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Microsoft Unveils "Elevate America"
nandemoari writes "In response to the current economic crisis, Microsoft Corp. has come out with a stimulus plan of their own. Their goal is to help a large group of individuals use their computers to land employment in ways other than to generate a compelling resume. The new online initiative, Elevate America, is set to equip close to 2 million people (over the next three years) with the skills needed to succeed in the field of technology."
It's a trap.
That's great, but aren't there already more people equipped with computer skills than the market needs? America doesn't need more job-qualified people (at least, that's not the big problem), it needs jobs to put those people in to.
Whale
Microsoft is just grabbing the opportunity to train more devs and IT in advanced Microsoft products. After all, this is what ensures that companies use these products; that way, the companies don't have to pay for training.
They also use this tactic with student/academia discounts, also.... (MSDNAA, anyone?)
As it is, the problem isn't a lack of qualified individuals, but rather a lack of jobs for them. On the face of it, this looks like a complete failure of an idea. But they have a secret. You see, they will teach people to use only Microsoft technologies, and if everything goes right, these people will be unemployable in an IT environment. When the number of qualified IT people is lowered to the number of jobs, success!
At first, I was going to post about not berating Microsoft blindly. Then I RTFA... They have basic courses for free online, but anything past that is an advertisement for MS certs.
Can step #1 be teaching everybody in my office that Caps lock is not the same as shift?
Also that you need to turn on num-lock to use the numpad?
Seriously...what ever happened to requiring basic computer skills to get an office job?
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
i see no Cisco training, Apache, MySql, etc
but i do see training on Server2008 (woopee do)
this is just a fluff/feelgood PR initative, when really they want 2 millon mcse's/advocates/salespeople who only know about a single vendors product and are therefore ill equipped for the modern diverse IT industry.
there is more to IT than MS and a Mcse
Nigerian "Princes" have been using their computers to generate income for themselves for years now...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"...The new online initiative, Elevate America, is set to equip close to 2 million people (over the next three years) with the skills needed to succeed in the field of technology."
This would have been better and on point:
"...The new online initiative, Elevate America, is set to equip close to 2 million people (over the next three years) with the skills needed to succeed in using Microsoft technologies to perpetuate their proliferation while increasing dependence on such technologies at the same time."
First off, of course computer sales are in a slump. They were in a slump during the last big economic downturn, too. (Remember the "bubble"?) That doesn't mean much of anything.
Second: Microsoft's slump is probably due more to peoples' general (and increasing) dissatisfaction with Microsoft than anything else. But the economy will hurt them, too. Maybe a lot. After all, a 5-year-old PC can run Linux just fine. But try Vista on it. Nope, didn't think so.
I would be willing to bet that Microsoft's slump lasts longer than any slump for Intel or AMD or Google.
And IBM? Who cares? When was the last time YOU bought something from IBM?
Elevate America has two main offerings, one available immediately and one that will be provided in partnership with state governments
Translation: MS will get money earmarked for retraining programs in order to flood the market with MS trained workers, depressing the wages of the latter and making their "TCO" so much more attractive.
You have to admire a company that is able to screw us coming and going.
If you're going to be a xenophobe, you might as well come out and say it, rather than blaming all of our economic woes on foreigners.
The number of H1B workers is a drop in the bucket in the context of the national economy.
The number of H1-B visas that can be issued in a given year is limited to 65,000 by law.
According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the total size of the American workforce was approximately 153.7 million last month (with unemployment at a troubling 11.6 million).
An H1B worker is typically limited to a 6-year stay, unless the worker is applying for permanent residency. Assuming that all 65,000 workers stay each year, we have 390,000 H1B workers in the country at the present (I'd guess the actual number is somewhat less than that).
At the very worst, H1-Bs might represent 0.25% of the national workforce.
Microsoft employs 3,517 H1-B workers (the 3rd most of any American firm), out of 89,809 total employees, or just about 4%. This number might be a little high, although 4 percent doesn't strike me as being particularly alarming.
Microsoft's recent round of layoffs (the first in the company's history) let go about 5,000 workers. Although I suppose these could have largely been avoided by eliminating all of the H1-B workers, that still leaves 1,500 workers, and assumes that every single H1-B worker was worthless to the company (which is somewhat doubtful).
To summarize: Stop complaining about the H1-B workers. Although it's not a good idea to begin hiring foreign workers during a recession, the current crop of H1-B workers is simply too small to be having any substantial effect on the economy.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Bullshit.
Most interesting jobs are for people who can drive any car - whether it's a Toyota or a Renault.
We're a 50-50 linux shop (a big bank), and if you "I DON'T DO WINDOWS", we regard you as the same dogmatic crowd as "I'M SCARED OF LINUX, IT HAS A COMMAND LINE". The clueless crowd we don't hire.
If you're a professional systems engineer, you can manage anything (and code and script on it).
If you're dogmatic about a product, you're putting your religious beliefs (those that tack 'good' and 'evil' labels on things such as Microsoft, GNU or the open-source community) before the interests of your employer, and we wouldn't touch you with a 10-meter pole.
Best advice I can give is be ambivalent - get the fact you're a techie across. If you can sell yourself as an a-religious techie, you'll be in more demand.
Make a potential employer understand you'll do what is best for him, and you won't let your decisions for him be dictated either by your fear of one thing or religious dogma favoring the other.
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