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To: ottothedog

"The fact that manufacturing goes overseas does not imply that design/engineering will follow."

I disagree. It isn't going to make sense to have R&D on one side of the world and manufacturing on the other, particularly when engineering talent can be added for a fraction of the domestic cost offshore. There is a whole "ecosystem" that has to be in place for manufacturing to thrive. That support environment is increasingly going offshore. It is becoming increasingly difficult to envision the trend reversing, because the USA is losing the whole infrastructure that has to be in place for manufacturing to flourish.

These engineering jobs that Cisco is adding in India are not an isolated incident. As A. Pole has pointed out, Cisco believes that China will be the leading area of the world for information technology sometime between 2020 and 2040 and they are making plans to be a Chinese company by that time.


62 posted on 11/14/2005 6:19:37 AM PST by phil_will1 (My posts are in no way limited or restricted by previously expressed SQL opinions)
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To: phil_will1; jpsb
Manufacturing is fundamentally different from R&D. For one thing a 20% improvement in cost in R&D is probably not going to have as much effect on the bottom line as it would in manufacturing. The cultures of a manufacturing organization and R&D are totally different. Manufacturing is all about operational efficiency, while R&D centers on innovation.

There are a number of "fabless" companies out there (for instance, Sun is unveiling their new SPARC chip today -- manufactured by TI), who obviously view them as two separate activities. The iPod was designed by a British guy working for an American company, and is manufactured in China.

63 posted on 11/14/2005 6:55:29 AM PST by ottothedog (Forbes 2008)
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