Are Information Technology's Glory Days Over?

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that computer science students with the entrepreneurial spirit may want to look for a different major, because if Thomas M. Siebel, founder of Siebel Systems, is right, IT is a mature industry that will grow no faster than the larger economy, its glory days having ended in 2000. Addressing Stanford students in February as a guest of the engineering school, Siebel called attention to 20 sweet years from 1980 to 2000, when worldwide IT spending grew at a compounded annual growth rate of 17 percent. 'All you had to do was show up and not goof it up,' Siebel says. 'All ships were rising.' Since 2000, however, that rate has averaged only 3 percent. His explanation for the sharp decline is that 'the promise of the post-industrial society has been realized.' In Siebel's view, far larger opportunities are to be found in businesses that address needs in food, water, health care and energy. Though Silicon Valley was 'where the action was' when he finished graduate school, he says, 'if I were graduating today, I would get on a boat and I would get off in Shanghai.'"

Comments

Re:What would that do

[hairyfeet]

How is it protectionist to say they must play by the same rules? China artificially lowers their currency to make exports attractive. Both India and China allow much more toxins and pollutions to poison their people, yet we are still supposed to treat them as we would the EU because of "free trade"? Since India will allow you to get a Master's degree for $20k, why don't we send a mass migration of students their way? We won't because we can't. I would bet my last soon to be worthless dollar that India would close their borders and turn them away. Why? Because the Indian government cares about INDIA and wants it to succeed.

We seem to be the ONLY country that is buying into this totally open "free trade" crap, and look what it has gotten us: we no longer have a manufacturing base, we no longer have electronics being produced here. Hell if a major war broke out tomorrow could we even provide for our troops without Chinese supplies? Probably not.

You mark my words and mark them well. Our IT will be totally gutted, thanks to H1-B slaves. When the industry is all but a corpse and someone in congress actually grows a spine and refuses to allow more slavery, then those corporations will show their true colors by abandoning the US for China or India or Malaysia, where they can poison all they want. Wake up! You can't have a fair game if the other side doesn't play by the rules. Either we protect our own or we can watch our economy suffer a total collapse. But thanks to treasonous bribery being legal, I personally think it is only a matter of time until we suffer a Soviet style complete collapse. The only question now is when.

Because you simply can't send all the money overseas, while getting no money coming in, without the whole house of cards coming down. They don't follow our IP laws, our environmental laws, or have worker protection. It is time to STOP treating these countries as equals! Fair trade or NO trade!