They are outsourcing because they can get the same work done for less money. Period. As an employee you are a commodity, if you can't distinguish functionally between 2 commodities then the only discerning factor becomes cost.
Evidently, someone can distinguish between the two. They're called customers. A well known IT services company offers its client a discount if they chose to use overseas staff. (The idea is that the services company saves quite a bit, and passes some of that down to the customer.)
Given the 'commodity labor' you think the choice would be a no-brainer, right? Who wouldn't want to save 10-20% by using a different commodity support staff. It appears that companies are even more shy towards using foreign workers that they don't have direct control over. Wonder why?
You have absolutely no pride in the thoughts you express. You are writing as an anonymous coward. You're wasting my time with words you don't feel worthy of putting your name to.
What is worse is when the language barrier isn't as bad, but they have absolutely no pride or care in their work. I recently called my company's help desk, which appears to be 100% outsourced to India. They give their employees great stage names like "Jason" and "Robert".
I called them regarding a problem with the LDAP server. They looked it up in their cookbook... there is no such thing as an LDAP server. The company doesn't have one! Surprise, surprise. (Yes, they flat out told me that the company didn't have one.) So I tell them (because I happen to know) that it is managed by the same people who do the exchange servers. I ask to speak to a back-line engineer.
They say that they cannot give this issue to a back line engineer because there is no escalation path for this issue. Because there is no escalation path, they can't do anything with the problem. So it isn't their issue.
About as far as I got was to convince them to give me to a second line engineer, unfortuantely, also from Indea. He at least had some vauge knowledge of what an LDAP server was.
In the end, I just hung up on them. They waste my time with their ignorance. I emailed a manager's address I found in the messaging group, and got real help from there.
We just hired two people recently, and we're bringing on a third person just after the holidays. That'll probably be the extent of our growth for a while, until we're given more systems. And I'm wagering with the results we're producing (and the sysadmin to server ratio) that we're going to get more in the future.
Here's a question I always wish I could ask managers, whenever the topic of 'outsourcing' comes up: if dealing with programmers overseas is more appealing to the bottom line, why not let your programmers work from home for 50-80% of their current in-office pay?
My entire team of systems administrators work at home for 100% pay. In fact, we're a bit of pioneers in this regard, but we've been on this track for a year now. Maybe 1% work from office. If we get just as much work done, and we're highly available, why not? And the company does acknowledge the money saved in office space. And that we're more able to work during sick time. Mind you, this isn't company policy, but a pocket within a very large company.
Part of what we do, as a team, is to emphasise the benefits of having American employees. Good relationships with our customers. We question things that are given to us and not just blindly follow orders. We collaborate to build best of breed policies and designs.
I personally think that Americans in fear of outsourcing are missing the boat. They shouldn't become more like their foreign cousins. They should embrace and accentuate their own cultural strengths (which they themselves may not even understand).
Stay American, and become Ultra-American. A cultural change is an important part of that, but I enjoy being part of an environment where there isn't danger in speaking out... in fact, the danger is in NOT speaking out!
There's a policy that doesn't make sense? Talk about it. A subject which is difficult to talk about? Acknowledge it is a difficult subject, and give it a try. Someone posts a document to the group? Read it, critique it, and add to it.
I think that an ultra-American can beat outsourcing becaue you're no longer comparing apples to oranges. Foreigners have a much tougher time questioning 'authority', even after assertiveness training. We can produce a different intellectual product which exceeds the value of what they produce.
And when you're done overclocking for the day, you can line up the old women in the neighborhood and freeze off their old warts for a modest sum. And they said military gear had dual-uses!
It seems that this person keeps appearing at visual identity scanners across the nation. Security experts are working even now to determine who this individual is, and the threat it potentially poses to America.
Re:About the whole George Bush thing...
on
Star Wreck Trailer
·
· Score: 2, Funny
I don't think Finnish history is really covered to any substantial degree (read: none) in American high schools. Those countries kind of blend together. A few of us throw Greenland in for good measure.
About the whole George Bush thing...
on
Star Wreck Trailer
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
About that George Bush and "throughout history have great men sought world domination" thing. It may play well in Finland and other former communist countries, but here in the United States, we don't find it too funny. Not because it isn't true, mind you, but probably more because it is a mindless slam. Only do our angry liberals really enjoy that kind of thing.
Babylon 5 and Star Trek. It really seems to take the Star Trek series dead on. Also, I believe I saw a bit of Crusade as well, but that was a B5 spinoff. (What ever happened to those B5 spinnoffs we were going to see on The Rangers or something?)
The graphics are beautiful. The parody is obvious. But I want to know how they get away with those very very very Paramount looking starships??!?
Not to put too fine of a point on it, but remember how SCO went about finding its SMP intellectual property in the UNIX kernel? Rename all of the kernel files and move them into the same directory (one was of compensating for SCO's lack of developing a recursive grep) then literally search them for "SMP".
What I originally mistook for disgruntled sarcasm is, in hindsight, probably best read as staggering incompetence in their IT department. If there is one thing we can bank on here, I think it *is* a lack of competence.
I hear what you're saying, but I'm going to defend my view so far.
> The problem with this theory is that it hinges on a corporation > as large as SCO being fairly incompetent.
I assumed that was a given, actually. If you take them at their word, as an operating system manufacturer/distributor, and a web solutions provider, they'd have to be totally incompetent. I mean, if you believe SCO's story, they are outright admitting that they're a failure in their own core competency. Where was their improved firewall solution after the last hacker attack?
Regarding the backups, my *feel* is that certain trees probably weren't being backed up, which can be a problem with backup solutions where you have (or you incorrectly believe you have to) name every subdirectory or filesystem to save. Or it could be outright data loss, which ended up hitting certain trees. Incompetent? You bet.
That's the same reason why they may not be putting content changes through a development server. Only structural changes, for example.
I know that we're having to assume a lot of incompetence, but again, at their own word, hasn't it already been demonstrated? You've got an OS manufacturer/distributor and web solutions provider who can't protect their server from the very old SYN attack.
Early in the morning, someone was exploiting a rooted SCO corporate web server. But they tripped over an intrusion detection alarm. System/network administrators were notified.
Per their company policy, they shut SCO's entire network off from the entire world. "Internal mail servers and other support servers were unavailable." After a few hours, they determined that the intrustion was limited to the main corporate web server. The web server was broken off from the network. Network connectivity was restored (but no longer having a web server). "The web server is under a denial of service attack."
SCO employees begin the process of either restoring the existing web server from backup, or preserving the existing server, and bringing online a new server from bare metal. The process is expected to take at least twelve hours. An SCO executive informs at least one media outlet that they expect the problem to be resolved in some time after twelve hours. They're still working on it.
This also fits what happened in August, when their corporate web server was unavailable for THREE DAYS. When it was brought back online, the content was reportedly changed in some areas. It sounds like an inexperienced bare-metal restore or an untested solution. Perhaps part of the web site was not retreivable via backup, and they had to recreate some sections from scratch.
My theory, which I believe totally fits the facts, is that SCO has been rooted and does not want to admit this publicly. So the DDoS/SYN is their cover story, which is close, but doesn't fit the facts well enough to avoid suspicion.
I would appreciate a read on this theory with some feedback postive/negative.
It has been years since I read this in college. I kept the book, and it is *somewhere*. Very useful. Very good for understanding how TCP/IP works because of the programming examples.
The most useless part? The portmapper and the r* commands. Why? Because, IMHO, the portmapper really is a stupid service in the modern world (aside from protocols which now depend on it). Almost nobody in their right mind makes those kind of services. But I suppose, for completeness sake, I'm glad it was in there.
That would be very very interesting. Of course, you'd probably want to REVERSE the X axis if you're projecting an image. Otherwise, it'll be projected SDRAWKCAB! (Well, you get the idea.)
Self-righteous 12th dimensional bastard! I had just come to terms with 11 dimensions. Now you're throwing on another one and saying it is a big dimension, unlike all the others except the three we've known about and it is a membrane bubble-sphere?
But... but... you said it would take ten minutes! I read your description in less than 30 seconds.
FRAUD! SELLER MISREPRESENTED PRODUCT AND WOULD NOT RETURN PHONE CALLS. AVOID!!!
Seriously, though, I thought I had seen this when it was on television. Turns out, I didn't know it was a miniseries and only saw the last hour. The last hour all by itself pretty much describes the bulk of the program. Going back and now having seen the first and second hour, I'd say that it gives more background information and helps fill in a few holes. (Like know I have a better idea of what they mean by the hidden dimensions. At least, I think I do. By "very tiny dimensions" they mean instead of a vast amout of movement along their plane, they have an extremely tiny amount of travel distance. At least, I think?)
I have all sorts of questions after watching this, and I know I'll never get them answered. But I'm wondering what string theory says about what, in my mind, is a conversion of energy types. Like the strong nuclear force into plain energy (in a nuclear explosion)? Does string theory explain it? Can it explain a theoretic conversion of gravity to something else?
Seems to be mostly organic growth, but IT, from my perspective (outsourcing company) is making a comeback. We're actually hiring people now, which is a shock. And in numbers. Foreign workers don't seem to be too big of a problem right now because of the knowledge/service gap, and Canadians aren't taking US jobs because of the relative dollar. Things actually are looking good right now. Of course, this is one man's perspective.
Your post is as evil as it is correct. Your jealous treasure of moderation points is richly deserved. I, for one, welcome our new litigatous frenemy.
PS: The timing of this is still perfect for Microsoft, though, which is at its weakest point ever now that it is in a long window between major product releases.
Slashdot Mirror
They are outsourcing because they can get the same work done for less money. Period. As an employee you are a commodity, if you can't distinguish functionally between 2 commodities then the only discerning factor becomes cost.
Evidently, someone can distinguish between the two. They're called customers. A well known IT services company offers its client a discount if they chose to use overseas staff. (The idea is that the services company saves quite a bit, and passes some of that down to the customer.)
Given the 'commodity labor' you think the choice would be a no-brainer, right? Who wouldn't want to save 10-20% by using a different commodity support staff. It appears that companies are even more shy towards using foreign workers that they don't have direct control over. Wonder why?
You have absolutely no pride in the thoughts you express. You are writing as an anonymous coward. You're wasting my time with words you don't feel worthy of putting your name to.
But, yes, I really fudged that sentence.
What is worse is when the language barrier isn't as bad, but they have absolutely no pride or care in their work. I recently called my company's help desk, which appears to be 100% outsourced to India. They give their employees great stage names like "Jason" and "Robert".
I called them regarding a problem with the LDAP server. They looked it up in their cookbook... there is no such thing as an LDAP server. The company doesn't have one! Surprise, surprise. (Yes, they flat out told me that the company didn't have one.) So I tell them (because I happen to know) that it is managed by the same people who do the exchange servers. I ask to speak to a back-line engineer.
They say that they cannot give this issue to a back line engineer because there is no escalation path for this issue. Because there is no escalation path, they can't do anything with the problem. So it isn't their issue.
About as far as I got was to convince them to give me to a second line engineer, unfortuantely, also from Indea. He at least had some vauge knowledge of what an LDAP server was.
In the end, I just hung up on them. They waste my time with their ignorance. I emailed a manager's address I found in the messaging group, and got real help from there.
We just hired two people recently, and we're bringing on a third person just after the holidays. That'll probably be the extent of our growth for a while, until we're given more systems. And I'm wagering with the results we're producing (and the sysadmin to server ratio) that we're going to get more in the future.
Here's a question I always wish I could ask managers, whenever the topic of 'outsourcing' comes up: if dealing with programmers overseas is more appealing to the bottom line, why not let your programmers work from home for 50-80% of their current in-office pay?
My entire team of systems administrators work at home for 100% pay. In fact, we're a bit of pioneers in this regard, but we've been on this track for a year now. Maybe 1% work from office. If we get just as much work done, and we're highly available, why not? And the company does acknowledge the money saved in office space. And that we're more able to work during sick time. Mind you, this isn't company policy, but a pocket within a very large company.
Part of what we do, as a team, is to emphasise the benefits of having American employees. Good relationships with our customers. We question things that are given to us and not just blindly follow orders. We collaborate to build best of breed policies and designs.
I personally think that Americans in fear of outsourcing are missing the boat. They shouldn't become more like their foreign cousins. They should embrace and accentuate their own cultural strengths (which they themselves may not even understand).
Stay American, and become Ultra-American. A cultural change is an important part of that, but I enjoy being part of an environment where there isn't danger in speaking out... in fact, the danger is in NOT speaking out!
There's a policy that doesn't make sense? Talk about it. A subject which is difficult to talk about? Acknowledge it is a difficult subject, and give it a try. Someone posts a document to the group? Read it, critique it, and add to it.
I think that an ultra-American can beat outsourcing becaue you're no longer comparing apples to oranges. Foreigners have a much tougher time questioning 'authority', even after assertiveness training. We can produce a different intellectual product which exceeds the value of what they produce.
And when you're done overclocking for the day, you can line up the old women in the neighborhood and freeze off their old warts for a modest sum. And they said military gear had dual-uses!
It seems that this person keeps appearing at visual identity scanners across the nation. Security experts are working even now to determine who this individual is, and the threat it potentially poses to America.
I don't think Finnish history is really covered to any substantial degree (read: none) in American high schools. Those countries kind of blend together. A few of us throw Greenland in for good measure.
About that George Bush and "throughout history have great men sought world domination" thing. It may play well in Finland and other former communist countries, but here in the United States, we don't find it too funny. Not because it isn't true, mind you, but probably more because it is a mindless slam. Only do our angry liberals really enjoy that kind of thing.
Here are the categories that Slashdot assigned to this story:
Sci-Fi , Star Wars Prequels , Entertainment , Media , Movies
We could give them the benefit of the doubt in that it could be a Star Wars Prequel in some fashion that we're not aware of.
Media and Movies are interesting categories. Aside from a good dose of overlap, they also share the same Slashdot icon, the movie sound marker.
Babylon 5 and Star Trek. It really seems to take the Star Trek series dead on. Also, I believe I saw a bit of Crusade as well, but that was a B5 spinoff. (What ever happened to those B5 spinnoffs we were going to see on The Rangers or something?)
The graphics are beautiful. The parody is obvious. But I want to know how they get away with those very very very Paramount looking starships??!?
Not to put too fine of a point on it, but remember how SCO went about finding its SMP intellectual property in the UNIX kernel? Rename all of the kernel files and move them into the same directory (one was of compensating for SCO's lack of developing a recursive grep) then literally search them for "SMP".
What I originally mistook for disgruntled sarcasm is, in hindsight, probably best read as staggering incompetence in their IT department. If there is one thing we can bank on here, I think it *is* a lack of competence.
I hear what you're saying, but I'm going to defend my view so far.
> The problem with this theory is that it hinges on a corporation
> as large as SCO being fairly incompetent.
I assumed that was a given, actually. If you take them at their word, as an operating system manufacturer/distributor, and a web solutions provider, they'd have to be totally incompetent. I mean, if you believe SCO's story, they are outright admitting that they're a failure in their own core competency. Where was their improved firewall solution after the last hacker attack?
Regarding the backups, my *feel* is that certain trees probably weren't being backed up, which can be a problem with backup solutions where you have (or you incorrectly believe you have to) name every subdirectory or filesystem to save. Or it could be outright data loss, which ended up hitting certain trees. Incompetent? You bet.
That's the same reason why they may not be putting content changes through a development server. Only structural changes, for example.
I know that we're having to assume a lot of incompetence, but again, at their own word, hasn't it already been demonstrated? You've got an OS manufacturer/distributor and web solutions provider who can't protect their server from the very old SYN attack.
Early in the morning, someone was exploiting a rooted SCO corporate web server. But they tripped over an intrusion detection alarm. System/network administrators were notified.
Per their company policy, they shut SCO's entire network off from the entire world. "Internal mail servers and other support servers were unavailable." After a few hours, they determined that the intrustion was limited to the main corporate web server. The web server was broken off from the network. Network connectivity was restored (but no longer having a web server). "The web server is under a denial of service attack."
SCO employees begin the process of either restoring the existing web server from backup, or preserving the existing server, and bringing online a new server from bare metal. The process is expected to take at least twelve hours. An SCO executive informs at least one media outlet that they expect the problem to be resolved in some time after twelve hours. They're still working on it.
This also fits what happened in August, when their corporate web server was unavailable for THREE DAYS. When it was brought back online, the content was reportedly changed in some areas. It sounds like an inexperienced bare-metal restore or an untested solution. Perhaps part of the web site was not retreivable via backup, and they had to recreate some sections from scratch.
My theory, which I believe totally fits the facts, is that SCO has been rooted and does not want to admit this publicly. So the DDoS/SYN is their cover story, which is close, but doesn't fit the facts well enough to avoid suspicion.
I would appreciate a read on this theory with some feedback postive/negative.
It has been years since I read this in college. I kept the book, and it is *somewhere*. Very useful. Very good for understanding how TCP/IP works because of the programming examples.
The most useless part? The portmapper and the r* commands. Why? Because, IMHO, the portmapper really is a stupid service in the modern world (aside from protocols which now depend on it). Almost nobody in their right mind makes those kind of services. But I suppose, for completeness sake, I'm glad it was in there.
PJ. Are you cute?
:(
We're in LOVE with your MIND!
We want to know if we're in love with the rest of you!
She never does an interview with a picture.
That would be very very interesting. Of course, you'd probably want to REVERSE the X axis if you're projecting an image. Otherwise, it'll be projected SDRAWKCAB! (Well, you get the idea.)
Self-righteous 12th dimensional bastard! I had just come to terms with 11 dimensions. Now you're throwing on another one and saying it is a big dimension, unlike all the others except the three we've known about and it is a membrane bubble-sphere?
:)
I hate you!
Remove the spaces from the urls, I don't know why they're there.
;)
That's a six dimension string action applied to your post. If you actually watched the film, you'd understand!
But... but... you said it would take ten minutes! I read your description in less than 30 seconds.
FRAUD! SELLER MISREPRESENTED PRODUCT AND WOULD NOT RETURN PHONE CALLS. AVOID!!!
Seriously, though, I thought I had seen this when it was on television. Turns out, I didn't know it was a miniseries and only saw the last hour. The last hour all by itself pretty much describes the bulk of the program. Going back and now having seen the first and second hour, I'd say that it gives more background information and helps fill in a few holes. (Like know I have a better idea of what they mean by the hidden dimensions. At least, I think I do. By "very tiny dimensions" they mean instead of a vast amout of movement along their plane, they have an extremely tiny amount of travel distance. At least, I think?)
I have all sorts of questions after watching this, and I know I'll never get them answered. But I'm wondering what string theory says about what, in my mind, is a conversion of energy types. Like the strong nuclear force into plain energy (in a nuclear explosion)? Does string theory explain it? Can it explain a theoretic conversion of gravity to something else?
You are wrong. Thanks for standing behind your words. As *if* I have anything to do with the business side of the house.
Seems to be mostly organic growth, but IT, from my perspective (outsourcing company) is making a comeback. We're actually hiring people now, which is a shock. And in numbers. Foreign workers don't seem to be too big of a problem right now because of the knowledge/service gap, and Canadians aren't taking US jobs because of the relative dollar. Things actually are looking good right now. Of course, this is one man's perspective.
I am sorry, Citizen, but that information is not available at your security clearance. Have a nice daycycle!
The instruction set for the benchmark?
...
00: [NOP]
02: [NOP]
04: [NOP]
06: [NOP]
Your post is as evil as it is correct. Your jealous treasure of moderation points is richly deserved. I, for one, welcome our new litigatous frenemy.
PS: The timing of this is still perfect for Microsoft, though, which is at its weakest point ever now that it is in a long window between major product releases.