If you report to the IT department, then it's an IT job. If you report to R&D then it's an R&D job. Even if the job is technically using the same skills. People in R&D decide on vendors and such, but for the purposes of figuring out how to build a product to sell to customers. People in IT decide on vendors and such, for the purposes of providing systems for the company to use internally. The external facing web site is not what I consider IT's job, though a lot of web focused companies do blur the line a lot.
I work with people. I care what happens to them. If the company fails then it means lots of people out of work. It is not easy to find new jobs. What does equity do for this? It's 5-10% of my take home pay maybe. If I were at a company I didn't like I'd leave regardless of the equity. If the stock goes through the roof then the execs make all the money and the other workers get only a small fraction. I've known people sticking around for a decade at a company and then when it goes public find out that they didn't get the easy retirement they were hoping for. When companies go public a lot of people leave, not because they got rich but because they learned what that loyalty actually paid. So get the salary up front, and treat anything else as a nice bonus.
Equity is mostly pointless. It amounts to a tiny fraction of annual compensation. A small fraction of companies may have equity pay off more than a normal annual bonus, but you can't count on that (though there are enough gamblers out there who are suckers for it that it keeps the startup industries alive). Salaried employees have skin in the game because that money keeps the food on the table and the mortgage paid off. Unemployment insurance is nearly worthless, it won't cover even a fraction of the cost of living.
Working on a product with a team and being compensated for it makes me care about the company far more than some stock options.
This is important. You need all the workers to be on board, not just a few manages here and there. Sometimes some workers are just there to do the 9 to 5 job, and are prepared to job hop at a moment's notice. They may as well be contracted or outsourced. Of course once they're outsourced to an American company (it house, consulting firm) then it's a small step to outsourcing overseas.
I do see workers in America who are very resistant to doing something outside of their comfort zones. I've heard people say "I wasn't taught that in school", or "this is confusing I never had to do anything like this before". I'm not talking about new technologies, but anything unfamiliar outside of the 9 to 5 job they originally signed up for. If it's software then they just write code, ask them to design something and they get a glazed look in the eyes, or they reach for their holy design patterns book hoping that the words you're saying are in there.
That's why most of the jobs going overseas are in low skill level manufacturing and service. Ie, make the machines work and operate the machines. When you get higher level then it's much harder to outsource effectively. We still have electronics manufacturing in America, but it tends to be smaller companies which also have quick turn around and easier customization that happens before the mass production. We still have help desks in America, Canada, and Europe, that's who you get transferred too when the first two tiers of service can't solve your problem.
I'm not being replaced. I'm not a IT help desk flunky. If that's the career you chose then get used to being one in a million interchangeable employees. I'm sort of tired of slashdot thinking that "tech" means "IT". Not the same thing at all. IT at the moment is a service center job, helping out other employees rather than building things for customers (if you do build things for customers then you're a developer or engineer, not IT).
If you are proud your staff is being replaced, then get ready to be replaced yourself.
Another problem is with Indian management. Any problem they will claim they can solve it. Get the business first, then yell at the employees to get the impossible task done. If it fails blame the workers. It feels somewhat adversarial between management and worker, rather than being parts of the same team.
As for Indian workers who know how to do stuff, most of them are already in America and other countries.
I do foresee a problem for India in the future as it seems they've put too much emphasis on a single things - basic IT. Manufacturing and design is lagging.
Well, you can't take the application and run it elsewhere easily, but you could take the data files. So there were two mistakes; first trying to make the applications portable. Microsoft knows this is a problem because whenever they create a "simple" or "home" application they don't use the absurd Office formats.
Microsoft made a mistake in assuming its customers were locked in and could never abandon ship. So they could spend the billions and assume they'd make double that back, since no one would dare leave and use something else. Microsoft also had an arrogance that made them think they could dominate any market no matter how late to the game they came or how inept their were. Since they had essentially a Windows monopoly they wanted to make use of that to force their way into other markets and lock them down.
Except that their software for devices was not very good. By that I mean, completely awful. The only reason anyone ever used WinCE was loyalty from Windows fans and a mistaken idea from some that it'd be easier to hire cheap commodity Windows developers without losing any quality. I remember my boss getting a Windows based PDA and bragging that it could do Word in color, and then a month later was bitching about it and wishing he still had his Palm V.
For some reason there's a group of people who just refuse to accept that Microsoft is not very good at making software, but because the only software they've ever seen in their lives is from Microsoft they assume that's the state of the art.
I would expect an age discrimination lawsuit from this. That's why CEOs keep this a secret. For one to blab the secret out loud though, and one from an old established company rather than a naive startup CEO, that's strange. Either she got too puffed up to keep the secret or she got really really drunk.
Ugh, had to do my duty and call my mother today. So much politics, about how the country is over if hillary wins, about the websites I should visit that have *proof* she's guilty of something or other, about how Obama loves muslims and hates christians, Hillary's advisor is a muslim (oh ya, she thinks that's enough to make her a traitor). All the while she's on the verge of crying because those frauds on the internet have convinced her of these conspiracy theories. There's so much bullshit out there, any fool can claim they have proof of something or other, and then other people go and cite that as evidence.
Good companies do this. I am not convinced that Microsoft actually does this though or that they do it properly, since they keep screwing up with things that the public dislikes. Windows ME, Windows Vista, the Metro UI (good idea on a phone but disaster on a desktop), Microsoft Bob, Clippy, and so forth.
Of course they laugh at things like Ubuntu Unity too, but I'm certain those devs don't do usability studies. Meanwhile Apple Macs don'tt seem to have features that are so bad they've turned into jokes. Sure, they're not happy with the flat look of newer releases but they're also not angry with them like people are angry at Microsoft.
I think Microsoft designs sort of the way that some open source developers design: they have an idea for something new and just go for it without first doing usability studies or the like. Then later when the public is mad they hunker down and become stubborn. Think SystemD for example where the attitude is so much like that of Microsoft; they know everyone hates it but they're hoping to ride out the storm because they think they know better than the users what is best for them.
You just do the necessary math. They have teams of accountants trained from birth to fool the investors about what's going on in a company. Having them make it look like profits are over 100% is something they do at lunch between the soup and the appetizer. Besides, everyone is required to give 110% at work.
I actually had a friend who's GPA was over 4.0. It wasn't because A+ was counted higher either. It was because he transferred school districts with a different grading systems and number of units, and the new school applied a formula to do the conversion. Grade scores earned divided by class units taken or something like that.
For forgot that the marketing department was in charge of Windows development. That means logic is not in the equation. They wanted to sell more phones, so the goal is to make a desktop that makes the users think "WTF, this looks just like a phone, so I should go use a phone instead!"
According to Microsoft, you job is not to use your computer for work, instead your job is to look at the advertisements so that Microsoft makes more money.
Windows 10 doesn't have any exclusive games that are worth buying anyway. There is no rush to make games with the latest DirectX release, and there are no customers clamoring for it.
Anyone who makes software that works for Windows 10 and fails to work on Windows 7 is incredibly foolish. Any reputable software maker for Windows may still even make sure it works on Windows XP. Happy customers means you get repeat business and profits. Pissing off customers the way Microsoft does is a fast trip to bankruptcy.
The programs will keep working as long as they don't change. I suspect that Win2K used on today's computers is going to be blazingly fast compared to the bloatware in modern Windows. Sure, you have to use Office 95, but that was the last good version of Office anyway.
Windows 7 is also supported until 2020 anyway. Or are you the kind who buys a new car every year because eventually the old car will be obsolete so you upgrade immediately instead of waiting?
Any company that relies on ad revenue for profits and is not giving away the product for free, needs to fix its broken business model. Just having the ads show up is a sign that Microsoft is desparate for the few nickels and dimes I can get that way which means sell that MSFT stock NOW!
Slashdot Mirror
If you report to the IT department, then it's an IT job. If you report to R&D then it's an R&D job. Even if the job is technically using the same skills. People in R&D decide on vendors and such, but for the purposes of figuring out how to build a product to sell to customers. People in IT decide on vendors and such, for the purposes of providing systems for the company to use internally. The external facing web site is not what I consider IT's job, though a lot of web focused companies do blur the line a lot.
I work with people. I care what happens to them. If the company fails then it means lots of people out of work. It is not easy to find new jobs.
What does equity do for this? It's 5-10% of my take home pay maybe. If I were at a company I didn't like I'd leave regardless of the equity. If the stock goes through the roof then the execs make all the money and the other workers get only a small fraction. I've known people sticking around for a decade at a company and then when it goes public find out that they didn't get the easy retirement they were hoping for. When companies go public a lot of people leave, not because they got rich but because they learned what that loyalty actually paid. So get the salary up front, and treat anything else as a nice bonus.
Equity is mostly pointless. It amounts to a tiny fraction of annual compensation. A small fraction of companies may have equity pay off more than a normal annual bonus, but you can't count on that (though there are enough gamblers out there who are suckers for it that it keeps the startup industries alive). Salaried employees have skin in the game because that money keeps the food on the table and the mortgage paid off. Unemployment insurance is nearly worthless, it won't cover even a fraction of the cost of living.
Working on a product with a team and being compensated for it makes me care about the company far more than some stock options.
This is important. You need all the workers to be on board, not just a few manages here and there. Sometimes some workers are just there to do the 9 to 5 job, and are prepared to job hop at a moment's notice. They may as well be contracted or outsourced. Of course once they're outsourced to an American company (it house, consulting firm) then it's a small step to outsourcing overseas.
I do see workers in America who are very resistant to doing something outside of their comfort zones. I've heard people say "I wasn't taught that in school", or "this is confusing I never had to do anything like this before". I'm not talking about new technologies, but anything unfamiliar outside of the 9 to 5 job they originally signed up for. If it's software then they just write code, ask them to design something and they get a glazed look in the eyes, or they reach for their holy design patterns book hoping that the words you're saying are in there.
That's why most of the jobs going overseas are in low skill level manufacturing and service. Ie, make the machines work and operate the machines. When you get higher level then it's much harder to outsource effectively. We still have electronics manufacturing in America, but it tends to be smaller companies which also have quick turn around and easier customization that happens before the mass production. We still have help desks in America, Canada, and Europe, that's who you get transferred too when the first two tiers of service can't solve your problem.
I'm not being replaced. I'm not a IT help desk flunky. If that's the career you chose then get used to being one in a million interchangeable employees. I'm sort of tired of slashdot thinking that "tech" means "IT". Not the same thing at all. IT at the moment is a service center job, helping out other employees rather than building things for customers (if you do build things for customers then you're a developer or engineer, not IT).
If you are proud your staff is being replaced, then get ready to be replaced yourself.
Another problem is with Indian management. Any problem they will claim they can solve it. Get the business first, then yell at the employees to get the impossible task done. If it fails blame the workers. It feels somewhat adversarial between management and worker, rather than being parts of the same team.
As for Indian workers who know how to do stuff, most of them are already in America and other countries.
I do foresee a problem for India in the future as it seems they've put too much emphasis on a single things - basic IT. Manufacturing and design is lagging.
Point is, it's stupid to accuse one side of irredeemable evil while praising the other side as the savior of the country, when they look alike.
Well, you can't take the application and run it elsewhere easily, but you could take the data files. So there were two mistakes; first trying to make the applications portable. Microsoft knows this is a problem because whenever they create a "simple" or "home" application they don't use the absurd Office formats.
Microsoft made a mistake in assuming its customers were locked in and could never abandon ship. So they could spend the billions and assume they'd make double that back, since no one would dare leave and use something else. Microsoft also had an arrogance that made them think they could dominate any market no matter how late to the game they came or how inept their were. Since they had essentially a Windows monopoly they wanted to make use of that to force their way into other markets and lock them down.
Except that their software for devices was not very good. By that I mean, completely awful. The only reason anyone ever used WinCE was loyalty from Windows fans and a mistaken idea from some that it'd be easier to hire cheap commodity Windows developers without losing any quality. I remember my boss getting a Windows based PDA and bragging that it could do Word in color, and then a month later was bitching about it and wishing he still had his Palm V.
For some reason there's a group of people who just refuse to accept that Microsoft is not very good at making software, but because the only software they've ever seen in their lives is from Microsoft they assume that's the state of the art.
I would expect an age discrimination lawsuit from this. That's why CEOs keep this a secret. For one to blab the secret out loud though, and one from an old established company rather than a naive startup CEO, that's strange. Either she got too puffed up to keep the secret or she got really really drunk.
Ugh, had to do my duty and call my mother today. So much politics, about how the country is over if hillary wins, about the websites I should visit that have *proof* she's guilty of something or other, about how Obama loves muslims and hates christians, Hillary's advisor is a muslim (oh ya, she thinks that's enough to make her a traitor). All the while she's on the verge of crying because those frauds on the internet have convinced her of these conspiracy theories. There's so much bullshit out there, any fool can claim they have proof of something or other, and then other people go and cite that as evidence.
The best thing about polls is that there are so many and they agree so rarely that you can pick any subset of them to prove anything you want.
"Standard" can also mean commonly used. Whereas the USB-C may follow a technical standard it is also very rarely used.
Good companies do this. I am not convinced that Microsoft actually does this though or that they do it properly, since they keep screwing up with things that the public dislikes. Windows ME, Windows Vista, the Metro UI (good idea on a phone but disaster on a desktop), Microsoft Bob, Clippy, and so forth.
Of course they laugh at things like Ubuntu Unity too, but I'm certain those devs don't do usability studies. Meanwhile Apple Macs don'tt seem to have features that are so bad they've turned into jokes. Sure, they're not happy with the flat look of newer releases but they're also not angry with them like people are angry at Microsoft.
I think Microsoft designs sort of the way that some open source developers design: they have an idea for something new and just go for it without first doing usability studies or the like. Then later when the public is mad they hunker down and become stubborn. Think SystemD for example where the attitude is so much like that of Microsoft; they know everyone hates it but they're hoping to ride out the storm because they think they know better than the users what is best for them.
And most of them voted for Android.
You just do the necessary math. They have teams of accountants trained from birth to fool the investors about what's going on in a company. Having them make it look like profits are over 100% is something they do at lunch between the soup and the appetizer. Besides, everyone is required to give 110% at work.
I actually had a friend who's GPA was over 4.0. It wasn't because A+ was counted higher either. It was because he transferred school districts with a different grading systems and number of units, and the new school applied a formula to do the conversion. Grade scores earned divided by class units taken or something like that.
For forgot that the marketing department was in charge of Windows development. That means logic is not in the equation. They wanted to sell more phones, so the goal is to make a desktop that makes the users think "WTF, this looks just like a phone, so I should go use a phone instead!"
According to Microsoft, you job is not to use your computer for work, instead your job is to look at the advertisements so that Microsoft makes more money.
Windows 10 doesn't have any exclusive games that are worth buying anyway. There is no rush to make games with the latest DirectX release, and there are no customers clamoring for it.
Anyone who makes software that works for Windows 10 and fails to work on Windows 7 is incredibly foolish. Any reputable software maker for Windows may still even make sure it works on Windows XP. Happy customers means you get repeat business and profits. Pissing off customers the way Microsoft does is a fast trip to bankruptcy.
The programs will keep working as long as they don't change. I suspect that Win2K used on today's computers is going to be blazingly fast compared to the bloatware in modern Windows. Sure, you have to use Office 95, but that was the last good version of Office anyway.
Windows 7 is also supported until 2020 anyway. Or are you the kind who buys a new car every year because eventually the old car will be obsolete so you upgrade immediately instead of waiting?
Any company that relies on ad revenue for profits and is not giving away the product for free, needs to fix its broken business model. Just having the ads show up is a sign that Microsoft is desparate for the few nickels and dimes I can get that way which means sell that MSFT stock NOW!