As someone studying the business of high tech I find these quoted statements perplexing. If Margolis' findings about Microsoft causing lower prices and higher productivity were true, this would certainly be a surprising result of Microsoft's anti-competitive business practices.
Like statistics, findings like these need to be highly qualified. For instance, would not prices have been brought down anyway by healthy competition between software companies?
Does this study look at pricing in medium sized and large corporations, their back office costs and support?
Does the same study compare and contrast other companies and technologies and their affects in similar markets? Like for instance, Linux & Open Office, or IBM & Lotus Notes?
These kinds of conclusions could be hard to make, depending on the study, even if they were true. When made in a highly polarized Linux vs. Microsoft climate, the study had better be rigorous and highly conclusive, to say the least.
- Andrew
One of the affects of IT outsourcing is a downward pressure on US IT salaries. With many IT jobs going overseas the affects are multifold. the jobs that are sent overseas creates a surplus of workers here in the US, and so workers don't have to offer premium salaries to fill positions, they can offer less.
The indirect affect is that the perception of value of the IT work is lessened as well. Managers and owners hear that overseas IT workers will charge much less, so outsourcing is always an option if salaries rise too much. They will bring this up in salary discussions.
I had a future career as an IT worker/manager. I decided the future was bleak enough to get go back to school and get a Master's degree in management, not IT management. I now know enough about planning, finance, reporting, cost structure, leadership, supply chain, knowledge management that I can feel confortable mooving into another field.
Which is sad because I love IT. But I don't want to be around when all the jobs disappear. Like what happened to textiles, aerospace, and manufacturing. Sometimes its good to hedge your future.
If you read the motivations behind writing Plan9 (documented on slashdot previously), there are many descriptions of what the authors thought was wrong with UNIX. And the guys who wrote Plan9 are the same guys who wrote the better part of UNIX.
And for you youngsters, UNIX is not LINUX.
- AndrewZ
Carbon nanotubules have not been rigourously studied for health affects on humans. However, the same chemical attributes that make asbestos so toxic are not found in CNT's. In fact the affect of breathing in CNT's would be most like breathing in carbon soot. In fact, buckey balls and carbon fullerenes do exist naturally in soot.
In short, CNT's are not thought to have especially toxic properties, but more studies are being performed.
Slashdot Mirror
Like statistics, findings like these need to be highly qualified. For instance, would not prices have been brought down anyway by healthy competition between software companies?
Does this study look at pricing in medium sized and large corporations, their back office costs and support?
Does the same study compare and contrast other companies and technologies and their affects in similar markets? Like for instance, Linux & Open Office, or IBM & Lotus Notes?
These kinds of conclusions could be hard to make, depending on the study, even if they were true. When made in a highly polarized Linux vs. Microsoft climate, the study had better be rigorous and highly conclusive, to say the least. - Andrew
The indirect affect is that the perception of value of the IT work is lessened as well. Managers and owners hear that overseas IT workers will charge much less, so outsourcing is always an option if salaries rise too much. They will bring this up in salary discussions.
I had a future career as an IT worker/manager. I decided the future was bleak enough to get go back to school and get a Master's degree in management, not IT management. I now know enough about planning, finance, reporting, cost structure, leadership, supply chain, knowledge management that I can feel confortable mooving into another field.
Which is sad because I love IT. But I don't want to be around when all the jobs disappear. Like what happened to textiles, aerospace, and manufacturing. Sometimes its good to hedge your future.
Good luck everybody.
If you read the motivations behind writing Plan9 (documented on slashdot previously), there are many descriptions of what the authors thought was wrong with UNIX. And the guys who wrote Plan9 are the same guys who wrote the better part of UNIX. And for you youngsters, UNIX is not LINUX. - AndrewZ
Carbon nanotubules have not been rigourously studied for health affects on humans. However, the same chemical attributes that make asbestos so toxic are not found in CNT's. In fact the affect of breathing in CNT's would be most like breathing in carbon soot. In fact, buckey balls and carbon fullerenes do exist naturally in soot. In short, CNT's are not thought to have especially toxic properties, but more studies are being performed.