MacWorld Boston 2004

[wdlove]

Today was another awesome day at MacWorld Boston, now sad that it's over. These kinds of things always go so quickly. The attendees that my wife and I spoke with said that they had a great time. They plan to return next year. The vendors were also very pleased, they were do 10% more business than anticipated. Seems to me that the doubters spoke to soon. This was a great rebuilding year. The time may come that Steve will be ashamed not to attend. An awful lot planned to E.Mail Steve personally.

Had an awesome time today. Had two classes with David Pogue. In the first class, I was a costar in a movie that he made. Ended up being a good iPod commercial. If all works out may be able to post the short here.

 

[ClimbingTheLog]

Small but worthwhile

I drove down to Boston today for the show and I'm glad I went. I spoke to many nice vendors who were hawking many wares I hadn't heard of before, and I am something of a Mac news junkie.

It was a small show, to be sure, but I picked up several leads and contacts and got some business done I'd been unable to accomplish on the phone/e-mail with a few vendors.

It was very disappointing to see Apple missing. Here a very large group of people were gathering in support of their products and they couldn't even be bothered to send a few people. They'll have more people at SIGGRAPH this year than MacWorld Boston. Let there be no doubt, we're just pawns in Apple's game, not appreciated cusomers.

 

[nmk]

Outsourcing

Look, outsourcing is simply the result of the world becoming a global economy. I find it amusing that for years the Americans have been breathing down everyones throat about GATT, trying to push for the elimination of trade tariffs and subsidies. Its ok when the international economy bends over for the Americans, but it's not ok when the same global economy has a negative impact on you. GET OVER IT.

The truth is simple. Americans are overpaid and underqualified. You can get a postgraduate, with five years of experience as a sys. admin running a large network, for the equivalent of $500/month. This guy will be more qualified than someone making six times as much in America. So why the hell should American companies (or any company) not take advantage of that.

These Malaysian/Taiwanese manufacturing companies you're talking about. They've been in this business for more than a decade now. All your equipment, from low end consumer machines to state of the art Powerbooks, are manufactured there. They can take just about any technical schematic and turn it into a working product. Most eastern manufacturing facilities will offer various qualities depending on how much the client is willing to pay. Its well known that the Chinese offer four or five levels of quality for many of their manufactured goods. So no, everything is not treated the same. Your Powerbook will get precedence over a $300 Dell provided Apple is willing to pay the money.

By the way, last time I checked, 40% of Apples sales were international. That means that we, non Americans, are contributing heavily to Apples revenue. So why the hell do they owe Americans some sort of special treatment. Americans should learn to practice what they preach. You wanted a global economy, well you've got one.

 

[iMeowbot]

Look, outsourcing is simply the result of the world becoming a global economy. I find it amusing that for years the Americans have been breathing down everyones throats about GATT, trying to push for the elimination of trade tariffs and subsidies. Its ok when the international economy bends over for the Americans, but it's not ok when the same global economy has a negative impact on you. GET OVER IT.

It would be a good idea not to confuse the wants of business interests with those of regular people. There was lots of domestic opposition to getting too loose on trade, for fear of exactly what is now happening. It may well be that, for example, the Seattle GATT riots weren't reported internationally.

 

[blissed]

Outsourcing

I just love it when I have to speak to someone in India who doesn't understand English better than a 6 year old and is reading from a scripted piece of paper in front of them. That sucks.

 

[nmk]

Actually, most people that work in call centers speak English quite well. Perhaps your own language skills are weak.

 

[wdlove]

Actually, most people that work in call centers speak English quite well. Perhaps your own language skills are weak.

Actually on the call centers in English, I'm sure that they must bee able to speak English. My experience was more of a cultural problem. They didn't understand something that a native born American would.

 

[ClimbingTheLog]

It's a matter of principle

The truth is simple. Americans are overpaid and underqualified. You can get a postgraduate, with five years of experience as a sys. admin running a large network, for the equivalent of $500/month. This guy will be more qualified than someone making six times as much in America. So why the hell should American companies (or any company) not take advantage of that.

We have lots of laws governing how people are treated in the US.

We don't have child labor, we don't have towns of people dying of famine and preventable disease, we have OSHA requirements, everybody can get clean water to drink, we take care of our old and disabled, building codes are very strict, etc.

We think these are basic human rights. But it costs money. So everybody gives the government (willingly or not) a big chunk of money. I think I gave the government $25000 last year if you add it all up. That's enough to pay two full time engineers out of India - just on the money I paid in taxes. And the money has to come from somewhere - everybody jacks up their prices to cover the tax costs. That's why America's cost of living is so high.

Not every country shares our values. Indians die from starvation, burning buildings, and contaminated water. The government doesn't prevent it. The government doesn't spend money preventing it. The government doesn't collect taxes to prevent it.

Asian children sew our goods that we buy at Walmart or the Foot Locker. We'd never allow an American child to do that job, but we make excuses as to why it's OK for more yellow children to do that instead of going to school.

Either these rights are human rights or they're not - there's no such thing as god-given American rights.

So hiring an Indian is just a way to avoid paying these taxes. It's more akin to having poorly-kept slaves at a great distance than it is to improving the global economy.

 

[nmk]

For one, its nothing like having slaves. Most Indian tech workers are very well paid by Indian standards. In most countries (like India) outsourcing has led to a tremendous growth in the economy. So if you are really so concerned about human values, maybe you should give up some of your money to help other countries achieve the same level of social welfare that you have. I can assure you that if India had a GDP of 6 trillion dollars, they would also do something about the plight of their people (and no, Americans DO NOT care more about their people than the rest of the world).

Anyway, the point I was making had nothing to do with morals. I was simply saying that Americans are overpaid and underqualified. Companies are now multinational. They don't care about America, all they care about is their shareholders. They are going to do what they can to maximize their profits.