To be honest, it's a little strange that MS decided to enter the hardware market with the XBox. I wouldn't be surprised to find that they'd prefer for someone else to start taking the however many hundred dollar loss on the individual consoles.
They tried that. It was called the Dreamcast (I suck at getting a tags to work on/., so http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast#Technology) .
Just from that overview, it sound like they wanted more control over the hardware and the software, thus was born the Xbox.
I think we (at least those of us in the US) can all agree that outsourcing is a bad thing.
But regulation is worse.
The solution here is an economic one. Companies who try to save money up front by moving over seas will eventually experience real economic disincintive to stay there.
We have heard posts on/. talking about good code experience from foreign firms, and we have heard the bad. Instead of speaking to that, I will focus on the area of customer service. It is not exactly IT, but it _is_ an area in which I have experience. I just left a part time sales position with a major US supplier of home computers. Nearly every day I fielded a mis-directed call from customer looking for customer or technical support. In most instances(60-70%), the customer was reluctant to leave the phone beacause I was the first person they had spoken to who could speak english well enough that the customer could communicate with. Some of the stories I heard (but had no way to verify myself) of customer experiences in our tech, etc.. lines were horrendous. Whether exaggerate or not, when a large portion of yoru customer base decides that dealing with your support is more trouble than it is worth, they tend to move to other companies. I am sure you are familiar with the standard catechism of how people value good service, so I will stop there.
In the end, I forsee that a combination fo cultural/language barriers and customer (internal or external to an org) will be the catalyst that reverses the shift to foreign outsourcing.
Slashdot Mirror
ROM in this context is firmware, or more specifically the phone's firmware that carries the OS.
essentially guarantees the immediate area will be coated in a fine orange spray.
Wow... just like tubgirl, right? (hey if the goatse pumpkin didn't get -1 troll, this better not either)
I think we (at least those of us in the US) can all agree that outsourcing is a bad thing.
/. talking about good code experience from foreign firms, and we have heard the bad. Instead of speaking to that, I will focus on the area of customer service. It is not exactly IT, but it _is_ an area in which I have experience. I just left a part time sales position with a major US supplier of home computers. Nearly every day I fielded a mis-directed call from customer looking for customer or technical support. In most instances(60-70%), the customer was reluctant to leave the phone beacause I was the first person they had spoken to who could speak english well enough that the customer could communicate with. Some of the stories I heard (but had no way to verify myself) of customer experiences in our tech, etc.. lines were horrendous. Whether exaggerate or not, when a large portion of yoru customer base decides that dealing with your support is more trouble than it is worth, they tend to move to other companies. I am sure you are familiar with the standard catechism of how people value good service, so I will stop there.
But regulation is worse.
The solution here is an economic one. Companies who try to save money up front by moving over seas will eventually experience real economic disincintive to stay there.
We have heard posts on
In the end, I forsee that a combination fo cultural/language barriers and customer (internal or external to an org) will be the catalyst that reverses the shift to foreign outsourcing.