Chip maker shifts design to India (another one bites the dust)

BBC ^ | 22 April, 2004

[oceanview]

don't get me wrong, I am glad you are doing well.

but starting/running a business isn't easy, that's why most people are employed by already established businesses. not everyone can do it.

[Havoc]

Wherever did you get the idea to associate India with "educated slave labor"?

Might have been from guys like me who've been calling it that for 10 years. Or it may just be from gut reaction that pretty much everyone has. That's what it is. Slaves without chains. Pay them a pittance, easy to control and easy to dodge the tax system. It plunged us into war once, so the government seems to have decided twice might not be a bad thing..

[RinaseaofDs]

Another part of the solution is lowering barriers to using capital productively.

Lord knows there are a lot of those barriers in the US.

We also don't have to subsidize the expeditiousness with which jobs leave.

E.g. insuring US companies who build plants in foreign countries. Let the risk of insuring that plant be picked up by the stockholders, not the taxpayers.

Grants to foreign nationals for US schools can go away too.

I also have problems with doing export business with countries that don't honor contracts, though generally the market tends to deal with that.

[Havoc]

Hey, it's the whole concept of Work smarter, not harder. Bush has accomplished with one policy decision what it took Osama a handful of planes and mass murder to accomplish.

[DB]

What I mostly meant by "established" is knowing what they are doing as opposed to on the job training.

As far as hiring, I'd hire a capable engineer tomorrow if I could find one that can do what I need without me directly supervising it.

[oceanview]

well, no college graduate is going to be able to do that. could you when you were hired out of college?

that the same line many US coporate managers at larger companies take - they won't hire a US engineer with no experience, but they will offshore that task to someone in India, yet they know absolutely nothing about whether they can do the job. Its because offshoring has now become the fashionable thing to do, US corporate management is like a cult on this issue, its their holy grail.

What did Patton say : "show me a group of people who all think the same thing, and I'll show you a group of people who aren't thinking".

[hedgetrimmer]

Chinese Defence Minister General Cao Gangchuan poses for photographers in front of the historic Taj Mahal in the northern Indian city of Agra March 30, 2004. India and China announced on Monday a series of proposals to strengthen ties between their armed forces to help bolster a new friendship between the world's most populous countries.. Chinese Defence Minister General Cao Gangchuan poses for photographers in front of the historic Taj Mahal in the northern Indian city of Agra March 30, 2004. India and China announced on Monday a series of proposals to strengthen ties between their armed forces to help bolster a new friendship between the world's most populous countries,

****

China to India:
He who possesses advanced chips can have the initiative in the battlefield

Chip is of important strategic significance to a country's economic development

The importance of chips is manifested in national security

[TopDog2]

Outsourcing your core competency is a really, really bad idea.

This is a key concept taught at every business school. I learned it when I was earning my MBA. I guess the siren song of short-term profits is too strong to resist?

[oceanview]

these US companies consider their core revenue generating part of their business to be comprised of the executive suite, legal, intellectual property and sales & marketing. the technology is a commodity (so they feel). so they do not believe they are "violating" this tenet.

[TopDog2]

That is some twisted thinking. I could (almost) see outsourcing, for example, HR functions, but for a chip maker to outsource either chip production or chip engineering would seem to be suicidal!

[Myrddin]

I was talking to a co-worker just yesterday about a college choice for his 17 year old - I suggested real estate or business or law, engineering is dead in the US.

My 21 year old son decided to ditch his pursuit of a degree in astrophysics. This is a kid with a 4.33 GPA in high school and all "5" scores on his AP exams. He went to work for a real estate agent (immigrant from Mexico City). He now conducts real estate transactions completely in Spanish, but is equally well equipped to service English speaking customers. San Diego State offered him a conditional acceptance into the business school to pursue a degree in international business. The condition is that he present them with satisfactory grades in formal business Spanish. Meanwhile, he keeps his bills paid by selling 5 to 7 homes each month in the San Diego area. The agent pays him $500 per closing and a salary of $350/week to run the office. He cleans houses to earn another $100 per week. The USMC has claim on one weekend each month to keep the Lance Corporal sharp for another tour of duty. He was in Kuwait this time last year.

[oceanview]

its an elitist attitude. that's who runs large US tech companies, the elites, people like Carly Fiorina. They think that only what they do adds value, while other functions are "commodities". The inner circle at large US companies is comprised of the executive suite (plus support staffs, finance, etc), legal and intellectual property, sales & marketing (because you can't have Punjab or Ajit making a sales call to push your product). so those positions comprise the protected inner circle, while everything else is potentially on the block to be offshored. Not all at once mind you, but slowly, wave after wave.

[TopDog2]

Oh, I believe you. I worked in the steel industry. Re-educated myself and went to work in software development. Re-educated myself again and went into adult education. Hopefully, I won't have to reinvent myself again. At 55, I'm kind of tired of having to do that every few years. If only the free-traitors would tell me what this great, new industry they keep preaching about was, I could re-educate myself once and for all. lol

[templar]

Like what?

Social workers, government employees of all types, police, assorted specialized Federal law enforcement (Drugs, Homeland Security etc) private security personell, school councellors, soldiers, prison guards and other related prison fields, etc.

Just about anything that results from increased government spending and/or social chaos.

[DB]

My advice is he should do what he loves. You only live once. Being unhappy with your work for a lifetime is too high a price to pay for what initially seemed like better pay.

If he loves it (whatever he does), he will stand out from the others and succeed at it (that is assuming it'something productive).

[ETERNAL WARMING]

Not to worry. This administration is working hard to create more part-time, minimum wage jobs for our engineers to step into. The economy is booming, donchaknow.

[ETERNAL WARMING]

Just more obsolete buggywhip industry. We're better off without it, we cqan concentrate more resources on the new emerging fields of the future.

Yeah, burger flipping at $5.15 per hour, no benefits.

[DB]

I graduated high school a year and a half early by taking the GED (back in 1978). I was hired as an engineering technician when I started at California Microwave Inc in Sunnyvale at age 19. I did not go to collage. I was promoted to senior design engineer in about two to three years after being hired (there were position steps in between).

I fixed TV's in a small town repair shop before that...

And no, I couldn’t do what they wanted engineering wise when I was first hired.

As a small business owner, I can’t afford to train an engineer for a year or more before he/she is productive. That would be a double whammy for me. Not only would the new engineer not be productive, neither would I.

The point I’m trying to make is, that if you love what you do, you will find a way to do it and be successful.

[DB]

Your first mistake is assuming that government creates jobs.

Government is mostly only a leach on productivity.

[oceanview]

yes, its different for a small business like yourself.

but large companies always had mentoring programs for the new college hires, it was the way someone from college get the kind of experience they need to contribute. its all but gone now.