added - to improve the upgrade market) by the marketing dept, and then built by the cheapest labour on the planet. And this will improve stability and performance how? What about all those studies that show that its not the volume of coders that you need, its the quality?
Now I'm sure, given the right support, these Chinese coders have the potential to take over the world, but the fact is they'll get Mubai'd. Badly translated design sheets will arrive on their desks. They're managers will only be interested in the volume of code they produce (because thats an easier metric than quality), and the working environment will be sweat shop not think tank, and probably worse of all, if they find an inconsistancy in the design, they'll code through it as it will be cheaper than waiting for the world to rotate so that Redmond is awake enough to answer questions coherantly.
To all the banks, governments, militaries et al. The end is nigh. Start investing now in Linux or BSD. They're charities, so its tax deductable. If you want more control you can buy that too. What you want to invest in is the GUI and Office Suite. this is because good coders often find this bit boring, and need 'motivation' to want to do it in their spare time. The rest is pretty much there - at least its already better than a lot of windows. Just remember that you won't 'own' anything, but then you don't own Windows / Office either. I'm sure if you speak nicely to Linus he'll provide you with a "We support free software", or "Free software inside" banner for your websites, brochures and websites.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
That's the worst troll ever.....
You suck ass, loser!
Only if you assume that the only qualified workers have CS degrees. Most of the best developers and testers I've worked with either don't have a degree at all or have a degree in some totally unrelated field. Arguing that there aren't enough CS graduates is just an excuse for MS and other companies to try and justify outsourcing.
If you work for Microsoft, it's very significant. You may soon be fired as your job is done by two or three competent Chinese slaves. This is simply an enlargement of their Chinese that will cost 1,000 employees their jobs.
If use Microsoft, you might be concerned by your software's origin. Microsoft proudly claims to be a US company. That's getting harder for them to say. A few years ago, Microsoft swore in court that releasing the source code to Windoze would represent a national security risk. They have since sold peeks at that software to China and the former KGB. They have set up places in India and China to actually write their "product". So, owned in the US but made and developed in China. Nice.
This exposes the non-free software end game: slavery. Microsoft is non-free software. You can't share it with your friends, study it, improve it or even run it as you please. They have the backing of US and just about every other country's laws. They are also working on hardware, mostly made in China, that does not allow you to run anything else. With China's co-operation, they will win. China is also non-free, in the worst of ways and this is why it's so cheap to get things done there. Now, very few benefit from Microsoft's ownership of software and the intentional waste of the upgrade train. As Microsoft fires it's own employees, you will see that the ultimately only one or two owners with zero tech knowledge will benefit as the rest of us are stripped of choice, privacy, freedom of press.
It's ugly, very ugly.
Further reading can be found GNU:
Microsoft has never been your friend and friends that help you by screwing others will always turn on you. It's been said before and I'll say it again. Companies have obligations to customers, employees and share holders. A company that screws any one of these will eventually screw all three. It's all part of believing that it's OK to screw people.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.