From my vantage point corporate malfeasance seems to be the rule, rather then the exception these days.
The problem with today's media is that corporate malfeasance is very well publicized. There are millions of companies in this country where the executives are honest. And when they aren't, they tend not to pay themselves a higher salary, but rather lie to shareholders to boost the stock price, but I digress.
And my whole point is that long-term the consequences will outweigh the benefits. What's going to be left for the middle class to do? We aren't all educated in bio-tech and what happens when they decide to outsource that? We have destroyed our manufacturing base and we are in the process of destroying our technical base. Are we going to be nothing more then bankers, insurance companies, CEOs and Wally-World/Burger Flippers? I'm sorry but I want a better future for my kids (not to mention myself) then that.
You aren't forced to stay in the US. But if you do decide to stay there will be plenty of jobs. Aside from the jobs that require geographical proximity, there are the intellectual jobs that the US has become renowned for. Programming has become less intellectual than it used to be, but other jobs will most likely remain in the US.
You tell that to the tens of thousands of people that quit looking for a job last week because they've spent the last 12 months doing so and have exhausted their unemployment and just moved back home with Mommy and Daddy because otherwise they would have starved to death.
If you even had any idea what life was like in India (or Russia) I doubt you would have made that statement. Unless of course you feel a life in the US is worth more than a life in another country..
Clearly, you have neither run nor managed a business before. Except in the case of corporate malfeasance, each employee at a company is paid roughly what he deserves, in accordance with what they could make elsewhere in the industry, and in accordance with what they produce.
CEOs that are able to run companies very well do not come cheap. Plenty of large companies will be willing to pay over $20 Million for an excellent CEO, because he or she can make the difference of BILLIONS. To think otherwise is just ignorant.
Now, granted, some CEOs have proved to be exceptionally bad at their job, and they are generally let go.
The Board of Directors decides the pay for a CEO, and they generally will only pay him well if he is able to keep the stock price up. There are exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions, and not the rule.
As to the question of why outsource? Well, if you are a CEO and you could reduce your development costs by 50%, you have an obligation to your shareholders to do so as long as the benefits outweigh the consequences.
Unless your company wants or needs a patriotic image, it makes no sense to spend money where you do not have to. If the managers were originally from Russia, then they are being patriotic. It's just a matter of perspective.
If these companies do the "patriotic" thing and keep the jobs here, then they are killing jobs in another country. Who's to say which is the "moral" thing to do?
The game programmers here who lose their jobs will find others. Or they can move to Europe or India and get the jobs that they lost. There will always be plenty of coding jobs here, they just might not pay as much as they used to.
What? You mean the price won't go down? But we are saving so much money on the labor -- where is all that extra cash going?
Unfortunately, that isn't how the economy works.
When you are producing a commodity product, like lumber, coal, or oil, then competition drives the price of your product down to the average total cost of producing that product. In theory, in a commodity market the profit margins are enough by the end of the year to leave each firm in the industry with exactly zero profit. If games were a commodity, reducing either the variable costs or the fixed costs would result in a reduction in price.
Games, however, are not commodities. In fact, they are much closer to a monopoly market. When a company makes a game, no other company can produce that same game. If I want to purchase Diablo II, I have to pay Blizzard exactly how much they are asking - no one else can provide that product.
I can purchase Fallout 2 instead, and there is some price sensitivity there. However, I would not necessarily purchase Fallout 2 over Diablo if Fallout was $10 less. Game companies run the demand curve, and price their games accordingly - $50.
In general, when you are the sole provider of a product you should charge as much as necessary to maximize the equation:
Profit = (Price - Variable Cost) * Quantity.
Quantity = Func(Price)
Changing the cost of producing the game has no effect on the Variable Cost or the Quantity, and therefore should have no effect on the price you pay for the game.
What I've heard through the grapevine about this new search is that it will be more interactive.
When you type in a search for "apple" the search engine doesn't know if you mean Apple Computers or Apples the fruit. MSN search will ask you.
This example is kind of obvious (just type Apple Computers into google), but there are less obvious searches where the interaction could really make a difference.
Don't count MS out. If they do enable better searches they could win this battle.
Didn't he actually say "f-ing"? I'm pretty sure he was accurately quoted in the/. synopsis. Not only are they censoring words like fuck, but their derivatives as well.
Of course, I'm too lazy to search for the exact text, so I could be wrong here.
With over 30 million subscribers you might assume that AOL is doing ok. Actually, AOL loses over 75% of its members EVERY year. They are able to get a large portion of those users back by massive CD campaigns.
I am NOT making these figures up, and I do have access to this kind of information.
Eventually the CD campaigns will stop working and AOL will be a dead company, unless they can find a new way of generating revenue or provide additional services.
They call people and ask them if they have internet access. They would only call you once, hence you would only be counted once.
True, these statistics do not count how long someone is online. If your mother-in-law checks her email and is online for 5 minutes a day to do so, she is counted the same as someone who is on for 8 hours a day surfing the web. However, your mother-in-law still has internet access at home, so I believe it is valid that she is counted.
These statistics are VERY accurate. They really tell us that 75% of the people with phones have Internet access. There are some people who can't afford phones who probably don't have Internet access, and there are people like me who don't have a home phone but do have Internet access that wouldn't be included in the survey (assuming they don't call cell phones).
However, these numbers probably cancel each other out to the point of being a statistical nusiance. 75% is most likely very accurate.
Quote: Volvo will never actually take this car into production, of course. But many of the ideas hatched by the female think-tank may still appear in more conventional Volvos, as well as in other cars within the group.
What happens if in 45 days SCO produces proof that their copyrighted code IS in IBM's code? What will that mean for IBM, for the Linux community?
While it is certainly likely that SCO is just blowing smoke, I think we should consider the possibly that they are not wasting all this time/money for nothing. They knew when they started this nonsense that at one point they would have to prove their claims.
While we at/. like to assume that SCO is run by idiots, it makes sense that the people in charge of a public company know what they are doing.
A lot of comments are saying that this is a piece of crap. Basically, the theory is that anything this heavy is useless and a waste of money.
However, at $1500 this is a fairly cheap laptop for what it can do. The screen is big enough and the machine fast enough to:
E-mail/Word Processing (ok, 12 inches is big enough for this) Coding Web design Graphics design Store and play movies (160 GB) PLAY GAMES (my favorite)
This machine is not great if you have to bring it with you to class or work everyday. But, if you go on vacation once or twice a month, it's nice to have your computer (life) with you. For $1500, you now have a portable desktop.
One possible use for electronic voting would be to randomize the order of the candidates on the ballots. It is well documented (too lazy to find link) that candidates whose names come first on the ballot get more votes.
Why? Because a number of voters just vote for the first name on the ballot. Slightly pathetic...
Alright I have had about 3 AMD processors die on me. I have owned about 4 Intel processors all the way back from original Pentium. Not one has ever had a problem.
Now... given this kind of statistics, as sad as it may sound I'd say I am willing to pay anything for an Intel just to avoid the headaches.
That is an interesting use of the word statistics. In order to determine if your next processor is likely to break, you should look at thousands or hundereds of thousands of Intel procs and AMD procs. Your 7 processor study is inherently flawed.
An interesting point, as marketing experts will tell you, is that people involved with purchasing software for the office will generally not buy something that is too inexpensive.
I'm wondering where you're getting your information about what marketing experts will tell you. Having talked to quite a few marketing experts myself in business school they will tell you that you cannot convey a premium image of your product by setting a high price. Moreso, setting a low price point does not necessarily convey the image of an inferior product.
Only uninformed or irrational consumers will buy an inferior product that is more expensive.
If you spend 5 years writing OSS for free and develop a portfolio you will certainly have a nice resume to show potential employers.
If you spend those same 5 years writing code for a company and you have performance reviews and promotions and raises your resume will look a LOT better.
If you are unemployed and cannot find a job, writing OSS might be a better way to pass the time than working at McDonalds, but only if you are able to support yourself while writing for free. As someone who has worked as a developer and been in a hiring manager's position, I can tell you that having 5 years of OSS on your resume isn't nearly as good as having 1 year at Microsoft.
Your point about relationshops, while valid, uses a very poor example in Intel.
Processors are a commodity product and Intel has managed to make ridiculous profits year after year. Just because AMD got to 64 bit processors first does not mean that Intel is doing poorly. Rather, Intel has segmented the market and is going after the MUCH larger segment (32 bit procs in desktop machines and laptops).
Actually, when a company gets acquired the executives (and other employees) generally sign NDAs so they couldn't quit and start or work for another company in the field for at least two years.
Microsoft vigorously defends their NDAs when it comes to acquisitions. I don't think we'll see a gooble anytime soon.
A lot of new companies sacrifice income in the short term in order to gain larger profits down the road. I am quite skeptical that selling their software for $15 will make them anything in the short term.
Microsoft certainly does NOT fit this category. They have provided substantial returns to investors for years. They make $8 billion dollars in PROFIT every year.
SCO, on the other hand, doesn't produce anything substantial, and thus is a better fit for your Blue Sky Law.
Slashdot Mirror
Can be found on Amazon
3.5 hours of video
10 hours of playing mp3s
Not too bad, and at $500 it's not too much more than an iPod.
From my vantage point corporate malfeasance seems to be the rule, rather then the exception these days.
The problem with today's media is that corporate malfeasance is very well publicized. There are millions of companies in this country where the executives are honest. And when they aren't, they tend not to pay themselves a higher salary, but rather lie to shareholders to boost the stock price, but I digress.
And my whole point is that long-term the consequences will outweigh the benefits. What's going to be left for the middle class to do? We aren't all educated in bio-tech and what happens when they decide to outsource that? We have destroyed our manufacturing base and we are in the process of destroying our technical base. Are we going to be nothing more then bankers, insurance companies, CEOs and Wally-World/Burger Flippers? I'm sorry but I want a better future for my kids (not to mention myself) then that.
You aren't forced to stay in the US. But if you do decide to stay there will be plenty of jobs. Aside from the jobs that require geographical proximity, there are the intellectual jobs that the US has become renowned for. Programming has become less intellectual than it used to be, but other jobs will most likely remain in the US.
You tell that to the tens of thousands of people that quit looking for a job last week because they've spent the last 12 months doing so and have exhausted their unemployment and just moved back home with Mommy and Daddy because otherwise they would have starved to death.
If you even had any idea what life was like in India (or Russia) I doubt you would have made that statement. Unless of course you feel a life in the US is worth more than a life in another country..
You are probably a troll, but I'll bite.
Clearly, you have neither run nor managed a business before. Except in the case of corporate malfeasance, each employee at a company is paid roughly what he deserves, in accordance with what they could make elsewhere in the industry, and in accordance with what they produce.
CEOs that are able to run companies very well do not come cheap. Plenty of large companies will be willing to pay over $20 Million for an excellent CEO, because he or she can make the difference of BILLIONS. To think otherwise is just ignorant.
Now, granted, some CEOs have proved to be exceptionally bad at their job, and they are generally let go.
The Board of Directors decides the pay for a CEO, and they generally will only pay him well if he is able to keep the stock price up. There are exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions, and not the rule.
As to the question of why outsource? Well, if you are a CEO and you could reduce your development costs by 50%, you have an obligation to your shareholders to do so as long as the benefits outweigh the consequences.
Unless your company wants or needs a patriotic image, it makes no sense to spend money where you do not have to. If the managers were originally from Russia, then they are being patriotic. It's just a matter of perspective.
If these companies do the "patriotic" thing and keep the jobs here, then they are killing jobs in another country. Who's to say which is the "moral" thing to do?
The game programmers here who lose their jobs will find others. Or they can move to Europe or India and get the jobs that they lost. There will always be plenty of coding jobs here, they just might not pay as much as they used to.
What? You mean the price won't go down? But we are saving so much money on the labor -- where is all that extra cash going?
Unfortunately, that isn't how the economy works.
When you are producing a commodity product, like lumber, coal, or oil, then competition drives the price of your product down to the average total cost of producing that product. In theory, in a commodity market the profit margins are enough by the end of the year to leave each firm in the industry with exactly zero profit. If games were a commodity, reducing either the variable costs or the fixed costs would result in a reduction in price.
Games, however, are not commodities. In fact, they are much closer to a monopoly market. When a company makes a game, no other company can produce that same game. If I want to purchase Diablo II, I have to pay Blizzard exactly how much they are asking - no one else can provide that product.
I can purchase Fallout 2 instead, and there is some price sensitivity there. However, I would not necessarily purchase Fallout 2 over Diablo if Fallout was $10 less. Game companies run the demand curve, and price their games accordingly - $50.
In general, when you are the sole provider of a product you should charge as much as necessary to maximize the equation:
Profit = (Price - Variable Cost) * Quantity.
Quantity = Func(Price)
Changing the cost of producing the game has no effect on the Variable Cost or the Quantity, and therefore should have no effect on the price you pay for the game.
Try these, they cost money, but they provide the access you want.
Lexis Nexus
Factiva
Gartner
We get free access to these and a lot more at my university.
What I've heard through the grapevine about this new search is that it will be more interactive.
When you type in a search for "apple" the search engine doesn't know if you mean Apple Computers or Apples the fruit. MSN search will ask you.
This example is kind of obvious (just type Apple Computers into google), but there are less obvious searches where the interaction could really make a difference.
Don't count MS out. If they do enable better searches they could win this battle.
SCO sent the letter to every member of the Senate and House of Representatives, said Blake Stowell, a SCO spokesman
Could they be any more stupid?
Didn't he actually say "f-ing"? I'm pretty sure he was accurately quoted in the /. synopsis. Not only are they censoring words like fuck, but their derivatives as well.
Of course, I'm too lazy to search for the exact text, so I could be wrong here.
With over 30 million subscribers you might assume that AOL is doing ok. Actually, AOL loses over 75% of its members EVERY year. They are able to get a large portion of those users back by massive CD campaigns.
I am NOT making these figures up, and I do have access to this kind of information.
Eventually the CD campaigns will stop working and AOL will be a dead company, unless they can find a new way of generating revenue or provide additional services.
Clearly, you did not RTFA.
They call people and ask them if they have internet access. They would only call you once, hence you would only be counted once.
True, these statistics do not count how long someone is online. If your mother-in-law checks her email and is online for 5 minutes a day to do so, she is counted the same as someone who is on for 8 hours a day surfing the web. However, your mother-in-law still has internet access at home, so I believe it is valid that she is counted.
These statistics are VERY accurate. They really tell us that 75% of the people with phones have Internet access. There are some people who can't afford phones who probably don't have Internet access, and there are people like me who don't have a home phone but do have Internet access that wouldn't be included in the survey (assuming they don't call cell phones).
However, these numbers probably cancel each other out to the point of being a statistical nusiance. 75% is most likely very accurate.
Quote:
Volvo will never actually take this car into production, of course.
But many of the ideas hatched by the female think-tank may still appear in more conventional Volvos, as well as in other cars within the group.
What happens if in 45 days SCO produces proof that their copyrighted code IS in IBM's code? What will that mean for IBM, for the Linux community?
/. like to assume that SCO is run by idiots, it makes sense that the people in charge of a public company know what they are doing.
While it is certainly likely that SCO is just blowing smoke, I think we should consider the possibly that they are not wasting all this time/money for nothing. They knew when they started this nonsense that at one point they would have to prove their claims.
While we at
A lot of comments are saying that this is a piece of crap. Basically, the theory is that anything this heavy is useless and a waste of money.
However, at $1500 this is a fairly cheap laptop for what it can do. The screen is big enough and the machine fast enough to:
E-mail/Word Processing (ok, 12 inches is big enough for this)
Coding
Web design
Graphics design
Store and play movies (160 GB)
PLAY GAMES (my favorite)
This machine is not great if you have to bring it with you to class or work everyday. But, if you go on vacation once or twice a month, it's nice to have your computer (life) with you. For $1500, you now have a portable desktop.
One possible use for electronic voting would be to randomize the order of the candidates on the ballots. It is well documented (too lazy to find link) that candidates whose names come first on the ballot get more votes.
Why? Because a number of voters just vote for the first name on the ballot. Slightly pathetic...
Alright I have had about 3 AMD processors die on me. I have owned about 4 Intel processors all the way back from original Pentium. Not one has ever had a problem.
Now... given this kind of statistics, as sad as it may sound I'd say I am willing to pay anything for an Intel just to avoid the headaches.
That is an interesting use of the word statistics. In order to determine if your next processor is likely to break, you should look at thousands or hundereds of thousands of Intel procs and AMD procs. Your 7 processor study is inherently flawed.
Test Results can be found here:= 6
http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.html?i=1982&p
An interesting point, as marketing experts will tell you, is that people involved with purchasing software for the office will generally not buy something that is too inexpensive.
I'm wondering where you're getting your information about what marketing experts will tell you. Having talked to quite a few marketing experts myself in business school they will tell you that you cannot convey a premium image of your product by setting a high price. Moreso, setting a low price point does not necessarily convey the image of an inferior product.
Only uninformed or irrational consumers will buy an inferior product that is more expensive.
You are forgetting something,
If you spend 5 years writing OSS for free and develop a portfolio you will certainly have a nice resume to show potential employers.
If you spend those same 5 years writing code for a company and you have performance reviews and promotions and raises your resume will look a LOT better.
If you are unemployed and cannot find a job, writing OSS might be a better way to pass the time than working at McDonalds, but only if you are able to support yourself while writing for free. As someone who has worked as a developer and been in a hiring manager's position, I can tell you that having 5 years of OSS on your resume isn't nearly as good as having 1 year at Microsoft.
Your point about relationshops, while valid, uses a very poor example in Intel.
Processors are a commodity product and Intel has managed to make ridiculous profits year after year. Just because AMD got to 64 bit processors first does not mean that Intel is doing poorly. Rather, Intel has segmented the market and is going after the MUCH larger segment (32 bit procs in desktop machines and laptops).
Not to mention that pilots are bathed in a lot more radiation then your average ground-based human.
Compensation for health risks should be considered.
Actually, when a company gets acquired the executives (and other employees) generally sign NDAs so they couldn't quit and start or work for another company in the field for at least two years.
Microsoft vigorously defends their NDAs when it comes to acquisitions. I don't think we'll see a gooble anytime soon.
A lot of new companies sacrifice income in the short term in order to gain larger profits down the road. I am quite skeptical that selling their software for $15 will make them anything in the short term.
I did RTFA and a planned business model is much different than a current business model where they charge you 15 freaking dollars to use your modem.
It costs $15 to use the modem driver which is more money than I paid for my network card and modem combined.
Unless of course you only need to access your modem for 30 days.
The store can be found Here
Microsoft certainly does NOT fit this category. They have provided substantial returns to investors for years. They make $8 billion dollars in PROFIT every year.
SCO, on the other hand, doesn't produce anything substantial, and thus is a better fit for your Blue Sky Law.