Recently, my aunt's husband, an NYU PhD who's in his mid-50's quit his job at a research lab in upstate NY when it was taken over by a hostile competitor. He figured that he wouldn't have a problem finding a job in this market, given his qualifications and years of C programming on the net, mostly in advanced scientific application work. It took him two months to find a job. In between, he was turned down by I2, which claims to be desperately short of manpower. They were pretty frank: He was too old and they didn't think that he could make the switch to C++/Java (from C?) or handle B2B (after mass spectrometry?). The same company imports large numbers of H1/B's mostly from India, many of them with bachelor's degrees or less, and most in their 20's. I am happy for the enterprising young Indians who have taken these opportunities (I'm Indian myself), but I agree with a lot of this testimony. The hiring practices in IT reek.
Actually Star Office already has around 4 million registered users, which is more than a small dent in the market. I can't see how its market won't expand hugely, especially if it's bundled with Linux distros and with Solaris, and runs on every major platform. (Now that it's going open-source, LinuxPPC and MacOS ports can't be too far away.) It's interface is very similar to Office 97 (but it's better of course) so switching pains are unlikely to be relevant. I predict plenty of red ink in MS's future unless Sun goofs badly.
I agree. This is really sweet. Don't forget that MS-Office accounts for more than 50% of MS's _revenues_ (probably a lot more of their profits). They can't afford to give away their office suite for free. Judging by the price, they've invested hugely in Office 2000 too. If Sun plays their cards right, I believe that they can drive MS out of business, or certainly put them deep into the red this year at the very least. I hope they go for the kill.
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Recently, my aunt's husband, an NYU PhD who's in his mid-50's quit his job at a research lab in upstate NY when it was taken over by a hostile competitor. He figured that he wouldn't have a problem finding a job in this market, given his qualifications and years of C programming on the net, mostly in advanced scientific application work. It took him two months to find a job. In between, he was turned down by I2, which claims to be desperately short of manpower. They were pretty frank: He was too old and they didn't think that he could make the switch to C++/Java (from C?) or handle B2B (after mass spectrometry?). The same company imports large numbers of H1/B's mostly from India, many of them with bachelor's degrees or less, and most in their 20's. I am happy for the enterprising young Indians who have taken these opportunities (I'm Indian myself), but I agree with a lot of this testimony. The hiring practices in IT reek.
Actually Star Office already has around 4 million registered users, which is more than a small dent in the market. I can't see how its market won't expand hugely, especially if it's bundled with Linux distros and with Solaris, and runs on every major platform. (Now that it's going open-source, LinuxPPC and MacOS ports can't be too far away.) It's interface is very similar to Office 97 (but it's better of course) so switching pains are unlikely to be relevant. I predict plenty of red ink in MS's future unless Sun goofs badly.
I agree. This is really sweet. Don't forget that MS-Office accounts for more than 50% of MS's _revenues_ (probably a lot more of their profits). They can't afford to give away their office suite for free. Judging by the price, they've invested hugely in Office 2000 too. If Sun plays their cards right, I believe that they can drive MS out of business, or certainly put them deep into the red this year at the very least. I hope they go for the kill.