Slashdot Mirror
IBM Seeks US Patents For Offshoring US Jobs
theodp writes "IBM and other corporations are seeking patents for inventions covering the offshoring of US jobs. The USPTO is considering IBM's patent application for Outsourcing of Services, a 'method for identifying human-resource work content to outsource offshore of an organization' to 'countries where cheaper labor prices and/or cheaper materials are available.' Then there's Big Blue's Electronic Marketplace for Identifying, Assessing, Reserving and Engaging Knowledge-Workers for an Assignment Using Trade-Off Analysis, which provides a handy-dandy IBM calculator that drives home the point that you'll pay less for IGS India workers, whether onshore or offshore. And with its System and Method of Using Speech Recognition at Call Centers to Improve Their Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction, IBM describes how to operate in 'low cost foreign countries' with 'support people not having good English language skills, or having an accent that makes it difficult to understand them' by exploiting technology developed for students who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as other accent reduction techniques."
I'm sick of calling Dell, etc. and getting an "engrish is my 3rd language" call center representative. If they way to increase the cost of outsourcing, thereby decreasing feasibility, works for me.
1: Apply for a patent of India style English
2: ???
3: ???
4: Profit!
Speaking as a guy that's 70% deaf, these "techniques" could suck the chrome off a Harley. I have to ask accented people to repeat themselves, speak slower, and have YET to find one that knows the meaning of the word 'enunciate'. Heck, I had to get transferred 3-4 times one call to find someone who knew the definition of either "deaf" OR "hearing-impaired".
I won't argue that these patents might make some cash in the short term, but I'm curious if they've factored in the value of consumer good will...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Patenting business methods that are nothing more
that what used to be called 'management'.
My how management has gotten messed up over the last 30 years.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
If a few companies patent the entire outsourcing process, they will make it difficult for others to outsource. Then, there will be more domestic jobs and they'll have to work with immigration to outsource the labor here at home (where they will at least pump a little of their pay back into the economy).
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
I'm going to patent the process for getting patents.
That'll show 'em.
If they're sucessful in holding up that first patent, that means no other companies could do it!!!! I hope they win when someone sues them or they sue someone over it. Then you'll only get cheap foreigners that don't speak english well when you call IBM support. I'm all for this one!
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Be happy.
In a couple of years the dollar will have fallen so far that the Indians will be off shoring to you!
Deleted
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/322652_msftvancouver06.html
I wouldn't show MS as an example of Made in the USA.
lookup the xbox production sometime too. http://www.google.com/search?q=xbox+production+international
Specifically, can you patent a business practice, or a business model?
I can understand patenting technologies that lead up to it, but patenting the whole thing? I have no idea if that's within the scope of a patent...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Nice to see you're proud Windows is made in your country. I'm proud it's not made in mine.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
My ancestors fought in order to have equitable pay for work, decent working conditions, and something approaching a society where there is a reasonable middle-class.
This is the kind of thing that seeks to have the U.S. be like a third-world nation. A small group of people who control most of the wealth and everyone else not much more than slaves.
I for one, will not stand for it. I WILL rise up. I WILL start the fucking revolution. It is time for us American citizens to wake up from our slumber. We need to hang these fuckers. Every last one of them.
They have no loyalty to anything but the money in their own pockets. The rest of the worlds people should do the same in their countries. If they won't, then that is up to them to live in squalor.
I say, No Way! Not here! My ancestors didn't die in Steel Mills and Coal Mines etc. in order for the few to be permitted to take everything away from the many.
It is time to rise up! Time to start the revolution. This MUST NOT be permitted.
Only cowards will rest on their laurels while everything is stolen away from us like this. This is MY COUNTRY and I WILL FIGHT for it.
WAKE UP PEOPLE! THIS IS PURE EVIL!
Tear it down. Tear it all down. Time for a house cleaning. Time to teach the moneyed elite that we will not stand for it.
Don't give me any crappy economic arguments about comparative advantage and such. If the only comparative advantage is that one workforce has rights to decent working condition and decent wages and one doesn't, then fuck economics.
Take these people in their fancy business suits that care not one shit for you and other American Citizens. Hang them!
Rise up! Rise up! Don't be a coward! Don't sit idly by while you are robbed of everything your forebears fought and died for.
Wake up people of America! Wake up!
Fight for your rights! Fight to death if necessary! Do not allow this wholesale theft of the American Dream!
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
Nothing here (on the surface) seems to breaking new ground here, even in combination. Now if the system worked as it should, this patent would not be granted. Or, it were to be granted, it would be set-aside in a challenge due to prior art.
But with the Patent Office in its usual dysfunctional form and with IBM sitting on top of a team of patent lawyers that would not blush at arguing about IBM being the inventor of the wheel. It should be yet another step towards maintaining the status quo.
I didn't intend to imply there should be wholesale slaughter. What I meant to convey is that these actions are meant to undermine everything valuable about a civil society where people have a right to dignity, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Those who would work to deprive us of these rights, must be stopped. With complete and utter finality!
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
I won't argue that these patents might make some cash in the short term, but I'm curious if they've factored in the value of consumer good will...
For placing a projectile travelling at high velocity into the foot of person holding the projectile launcher, or metaphorically performing the same function on a company.
One can only hope that if IBM is granted these patents, their rigourous enforcement will make offshoring less attractive.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
It is time to rise up! Time to start the revolution. This MUST NOT be permitted.
If you're upset that these big companies are seeking business method patents for processes that may or may not even pan out in the marketplace, I'm puzzled. The method patents will only allow certain companies to use certain methods to perform some of their business functions offshore. This will allow them to keep others from using the same carefully defined methods, or will force other companies to license those methods. Either way, outsourcing is no longer the Soup-to-Nuts-Slam-Dunk Solution many companies thought it would be.
If you're upset about outsourcing, I wonder how you run your Open Source consulting firm. After all, a huge chunk of the software you're dealing with was created by people in countries other than the United States, and I'd hazard a guess that most of the work done on those programs wasn't done in North-East Ohio. In essence, you've outsourced millions of hours worth of work to the people who developed the software you're using. You, as a provider of technical services, are able to compete more effectively because of their labor.
If you were truly serious about being a mercantist, you wouldn't be leveraging so much labor from outside the US in your own business.
Finally, this statement is bizarre:
If the only comparative advantage is that one workforce has rights to decent working condition and decent wages and one doesn't, then fuck economics.
The Indian economy has taken off after decades in the doldrums. There is a rapidly developing middle class in China for the first time. The United States has a tremendously powerful economy that is extremely efficient at creating new markets. Do you seriously contend that the world would be better off without global trade? Or is it just that you feel entitled, as an American, to live in a world free of competition? We got rich first, so screw everyone else?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
rah rah, USA... pathetic.
If you consider Windows good, I've got some swamp land in Florida for you.
GOOD? GOOD? Wow. Some people never learn, do they.
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
Listen kid, if you want to stand up for your rights, then by all means vote with your wallet and effect change in society. But the moment you raise your hands against someone else, and that includes not only all the people you wish to kill but also the ones you would coax into helping you, then that is when you lose all rights, credibility, and possibly your life too. In case you want to answer, please avoid all those meaningless one-liners.
Global warming is a cube.
You (everyone) just have to realise that they stole all your money from you and are now leasing it to you at 5% a year.
Money is power, by allowing them to lend your money to you they have taken all the money and all the power.
Deleted
...starve them. They make their money off us, off of what we buy, off of what we earn. If we cut our earning and spending to the bone, it cuts their food supply.
Work as little as possible, buy as little as possible.
This requires no organization.
This requires no violence.
This requires no breaking of laws.
This requires no political power.
The only sacrifice is being poor, and we are going to end up that way anyway.
In return, you get ample free time.
Hey, I can put Windows on a machine, and watch a movie after it is installed.
Oh cool! So which version of Windows did they finally put DVD playback in out of the box?
Becuase I've installed up to XP sp2 and it never worked, I always had to install some 3rd-party DVD playback software before WMP would finally play the movie...
People generally don't care too much about sharing with other OSes
Monoculture's are bad - you just pointed out part of the catch 22 that stops us getting away from 95% market dominance by Microsoft, even if you prefer windows and would stick to MS products, you would benefit by the fact that there would be real competition in the OS sector, affecting prices and with luck spurring innovation, lock ins prevent you from benefiting from competition because, well you are a captive audience.
Microsoft open a development center in Vancouver because of Visa problems for foreign workers
One wonders why Microsoft would even bother. The USA is awash in illegal immigrants, and your Danish friend, Microsoft, and the United States at large would have been better off had your Danish friend just blown off the H1-B process and just got a job as an illegal alien.
This is my sig.
I called apple the other day for a technical problem on a machine, and the person I spoke to did not speak English as his first language. He also didn't speak it very well or understand me very well. We managed to communicate well enough in the end, but I was not very happy with my experience. Either way, Apple does hire people who don't speak "perfect" English. Incidently, English is very complicated, and it takes constant effort to speak or write it clearly.