re: Force10: Where's the Exit?Yes growth is a good thing for employment.
But don't you think it is a little ridiculous when companies lobby for large increases in the H-1B limits when there have been such large numbers of layoffs ane unemployment among US engineers?
And H-1B engineers are not future productive taxpayers. They are REQUIRED to go back to their home country, taking with them the best practices of US companies.
That, combined with massive outsourcing of R&D, and the result is that you have companies outside of the US that are putting a serious dent in US profitibility. American coporate 'leaders' are destroying the potential for growth in the US (but doing India and China really great favors!).
I'm always amused when people say "the problem is that enrollment in engineering schools in the US is down. We need to get more students to want to be engineers." Well, when you cut them off at the knees, you shouldn't expect them to be enthusiastic about the profession.
Engineering R&D in the US, and the resultant growth (yes, they are related) are being destroyed by H-1Bs returning home and by outsourcing of R&D. It is all about short term gain and long term loss. We can be greedy and selfish all we want, but we need some long term strategic thinking.
Note that I am in all in favor of encouraging engineers to move to the US and become citizens.
re: Force10: Where's the Exit?"If we want to have a free market for goods and services than it is ridiculous for US companies to ignore this pool of talented engineers"
You are ignoring the value of intellectual property--concepts, inventions, processes. Executives (and you) are acting like this is worth nothing, so you might as well give it away so that you can get cheap labor overseas. You've got it all wrong. This is worth much more than the cost savings involved by temporarily brining in or hiring oversease low-wage engineers.
If you don't believe this then you don't believe that the US has anything of value to offer at all. If this was true, low cost wages would have made this country bankrupt long ago. If you (and tese executives) are wrong, then you are guilty of selling off some of this countries most valuable assets.
Or maybe you believe that the only thing worth money are the ideas the US executives are bringing to the equation. Maybe American engineering inginuity is worth nothing so there is nothing to protect!
re: Force10: Where's the Exit?tera wrote "But don't you think it is a little ridiculous when companies lobby for large increases in the H-1B limits when there have been such large numbers of layoffs ane unemployment among US engineers? "
If we want to have a free market for goods and services than it is ridiculous for US companies to ignore this pool of talented engineers, especially if they are cheaper to employ. I can assure you that foreign companies will employ these engineers, and will not return the favor by ignoring lucrative US markets for their products.
In free markets you live with the good and the bad aspects which they create, a good example for US industry, is that most of the Chinese wireless market is being built out by US corporations a bad aspect for the UK market is that Huawei has displaced Marconi as a leading supplier for next generation BT network.
Given the choice, I'd rather be with a US corporation, accepting lower wages and working on the build-out of China's wireless industry, than be a Marconi engineer trying to justify my inflated salary to a Huawei hiring manager.
re: Force10: Where's the Exit?opticalHannibal, here is a news flash!!! Companies have ALWAYS wanted better margins and lower costs. If the companies ELECT's to pay higher wages (employ Americans) it is because they believe that the "time to market" advantage is more critical than the development cost.
A more serious problem that you're ignoring is, What happens when world wide product demand no longer follows in the footsteps of the US industry? I'll give you a clue, US engineers become the second, third or forth choice to do the product development and collect the corresponding wages.
re: Force10: Where's the Exit?tera wrote "You are ignoring the value of intellectual property--concepts, inventions, processes"
IP is never a static form of property, rather it is either expanded upon or diluted with time and with the success / failure of the holding company. If a company like Marconi goes ch11 the value of its IP is seriously diluted, by contrast if Motorola employs some Indian engineers to develop a Chinese wireless system than it generally increases the value of its wireless IP. But I fail to see what this has to do with employing US engineers, because the IP and trade secrets are generally owned by the corporation rather than the creating engineer.
If your assertion is that IP and trade secrets are stolen, from US corporations, more quickly by foreign engineers than maybe I can see your point, however I'm not sure that recent history supports this theory. The whole start-up boom of the 90's was largely created by US engineers leaving US corporations to start their own company. They then patented the key ideas, which were often invented a week after leaving their previous employer.
re: Force10: Where's the Exit?It is not quite true that Chinese wireless industry is being built by US companies. UTStarcom and Huawei are major beneficiaries of the Chinese wireless buildout. China will never do anything like what BT did.
The damaging part about design outsourcing is that a layer of talent and experience will be wiped out in US companies. The new startup model is keep a skeleton crew of architects, marketing and sales folks in the US and hire 90% of the engineering & dev. outside US. Most engineers out of school do not become architects. They do their time and learn on the job. If such learning opportunities are eliminated, how does one build people with design and architecture skills in the US? This is a serious problem because not all people can become high-level architects. How do you absorb the rest of the crew?
But the surprising thing is that telecom/datacom engineers are finding jobs relatively easily in NE and the Valley. They are being absorbed by companies that are doing well such as Cisco/Juniper/ and other startups doing well. Can anyone give examples of people with telecom background having difficulty finding jobs?
re: Force10: Where's the Exit? People throughout Richardson have had a heck of a time.
But the thing is that to pay you more than somebody in India, you need to have a productivity advantage over that person in India (or China or wherever). Otherwise, what will happen is that your job will disappear. If it does not occur through outsourcing, then it will occur through your employer being out of work.
This is why most manufacturing jobs left the US. Now high tech jobs are leaving, because the only way to compete in a low margin business is with low opex. Forming a union will do exactly one thing; drive jobs out of the US faster.
Best thing you can do? Educate, yourself on the next technology wave. Telecomunications and Data Communciations are becoming industrial products. As product differentiation leaves, then channel and price are the only two issues. One can not afford a lot of expensive R&D in such a market. Innovation will slow dramatically as well.
re: Force10: Where's the Exit?The US has an unique immigration policy structure. Immigration process of getting people from outside the US is governed by three separate entities. The Department of Justice overseas the legitmacy of foreigners to stay in the USA and operate within our economic framework. The Department of Labor overseas supply of labor to ensure US growth demands are met. The Department of State overseas who can and cannot enter the counry and their interface is only through consulates, embassies, and foreign diplomatic posts.
If a company has a job opening they notify people. If the job cannot be filled by a US citizen or resident than it is open to be bid by others. If the person is inside the country, Dept. of Justice deals with readjustment of status. if the person is outide the US they petition to enter the country.
Given this scenario are you claiming that one particular branch of the adminstration is slacking off?
I will give you my take on things.
US citizens and residents have a feeling of entitlement. That the country owes it to them! The fact is that the US telecom sector is backward and quite primitive in technology compared to developing greenfield networks. The real cause of this is regulatory intervention in the most capitalistic nation of the world. Talk about consistence!
So, the old "bell heads" are wondering what they will do without a pension. Well, I suggest they work legislation through AARP.
The poor VCs, mainly the institutional kind, who hire clueless ex-RBOC-vendor VPs or GM to manage new funds. They fund companies that are not sustainable. They later figure outsouricing will cut costs. Remember, these chaps never new about costs and profits while selling to US carriers. They rudley find out its too late to outsource. They the then fold the company and kill it - or let me put it more gently - do an asset sale. whose ass-et the end up selling is a good question.
New startups are then told to get a few 'elite' chaps in the valley. Sort of the lace in the window. The work of producing the product happens where labor is cheap and education is of the highest value.
What is that you folks dont understand here?
Get ready for the collapse of the telco and service provider sector. You can even comprehend how nasty this is going to get.
re: Force10: Where's the Exit?I said the founders should get the money.
Here is the way I see it. Money represents unfulfilled promises. A paper form of IOUs from an unfinished barter. Whoever holds the IOUs has the obligation to make sure the promises are fulfilled in way that value is created. So the founders job is not to "get the money" but rather to deliver on the promises and create value. I don't think long lasting value creation can truly be accomplished without a deep respect for the people who make up the organization and who do the lion's share of the work.
But don't you think it is a little ridiculous when companies lobby for large increases in the H-1B limits when there have been such large numbers of layoffs ane unemployment among US engineers?
And H-1B engineers are not future productive taxpayers. They are REQUIRED to go back to their home country, taking with them the best practices of US companies.
That, combined with massive outsourcing of R&D, and the result is that you have companies outside of the US that are putting a serious dent in US profitibility. American coporate 'leaders' are destroying the potential for growth in the US (but doing India and China really great favors!).
I'm always amused when people say "the problem is that enrollment in engineering schools in the US is down. We need to get more students to want to be engineers." Well, when you cut them off at the knees, you shouldn't expect them to be enthusiastic about the profession.
Engineering R&D in the US, and the resultant growth (yes, they are related) are being destroyed by H-1Bs returning home and by outsourcing of R&D. It is all about short term gain and long term loss. We can be greedy and selfish all we want, but we need some long term strategic thinking.
Note that I am in all in favor of encouraging engineers to move to the US and become citizens.