Discussion on:

Sanity check: Is the U.S. losing its role as the world leader in information technology?

I wrote my opinion here:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=524

Do you think the U.S. has lost its role as the world leader of IT? Why or why not? If you do think so, what do you think are some of causes? Where do you think the U.S. still has opportunities to lead?

As i use three of the biggest software products from the US, msoffice, AutoCAD, sage, and i live in the UK. I see your work from a different angle. May i advice you to become more international, more worldly, less conceited. Little things like always putting the US at the top of address lists when really you?re near the bottom with UK. Only offering updates to US users..etc. you are only 0ne country in many thousands, except it and learn to enjoy the worlds diversity. Don?t make life such a hard battle for your selves and others. Calm down and enjoy.

How about releasing an English UK version of Windows?
Having noted your recent release of a Windows version in Welsh, I continue to be upset by American arrogance that insists that users whose language is native English, respond to "color" rather than "colour", "labeled" and "canceled" rather than "labelled" and "cancelled" and the myriad of other linguistic irritations in the American dominated operating systems and applications world.

And as an aside to Mart: I am sure that Sage is not American but British.

Kenneth Spencer

Depends one waht product is being used.

It is a UK firm though

Even in high-school I would spell those words that had the Queen's English variant using that variant only to many times find it unacceptable to my writing. Today, even when I use it in MS-WORD it is seen as an error instead of an optional form of spelling....

Umm, not to burst the Brits' anti-American bubble, but use the option to add your preferred variant of whatever word to Word's dictionary.

Here's a newsflash: Word has problems with US English as well...but once the terms are added to the dictionary: poof! Now don't even get me started on Office's grammar checker...

As far as location, I've been seeing that the US is not always default anymore; been seeing that more and more lately.

This old chestnut has been doing the rounds for more years than I care to remember.

As you can see, I am from the UK and the use of poor grammar and spelling in the original posters reply to this thread appalls me.

I learnt from my wife last night that the UK schools no longer pull up the children for spelling mistakes or bad grammar. Apparently its the 'content' which they consider important. I've never heard anything like this in my life. That is just too terrible for words.

It are these same children which have now crept into the World of I.T. and so it is no wonder we have all lost the edge.

It doesn't matter if there is a z (American) or an s (common in English) in the word you are trying to spell in Microsoft Word or for that matter any slight spelling differences. It's simple enough to change if it annoys you enough.....provided you know how to spell in the first instance - which appears not to be the case anymore.

Euro-English

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favor of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to setps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kintaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil vinali kim tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German lik zey vunted in ze forst plas. If zis mad you smil, ples pas on to oza pepl.

'Nuff said.

...or not!

Please try to avoid the knee-jerk reaction to all the US-bashing. I've read your other posts on this thread and you are a sharp individual. I don't necessarily agree with your opinions, but at least you and others I don't agree with have the intelligence to have and support an opinion. The United States is not the center of the universe or even the free world. I would bet you have made the sacrifices to earn the right to tell someone to "bugger off." It feels good and gives you a momentary sense of gratification to tell the amoral, spineless, misguided, ignorant, resentful intellectuals who think that the Nanny State will take good care of everybody to f' off. However, we need thinking people everywhere to step up and intellectually defend the rights of the individual and state their case in an unemotional and persuasive manner. Don't be goaded into being the "Ugly American." Those who would destroy our system and undermine our beliefs love it when you succumb to their goading. The defenders of freedom are not loved or appreciated until they're dead. Until such time, you will be labeled a jingoist, beaugois (sp,)chauvanist pig and will be hated by those you defend. You know this, I can tell. It really is about "hearts and minds." Lead by example.

I enjoyed reading how the Americans are so egocentric, they are putting U.S. at the top of the list, and spelling words in the American way, rather than british. Not sure which is the RIGHT way, being I'm an American. Either is fine in my eyes. I also took note that three of the people who responded that we Americans spell things incorrectly had misspellings: 'what' was spelled 'waht'; 'too' was spelled 'to'; 'enough' was spelled 'Nuff'.

Waht was most likely a typo, 'Nuff is an abbreviation, and I couldn't find the third example you cited.

If you're going to pick nits, do it accurately.

I've seen this dozens of times at TR. People without an argument resort to finding spelling errors. Childish.

The funny part is that the universal response is "it's just a typo". I guess only spelling errors in pencil are a problem.

And I find it extremely amusing that you choose to capitalise every instance of the word 'American', but not the word 'British'. Personally, I think spelling is in trouble everywhere and the masses too readily sacrifice 'quality' for 'quantity'.

I played a cord on my piano.
I played a chord on my piano.
I cut the chord too short.
I cut the cord too short.

Spelled? Don't you mean spelt?

Seriously though. I think the point here is that software should have an option rather than assume that everyone speaks American English.

'Them' New Speakers of English are the ones to blame Mostly 'code-cutters' who do not really know or care about actually doing it right.

I totally agree with you and would be a bit taken by the absence of the UK English version as well.

Most don't realise that US English is a complete bastardisation of the original!

English is a dynamic language and as such undergoes constant change whether we like it or not. In the past British English was accepted as the standard; however, look up a word in the Oxford dictionary. You will find the American pronunciation first and the British pronunciation second. The world standard for English has changed to the American English standard the same way as a Old English morphed into Modern English.

Back to the topic:
I think the question that should be asked: Why should the US be a leader in IT? It seems that diversity will only improve the IT field, not hinder it.

I kind of enjoyed reading Beowulf in OE.

One could argue that English (regardless of version) is a bastardization of German. There are other differences that are very noticeable. Such as the treatment of a company as a plural by the British versus singular by the Americans: Barclays are ... versus Barclays is ... This thread was about whether America is losing its tech edge. I don't think so. I think the rest of the world has joined the party. China and Korea in particular are eager to do what Americans, British, Germans and others have done for some time. If we or any other country want to be ahead of the game, we need to do what we did before. Run real fast. Americans do that (and are doing that in some areas). Unfortunately, we also tend to be stubborn to change. When we do realize we need to move, we do so quite well.

English on BOTH sides of the Atlantic changed in the last 500 years or so. It is a perfectly natural phenomena, since a language that cannot change is doomed. It is too easy to point fingers, one calling the other's language a bastardization (Or was that a bastardisation?). Does it REALLY matter? Being in a country with 11 official languages, there is a localized bastardization of English too. I do get a good earful from the old-school colonial types if I dare try an American spelling. What is really interesting, is that these are in the severe minority in this country, which has severe other problems. Heck, I enjoy the heck out of this all - What a strange species we are!

What a strange species we are!

Yes, Language evolves and spellings with them naturally change over time. Many of the American English spellings were changed by design. There were several attempts to simplify and standardise English, some of which were more successful than others. Attempts were also made this side of the pond (the UK) but these were generally ignored. I guess the difference was because the USA had people from many nations so simplification of the spelling rules were more important.

A quick google took me to : http://www.bartleby.com/185/35.html

Phil M. said: "Most don't realise that US English is a complete bastardisation of the original!"

We know. We just don't care. My brothers wife is English. We get along "just famously", thank you. Perhaps we should imitate the French and create ?La Societe Americain? to enforce usage of the approved words.

Ken

Funny, that doesn't sound like Ojibway, Cree, Maiami or any of the other more nativaly american languages..

hehe.. sorry, not really directed at you but it always makes me giggle when some Doctor Phil guest quality speaker says something like "They should learn to speak proper Amar'can!" (usualy refering to newly imigrated americans). All I can think any time I hear that is funny.. that doesn't sound anything like Ojibway.. maybe they should learn to speak ond of the languages native to America before they start talking about others.

It's so easy for some to forget that we're all imigrants.. some just came to the party earlier than others.

There are many cases where English as used and spelled in the US is more faithfull to English history than our modern 'Queens English"

If a web application is written in English, any kind of English, be it the American or International version ( I believe the same British spellings are used in the U.K., Canada, Australia, S. Africa, etc.), then it should indeed not be assumed that the majority of users are from the U.S., but it IS reasonable to assume that the majority of viewers/users could be from any English-speaking country. So, put all natively-speaking English countries at the top of the list, in ALPHABETICAL order, followed by the rest of the world. Ok, throw in India there as well. English isn't exactly native but everyone who's gone to college there knows it well. Yes, I think it's arrogant, too, to put the U.S. at the top all the time.

As for spellings, I could have cared less when I was younger, I knew both ways and read both interchangeably, U.S. spellings or U.K., however, the longer I'm in I.T. the more I wish our schools would just teach both as being equally correct. You can thank Noah Webster for any I.T. application English-spelling headaches. Before that there was just one world standard, or pretty close.

The change in spellings was his idea to "standardise/standardize" the language: he really did no such thing, and in fact did the opposite. But then, I guess he lived in the 1800s. No web then.

Are you an IT consultant or a grammarian, Ken? Perhaps, you want to go back to 17th century English so that you can enjoy the beautiful complexity of the language. Believe me, there is always a place for someone like you in France. But guess what, France's brains are headed your way because France can't give them what they want .

I used to use a software package that I believe was from a British company (CadStar from Zuken-Redac). Colour and other spelling differences were in the package that was released in the USA.

Lord help me if I've misspelled anything in this post. What could be worse?

Sir,
I agree with your position on the English language being different in the U.S. and the U.K., and am sympathetic to your complaint. I will point out that your distaste for the "American arrogance" in spelling apparently does not apply to your fellow U.K. residents nor to your careless use of UK as an abbreviation. Your reply was to mart, who sent a view from the "UK".
"As i use three of the biggest software products from the US, msoffice, AutoCAD, sage, and i live in the UK. I see your work from a different angle. May i advice you to become more international, more worldly, less conceited. Little things like always putting the US at the top of address lists when really you?re near the bottom with UK. Only offering updates to US users..etc. you are only 0ne country in many thousands, except it and learn to enjoy the worlds diversity. Don?t make life such a hard battle for your selves and others. Calm down and enjoy"
Please note the pervasive improper use of capitalization and punctuation. Also note the use of "advice" rather than "advise", "except" when the context clearly shows that the writer meant "accept", and the use of the plural "worlds" rather than the possessive "world's". I think it is quite cheeky of you to chastise the users of a variant of the language you use while ignoring the misuse of the variation that you espouse. As pointed out in another response, we all have deviated from the original. My point is the improper use of language is worse than "American arrogance" in using a particular dialect.

It's interesting to see you ascribe the specific characteristics of MS products to "American" arrogance. Microsoft is one company, sure it's big, but you can't say America is arrogant because of how MS sells its products. That's a big leap.

Furthermore, there is no arrogance when it comes to making sales. If anything, all pride is set aside to pursue profits. If it were cost effective to make a different version specific to British consumers, they would do it. If you think Microsoft is missing the boat, you should write Microsoft and be heard. Or better yet, move to Linux! (I'm actually about to move to Linux myself) But if you buy MS products as they are you're just confirming they don't need to spend even one extra penny to get your business.

It's business, not arrogance; appeal to their bottom line not their sensitivity.

Still, I am concerned about one thing. When I read The Economist, a British publication, and I see what I consider non-standard English I simply assume its a cultural difference, not arrogance. I can't help but think most people in the UK reciprocate this open mindedness and that you must be a small minority.

If one is to give consideration to the pronounciation of the words, then dialects must be considered, There are many variations of Spanish spoken all over the world, and these persons are not telling each other that they must all speak one dialect of Spanish. Find a real topic to get excited about!

Isn't English the universally accepted language for science and technology?
If that's so, shouldn't we all agree to use the same version of English?

As for the British using Americanised English, it is often that the spellchecks and grammar checks insist on making changes. There are only so many times that we can be bothered to change them back.

Globalization techniques used for currency and language could be applied to these elements as well (address drop downs, localized spellings in text &etc) as product features.

This isn't about being arrogant, it's simply about catering to the needs and preferences of the customer. Product installed with UK English language as the default should use those spellings appropriate, not just assume American English will be "good enough". Drop downs and similar elements should default to those forms most convenient to localization, not the authors.

It's about Lingo, not Jingo.

I assume you feel as strongly that your units of measurement are stupid and out of touch with the rest of the world? If not, you're just another whinging Pom...

If American companies want to market to the world, their products should not be so "US-centric". We may be the loudest people, but not the only people on the planet:-)

BTW, "labeled" and canceled" are not American; they're just plain wrong!!

It was the Brittish who invented the
digital computer in WWII as a tool to crack
the German "Enigma" code system wich they
quietly kept secret at the end of the war
but not before their US Allies had seen it
in action. This technology has had input
from many countries. The US was the first
to commercialize IT

...to the Polish technologists upon who's devices, smuggled out of Poland into England, was formed much of the basis for that highly impressive work by Turing et al.

And I think I would actually credit the French-speaking Dutch with first commercial application of 'IT' with their early weaving machines that used what amounted to punched cards to reproduce weaving patterns in rugs.

whilst I agree with your sentiment, Safe is actually a UK company - I work for them! They started in the early 80s from a small company wanting something to keep track of accounts, and a junior wrote a program. The boss was very pleased, and they touted it around the industrial estate they worked on. Such was the demand for the program that a new company was forged.

Growth has been phenomenal, with Sage now the only technology company listed in the FTSE100 on the London Stock Exchange.

It was only a couple of years ago that Sage acquired the rights to use their company name in the US, since there has been another company using that name.

It is gratifying that our products are put on a par with those developed by our cross-pond cousins, but it _is_ a UK concern with global interests

I may be wrong but I believe that in the US quicken is still more popular than Sage??

a box of chocolates and all that. I myself ruled it out because it is web based when I want a stand alone application with absolutely [no] internet connectivity.

I distrust anything that pings some server on the internet and sends information I can not review or prohibit.

Because all the accounting packages seem to call home for something other than the initial activation and because I believe that accounting information is the most private information, I am having to develop my own accounting package for my business. It would be nice if your company thought of and remembered this when plugging your firm.

UK offerings from Sage are 'stand alone' rich GUI's
Data security is of course an issue, you don not want to fall foul of our data protection act. There are more concerns with connectivity and such.

I am sorry to observe that contributors to this thread justifiably complaining about MS failure to provide UK English in products seem to have such a poor grasp of English spelling and grammar themselves.

That is why we are so desperate for a UK spell checker!

Use Firefox. Perfectly good UK splel chekcer so we can demonstrate our superior use of the letter 'U' to our Transatlantic Neighbors.

Nicely underlined in red, that last word.

Neil

http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=102&threadID=230563&messageID=2366400

Enough said!

Allow a critique. In the King's English:

You need to use I, not i. If you can type US, surely you can put a capital M and S and O in msoffice. After all, you did type AutoCAD.

You certainly may advise us. Advice however, is a noun.

As to putting the United States at the top of a pull-down list (which is what I infer you're picking at), I'm sure that on websites made in the UK, or elswhere in the EU, the lists are alphabetized normally. In designing a site for primary use in the US, why would you NOT have the majority selection at the top. It's only done to make a site easier to use, it's not done to denigrate the UK.

You mention US-only updates. An example of that would be good to see, as I am not aware of any such thing. I confess I am not outside the US, so my perspective is necessarily limited in this case.

Finally, we are "one", not 0ne. There are hundreds, not thousands of nations. We ACCEPT that. That I can see, we are calm.

If you're going to chide the US for these things, at least write in manner that conveys your idea in a professional fashion. You'll not be taken seriously otherwise.

Please, don't tar us all with the same brush.

http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=102&threadID=230563&messageID=2366400



Thanks.

Some call putting the most-used selections at the top "user-friendly". Others call it conceited. Get over your inferiority complex.

As for the article, I'm wondering, what is the largest tech company in the world with NO employees in the US? Does such a company even exist?

You may want to look at this:

http://cuberules.com/2007/08/30/ibm-claims-largest-technology-services-company-in-india/

Your strange view that ownership of a company has something to do with where talent is located is a very strange view of the world.

IBM is a multi-national company and not owned solely by Americans (anymore), there must be share-holders (thus owners) all over the world.

I work at a biotech research site of a German multi-national company in Belgium, there are 260 employees on this site and we count 20+ nationalities...

The world is not a big as it used to be...

Well stated, but one who isn't American should come to terms that we're some of the most IMPATIENT on the planet. It's not arrogance really, but impatience seems to breed exactly that nevertheless. Where I live in Arkansas, the traffic running red lights is far worse than in years past, and don't even get me started about the speeding problems here. I possess an 30 year old X-band radar gun formerly used in law enforcement and last certified in 2000, tuning fork included. The stories it tells me of impatience can fill volumes. Yes, some of the cops here know I understand its use quite well, having been a ham for 28 years.

Now consider software installations. I agree it would be far more logical to place all nations with english as their primary language at the TOP of the list so searching for the UK, Canada, Australia, Belize wouldn't be the headache it is. As long as compiling Windows for a UK version doesn't add to their already tedious headaches of product numbers, Windows Genuine Advantage, etc, then I agree it would be a good thing to have.

Thank you for your opinion. I am an average American citizen trying to make ends meet like so many others. I know the value of things and the one thing you can't put a value on are people's opinions and ideas. I always wonder how an average citizen within another country views America. Often times citizenry is spoonfeeed by agenda touting news-wires etc. So from one human to another, thanks for your thoughts!

I have only visited a handful of States, just enough to know that America is BIG with as much diversity of language and culture as Europe. IMHO there is no such thing as an average American, just as there is no average European.

In some ways we are all completely different and in many ways all much the same. The building blocks of technology have come from many different places and new ways of using these building blocks are constantly being developed into new technologies by people all over the globe, in many cases by co-operation between different countries, one country may supply the original idea, another the finance and another the detail work and labour. The world, as we know it is becoming more and more global. For the human race to make the next big steps, a global approach with more co-operation and less resource wasting squabbles.

No matter what your music, don't stop dancing.

This message brought to you by Samuel Jackson Beer.

To offer a silly reply to a silly thread in these discussions, when 90% or more of your customers are in the U.S., you put the U.S. at the top. It's not arrogance, it's usability.

God forbid you should write a book -

I don't usually complain about spelling, context and the such.

But really, "advice" for advise, "one country in many thousands" when in reality there are about 194.

See: http://geography.about.com/cs/countries/a/numbercountries.htm

To continue: "except" for accept.

But, I must admit you are among the worlds' diversity. That is, yourselves and others like you.

My 2 cents and you take it easy also.

Falconeer

Cheers

It seems that the small nation of Scotland has become a world leader in IT.

Sure some great inventions and tech advances have come out of the USA.

However, many of the minds that created those advances were imports that had to move to the US just to "make it big".

Many times, companies if they did not have an American office would not flourish or may have been shunned by the US consumers because they were foreign.

I think that it comes down to bullying not playing a leader role in the (IT) industry as a country.

M$ as an example cannot get visas for some programmers(what ever the reasons), have decided to open up shops in B.C., Canada and Europe for those who cannot make it into the US to work.

Take a look at the scrolling credits as an example on Adobe's products. Many of the names listed sure don't sound Anglo Saxon to me......

"many times", "many of the minds"... get real... the majority of advances in tech came out of USA... hmmm are we forgetting?? windows (the most used piece of software in the world), unix, linux, even osx all came from here, born and bred out of the minds of MIT grad-students, or by the fierce competition from within our borders... lest we not forget ENIAC(US), UNIVAC(US), IBM(the US company that pioneered business computing)... I will give credit to the UK though for Turing for the theories, but it was an american (Atanasoff) who used them to create a tangible electronic computer. also it hasn't been until the past few years that most other countries even had computers, none of which would be possible without who? ummmmmm US... just because the whole computing industry is CURRENTLY contributed to by many, many different "imports" (who by the way have just as much opportunity from their own country as they do from the US) riding on our coattails, doesn't mean anyone can undermine the roots of the digital revolution.

Technology has, historically, been driven by international collaboration (or close to). Leading examples are nuclear weapons and supersonic flight, both first demonstrated by the US but heavily dependent on expertise from the UK.

To say that IT was all done by US brainpower is disingenuous at best. You can probably claim that the work took place on US soil, by US corporations/institutions, but that does not make the inventions purely US. There will have been much input from 'imports' throughout the history of US tech innovation.

As has been said already (I think), the US can claim responsiblity for the radical commercialisation of IT rather than technological superiority.

Oh, and Linus Torvalds is Finnish btw.

I really do not want to get involved in this US v England pissing contest.

I will grant that some tech advancements are the result of international collaboration. BUT a blanket statement of "Technology has, historically, been driven by international collaboration (or close to)" is just plain wrong. Historically technological development was driven by individuals and only recently (historically speaking) by corporations.

The first IC based CPU was developed by Intel Corp. in Texas, USA. Ditto with the next IC based CPU, the 8008. Every major CPU has been developed in the USA, the 4004, 8008,8080,z80, 8086, 80x86 and the AMD's. The first actual computer, discounting the abacus, ws developed in europe by Blaise Pascal, the next in the early 1900's was developed in the US for the US Census and later used by the US Postal service.

The US held the title, hands down, in supercomputing until Craig Seymor (Cray Computer Corp.)died. Then for a short time supercomputing went to Japan, that is until IBM developed Deep Blue - again in the US. IBM holds the title today.

To assert disingenuousness is frivolous. Quite playing nationalism and you might be heard!

bwt: Linus Torvold's developed Linux from Minux which was a simplified version of Unix and was used to teach Operating System development to students.

Babbage's Difference Engine, the Jacquard loom spring to mind...

It's individuals within corporation who drive any advance.

I disagree with your position on who drives advance. Such is life. Eventually it is accounting that decides within the corporation just what gets developed, but the idea comes from an individuals mind and is generally pushed to prototype by the same. Unfortunately it is the corporation that has the funds to do the research. Different perspectives.

I had forgotten about the Babbage Difference Engine and the Jacquard loom - I stand corrected.

Norm

conducive to innovation, or not.
One of teh big problems with R & D for innovation nowadays is that it costs so much money, without a corporation, government or some such, you can't possibly finance it.

Low hanging fruit picked, until a new sort of tree comes along. Even with a totla paradigm shift, the corps will fence off the tree, harvest it, then chop it down to make chipboard, before the guy in the basement gets another sniff at it.

It all depends on your definition of computer, a clockwork musical box could be considered a 'prom' device in some respects.

I grant that innovation, meaning R&D costs a fair amount. What happens when someone takes the R&D and uses it in an innovative way to capture that low hanging fruit. All technology is built upon older technology.

Take a look at some research that had shown that the leading edge of a photon changes color while it is moving. At the minimum, this suggests that the constant of the speed of light needs to be re-examined What will happen when some kid that is not locked into the constant speed of light, as we are, comes along and figures out, entirely on his own, how to leverages that idea into a new technology. It took a lot of thought, no company or government money because the research has been done and is public knowledge, and it spawned a new industry.

I agree that a clock or music box could be considered a a mechanical prom. However, a prom does not make a computer - it does not branch program execution based on previous calculation, can not do logic branches, and can not sum numbers.

therefore it can 'do' those things.
A music box can't simply because of it's limited instruction set.
It's not that less complicated than say the pic controller in a washing machine.

The Brittish in cracking German Enigma
built first Digital computer but being
Brittish thought that this was way too
clever for public use and quietly tucked
everything away in top secret cupboard, but
not before their US allies had had a chance
to see it.

using your data:
"Many of the people who designed the early computers were both geniuses and eccentrics of the first order, and the English mathematician Alan Turing (1912-1954) was first among equals. In 1937, while a graduate student, Turing wrote his ground-breaking paper ?On Computable Numbers with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.? (try saying that quickly). One of the premises of Turing?s paper was that some classes of mathematical problems do not lend themselves to algorithmic representations, and are therefore not amenable to solution by automatic computers. Since Turing did not have access to a real computer (not unreasonably as they didn?t exist at the time), he invented his own as an abstract ?paper exercise.? This theoretical model, which became known as a Turing Machine, was both simple and elegant, and subsequently inspired many ?thought experiments.?"

http://www.diycalculator.com/cool.shtml

Now the real story from the same site:
"John Vincent Atanasoff and the ABC
We now turn our attention to an American mathematician and physicist, John Vincent Atanasoff (1903-1995), who has the dubious honor of being known as the man who either did or did not construct the first truly electronic special-purpose digital computer. A lecturer at Iowa State College (now Iowa State University), Atanasoff was disgruntled with the cumbersome and time-consuming process of solving complex equations by hand. Working alongside one of his graduate students ? the brilliant Clifford Berry (1918-1963) ? Atanasoff commenced work on an electronic computer in early 1939, and had a prototype machine by the autumn of that year (this machine was called the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, or ABC for short)."

Apparently you brits are correct on the theoretical side but making fiction on the production side. If we wish to include mechanical computers which is fair game since I brought it up, try the Abacus and Davinci - also on the site.

Just re-iterate, I am not disputing some of the great innovations that have come out of the US however, if you wanna make it big, you better have a US face to really be global.

There are probably too many examples to rhyme off right now, but you get my drift

I guess for a play on words, it is about HIS-story and not history eh?

If it weren't for Russians and other Europeans you wouldn't even have a NASA.

In 1992, I published an article in the Canadian "Silicon Valley News" about the so-called "BRAIN DRAIN" - where US firms were stealing the best and brightest Canadians with the lure of high salaries and low taxes.

Were it not for the ability to import brains, many aspects of the so-called "US technology industry" would still be in the stone age.

Let's give some credit where credit is due.

"In German und English I know how to count down,
und I'm learning Chinese, says Werner von Braun." -Tom Lehrer

If you say so...and Linux came from the mind of Linus Torvalds, a Finn. Pretty much blew the legitimacy of your post for me.

America is a nation of immigrants. We would not have the tech advances we have without many of those immigrants. And at one time or another, every one of the ethnic groups those immigrants belonged to was unwanted by somebody who was already here.

Windows IS an advance in that it brought easy computing to the masses... theres a reason it's the most sold and used piece of software in the world... Also, as was pointed out by someone in an earlier post, linux is just a port of unix and i just said it to exemplify one of the many *nix languages... which are all based on something out of the mind of... who? that's right, Americans!

Also... america WAS a nation of immigrants. We have far supplanted most of our original heritage and culture with the one that most of the world can't stand. I myself have roots in europe. We may not have a long history, but we have one... and i think we've done pretty damn well in the 230 or so years we've been here.

...theres a reason it's [Windows] the most sold and used piece of software in the world.

That reason is marketing.

...linux is just a port of unix...

ummmmm no

If Linux is a port at all, it is a port of MINIX.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
http://liw.iki.fi/liw/texts/linux-the-big-picture.html
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/rhasan/linux/

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."
Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Edit: runaway italics

In the past, the best engineers have wanted to move to the U.S. because that's where all of the best tech development was going on. That only happens when you're the leader.

That is changing somewhat, but it's undeniable that that's how it's been for the past several decades.

Technology came to US because at first as
that was where the funding was available. a
large part of this funding was available
due to the politics of the cold War years.
Cold war is now over. New technology is now
being driven by investment from companies
who require tangable reward for effort
expended at lowest possible cost and often
this can be best found in the rapidly
developing counties with well educated
workforce and government input to encourage
investment in technology

the reason technology flourished here has many reasons, but all those reasons ultimately come to the same point... it happened here because of what was going on at whatever time, nowhere else, period. (wow i should be a politician... statements that say nothing)

this issue is just like the MS security flaws issue... when your on the top, your gonna have way more people trying to knock u down.

dont just hate on the world superpower.

buddy...yeah we were the leader in technology a little while back, but you can't argue anymore that is the case.

bc Mr. Jason said so!

they move here to US b/c of the money...money available for research and money they get paid compared to their countries of origin.

Because cost a lot less do do same work in
India. No point to do work in US because
costs are higher. In US in the past much of
big money was from Government funded
research in Cold War days

read something for crying outloud before you start pretending to know what you are talking about:

-http://searchcio.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid19_gci1263183,00.html
- http://www.diamondconsultants.com/PublicSite/ideas/perspectives/downloads/Diamond2005OutsourcingStudy.pdf
- http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9589_22-5681252.html
- http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/042505-outsourcing.html?ts

In the 1990's US companies purchased local
IT companies to get software development
done faster cheaper and better than they
where getting in US. Trimble Navigation has
a significant presence locally. Outsourcing
is not new and not confined to any one
industry. Fisher & Paykel, local a
whiteware manufacturer has outsourced all
manufacturing to Asia to stay competitive
many US firms will be doing the same,
designing products locally but
manufacturing offshore. If designing
becomes a cheaper option that will go too,
and companies, will become a collection of
bean counters and marketing dept. locally,
all real work being done offshore. stuff
the local workforce, the the managements
responsibility to shareholders is to make
biggest proffit possible, nothing else. IT
is just another product, with managers sole
responsibility, maximum proffit. You can
pull up all the articles you want but, IT
Jobs are going to India, India has their
fare share of clever well educated people,
they know how to work hard, India and China
both have rapidly expanding economies, the
US (like New Zealand) has a stagnating
economy, with imports in excess of exports.
As time goes on they will learn what they
from other counties as fast as they can but
as time goes on an overall standard of
living goes up, the size of the Indian,
Chinese, Asian market will be such that
what
is going on in the US will have lessening
significance.

The other things to consider though is the
effect that this rapid expansion is having
on the limited resources available on the
planet. Both China and India have large
populations, the biggest on the planet. As
the average Indian or Chinese citizen moves
toward the situation where they want to
consume, for example as much oil per person
as a citzen of the US things could become
difficult as because of the shear size of
these populations oil reserves and other
energy sources will come under pressure
like never before. Both these countries
have nuclear weapons and missile
technology, China has even launched a man
into space, so they have serious missile
technology. The US in these case won't be
able to try the "Iraq" method of of taking
steps to take control of any oil reserves
needed. As I see it, though you and others
may see it differently, this is the start
of a shift in not just technology
leadership but of quite possibly political
leadership, the scary part for us
bystanders how intelligently these changes
that are coming are handled. This could
happen quickly or it may take time, But I
feel it has started

Knowledge is a product of society, not by a single inivudual. Anglos by them selves, could not develop their minds, if slaves did not provide food for their bodies. Knowledge and technology are agregates of all human kind not just some small groups. What could we do without the almost free oil from the middle east, for almos a century (until 1973)? So check our history in order to better understand each other better. My only concern is that few people now want to own knowledge (MS, USA, etc.) and create patents, for instance, to stop other people from generating more knowledge, and therefore stoping the very basic attribute of science, its social charateristic.

Funny how this post's attempts at being derogatory, actually become compliments:

"many of the minds that created those advances were imports that had to move to the US just to "make it big"."

And that's a problem, why? It would have been better for that 'imported person' to stay in his/her close-minded, change-resistant, possibly war-torn society rather than come here and reach his/her full potential? Thank you for pointing out the opportunities that are here, and our willingness to accept ideas other than our own.

"I think that it comes down to bullying not playing a leader role in the (IT) industry as a country."

Why thank you! Since the US is no longer number one, I guess that means we're improving and not being the bully any more.

"Many times, companies if they did not have an American office would not flourish"

Dude, that's the same in any country you choose to speak about. If you don't have a local office, you don't do as well. Period. That said, you are welcome for allowing companies wishing international exposure to flourish on our shores.

"Take a look at the scrolling credits as an example on Adobe's products. Many of the names listed sure don't sound Anglo Saxon to me......"

This one is not only complimentary, it's HILARIOUS! Last I looked, the US was not an 'Anglo-Saxon' country. Take a look through any US phone book, and you'll see names from all over the world.

Thanks for the smiles, Nap.

Its a global phenomenon - 'Smith' is no longer the the most common name in the English telephone directory.

A major part of the US problem is the legal environment. Between Homeland Security, governments demanding information and companies who's major product is suing over intellectual property, it's a wonder any new IT products get developed in the US.

Right now, the US is unfriendly towards innovation, and industry.

- Federal government demanding information and access to company records.
- Limitations on what can be exported due to "national security interests".
- Any operations in the US coming under the scrutiny of Homeland Security. They are a huge deterrant to foreign capital and knowlege. You need to protect yourself, but at what cost?
- Limitations on importing qualified workers - the US is great on turning out MBAs and lawyers - not so great on people with technical knowlege that want to work. Notice Microsoft opening development centres in Canada so they can get workers. Personally, if I was Bill Gates I would move my corporate headquarters out of the US to a freer country with less restrictions like Canada or the UK (and less possibility of being sued).
- Companies who only exist to sue other companies over intellectual rights. The legal risks in the US are extreme and damaging. You can develop a product only to discover it's similar to something else and your're getting sued.
- Corporate culture in the US is totally disfunctional. It amazes me how many IT complaints are about the way companies operate, people are renumerated, projects are managed, among others. A lot of US companies are managed for the stock price - they forget that you actually have to make something to be viable longterm. More of the discussions seen to be about HR and personal issues than about technical issues. That tells me that something is very wrong.

I could go on...but most of you are probably aware of the problems...

The US may have a somewhat stricter set of limitations they also have a lower tax rate which presents a more favorable business environment than the countries you mention.

With Global companies, the company simply goes to or does the work in the country with the best skill set and the least restrictive ruleset.

To summarize what I read in your post, you are complainng that in the US "Money talks and ******** walks." Apply it to what you wrote.

Otherwise, not a bad post.

In theory global companies should look to countries with the best skill set and least restrictive rule sets to do business in since it would mean a better bottom line in the long run. But, most companies tend to go to countries that have the cheapest labor costs and the least restrictive rule sets to improve the next quarter reports. Global companies are becoming to concerned with the bottom line and less concerned with providing a quality product. It is a sorry state of affairs when global companies have thrown away the idea of multi-year plans in favor of short term stock increases to allow sub-standard CEO's to stay in office. But, it is pretty much inevitable as most countries move from a quality controlled business model to a fast food business model.

Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but
the UK and the EU have come down harder on
M$ for "monopolistic" practices than the US
has. Why would that motivate "Billy" boy to
move there? Also, in recent news, "Billy"
boy is pulling back on calling the shots in
M$, and is focusing more now on "the
Gatesway" foundation and other
anthropological interests.

Oh..back to the topic... I don't think the
US has ever been the leader in coming up
with new Technology, just the leader in
exploiting it....and trying to make it
illegal for other countries to do the same.
Something that I am sure will backfire
someday, and maybe already has, just that we
haven't lost enough blood yet to realize our
foot is bleeding.

Just to bolster your argument...

Let's start with a role call of the Manhattan Project.

Then let's go through a definition of 'Brain Drain'. (Speaking of which, will this continue if the US economy continues to tank or will the brains be drained to the EU or ...gasp... Canada?)

Technology leadership is about making better products, more innovative products, and products that consumer wants, and other people wants to copy. Technology leadership is not about making more, making cheaper, and making faster - unless you are doing manufacturing technology.

Technology leadership does not mean there are lots of people doing it and making a lot of money either. Having an industry that is attractive to young people to join in is, of course, beneficial, as there is a much larger talent pool. However, people attracted to an industry because it paid well are usually not that dedicated, don't have the motivation, and don't have the stamina to be really creative. Steve Job made the first Apple not because he thought it will make him a lot of money, just because it would be fun to do so. IBM's team to build the first PC was very small, under funded, and was not expected to make money. IBM did it just for fun. Even IBM's venture into computers was not because of profit, just because it was technically challenging.

Therefore, for the US to maintain its leadership in IT, or any other technology, the Americans, not the government, must maintain their open mind, curiosity, and the sense of having fun doing very difficult things.

The only thing that was invented for a specific purpose, and not just because it would be fun to do so, was the atomic bomb.

The other thing that maintain leadership is discipline. India was good at IT because Indians don't mind having a discipline. Many other nations have the creativity, technical know how, and tenacity, but were not as good as India, because of their lack of discipline. The "cow boy shop" mentality created too many failure in product quality. Things works, sort of, type. Americans must strengthen in this area, so that IT failures are less spectacular. This would increase funding and support from the moneyed people.

The future of IT depends on how well it will integrate with other technologies. The integration with the manufacturing technologies and material sciences is spectacular. The transportation industry is doing quite well, but need to be better. IT people should pay attention to the life science, chemistry, biochemistry, and other sciences, to borrow their techniques, exploit their inventions, and seek out new markets. However, too many IT people in US don't even have good understanding of basic college math and physical sciences. Some even to the point of ignorant about trigonometry and geometry - necessary skills to do real good graphics, maps, etc. To many commercial programmers don't understand basic optimization and searching algorithms, and algorithmic theory to really do their job adequately, not to mention creatively.

So, keep the American curiosity, and make sure your children learn their basic math and sciences, and expose them to various fields of technology, science, culture, social sciences, and literature. A people of varied interests and passion is what keeps America the technology leader, not cheap labour.

And, last but not the least: Think long term. Think about your children and grandchildren, not yourselves.

Note that many of the recent failed products are coming from companies based outside the US: . For example, who do you know who has a Nokia taco phone? Or an LG Choklit?

The spectacular failures have been economic failures related to greed, a lack of ethics, or both.

I agree with your opinion, though. The problem is that the longest term any of the MBAs and other bean-counters running the American companies can think is the next quarterly statement.

it does ultimately stymie innovation.

However, I believe that public companies can think long-term, they just aren't in the habit of doing it right now (partly because of job hopping trends). A truly good leader knows how to balance the long term and short term. I just think we have a bit of a dearth in truly good leaders, and a lot of the good leaders are hopping jobs and so only focusing on short term results to make themselves look as good as possible in order to hop to a bigger, better gig.

Frequent job hopping leads to accepting roles that are beyond your level of competence.

Overall, I agree with your assesment of a "dearth in truly good leaders".

However, I question the notion that good leaders are hopping jobs and focusing on short term to get bigger better gigs. I don't question that the job hopping happens, only that the peopele doing it are truly good leaders.

If the people you call "leaders" are focusing on short term to look good so they can hop to bigger, better gig, then I question their so-called leadership. This makes me question whether they've lost control of their egos and they now need this fame and glory to feel good. It certainly points to a lack of discipline, which is necessary for long-term success.

Leadership is about serving. Job hopping to get something bigger or better is about taking, not serving.

If they are focusing on short term simply because that's what everyone expects, then they are NOT leaders. They are simply following what everyone else does. That's not leading, it's following.

If you are making decisions simply to increase the stock price, then you are not leading, you are following (in this case, the stock market).

Who do you think is causing the short-term focus? These so-called leaders who focus on the short-term to job-hop. What's needed is to do what true leaders do -- stand up and say this short-term focus is wrong and then do something about it.

If you are truly good, you'll eventually get noticed. In fact, if you truly are good, such notice will be inevitable.

The direction a lot of IT development seems
to be heading is that more effort is being
expended on window dressing, bells and
whistles and not on core functionality
improvements, Latest windows Vista, a lot
of window dressing that is unnecessary, in
fact bogs down and hides any worthwile
improvements, latest KDE & Gnome for Linux
with Beryl 3D desktop, all very pretty but
in real terms don't make any productivity
improvements. Maybe a good way to bring
back leadership in IT would be to actually
produce products that actually were better
and not just BS. Maybe next windows could
be memory efficient, completely stable and
secure and run faster on existing hardware,
that would be some real leadership in IT
feild

First j-mart, I appologize for calling you a brit in a previous post - just my mindset.

Now suppose that all the bells and whistles are a prelude to including matrix transformation into a more secure OS, oh say a learning experience. Would those bells and whistles be non productive? What about research (even if flaky) indicating that aesthetic environments increase productivity.

Incidentally, I agree with the thrust of your post.

Brilliant summation of what drives IT, where it's going and what it needs in the US. THANK YOU for this simple and correct assessment of what has made the US a leader and what it may be lacking in the future. We are the leader because of our ability to attract, grow and maintain the best minds in the world. The free system of democracy allowed us to compete in a new way the world had never seen before. Could it be that the world is becoming freer and we are becoming less free, more defensive, protective, uneducated and undisciplined? Hmmm, I think you've got something there.

Given enrollment down in many computer science and engineering undergrad institutions in the U.S., outsourcing competition overseas and the continuing erosion of pay, jobs and benefits at large U.S. corporations for I.T. workers, it is no wonder that our advantage in this sector is dwindling. However, the government is not helping our corporations with incentives to keep work on the homefront. Our corporations are very strict about profit and seem to have lost focus on quality and employment issues. With downsizing a cyclic technique to manage costs, how can you keep good people? These issues must be changed in order for the U.S. as a whole to continue growth in I.T. I suggest we start with government change by establishing economic motivation to U.S. companies to hire americans with creditials and keep them. In turn, more undergrads would take on the challenges of degrees if the rewards were above other disciplines. Lastly, our people need to remember qualities like innovation, skills and incentive in order to move our technology forward instead of working pay check to paycheck strictly for money motivation. We once used our minds and hard work to develop these amazing technologies and now we let overseas companies do it for us so that we can do less for more money. In the end, our undoing is as the author in the post states as complacency. Let's think about changing some of that and possibly quality, work ethic, innovation, creativity and challenge will come back into our jobs and products.

The present generation of children are
being hindered in being creative by the
products of our technology, Television
computer games etc. When I was young we did
not have XBox to entertain. A large part of
growing up for me and my Friends was
tinkering with technology, Crystal radio,
model cars, electric trains model
aeroplanes pulling things apart and putting
them back together again. All these things
help do develop an interest and knowledge
in technology that kids are missing today
in our western society.

I agree completely!

U.S. will lost the leadership if she continues to establish multibillion R&D centers oversea as IBM and Microsoft have done, and build manufacturing plants oversea. The know-how will stay in the foreign countries. The training and experience of the research can only benefit the foreign competitors. Within a generation, the store of knowledge and experience will be shifted oversea because of our doing. The steel industry did that in the sixties when they shut down R&D and simply bought steel making technology from Japan. The current aircraft indutry is embarking on a similar cause.

H1 visas, NAFTA and all the other tools used to bring this country to third world status. This is due to the present leaders not really being concerned with the people of this Republic. There are 20 million people in this country who are illegal aliens. This is the Grover Norquist/Carl Rove philosophy of the "the rich rule and the poor serve." The Lead should be in education starting with history. What happened to the Roman Empire is happening to us. The technology of Rome was lost for hundreds of years. Have we allowed the military/industrial/congressional complex to cross our Rubicon?

Almost all innovation in IT, in both hardware and software, comes from US companies. From my outside view, US leadership comes from the fact that it is the source of innovation, and it reaps the lions share of the profits as a result.

But, there are real threats for your future. The first is the intellectual property issue, where the rights of US companies as inventors are not being respected in many countries. Good luck on solving that one.

US companies have decided to outsource for financial reasons. I don't believe it reflects a decline in US technical capacity. But, you are creating the opportunity for others to develop such that they could surpass you one day. Witness the Japanese auto industry, originally merely a source of labor, and now a real competitor.

Still, I would not worry. By the time any other country becomes the leading innovator in this field, computers will be a comodity, IT salaries will have fallen, and there will be more lucrative fields for young prople to work in. It will be time for the next great American invention.

Javatech makes good points, but with respect to the auto industry, just like in IT, more competitiveness by others outside of the US creates better products (in this case, cars and trucks) for everyone. I'm American, but I drive a Toyota whose parts were made in many countries and assembled in the US. For IT, open technology standards allow everyone to participate, and these standards give us better products through competition. It is better for everyone that global participation creates communication, rivalries, and alliances, along with employing brains from Mumbai, Manchester and Minneapolis. Those who participate in globalization have their standards of living raised. Those who decide to erect barriers and go socialist (like some smaller countries in South America) will have a disaster on their hands.

Rim Semiconductor (RSMI) will be delivering their first DSL chip (Cupria)in 2007 that will solve much of the broadband bottlenect. 200 mbps over copper wire. At 6000 feet it will provide 30+ mbps so IPTV will be alive and well over copper, as well as the much higher speeds at shorter distances, all with much higher quality of service than is currently available.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2006_August_28/ai_n16691004

"Has the USA lost its birthright ..."

"international upstarts"

Do you realise that most of the human race are not denizens of the USA? Do you realise just how arrogant you sound? Do you expect our respect when you describe us that way? Try to accept that we are one world, one race, and that the human race has achieved what it has through co-operation.

Can you blame many for hating Indian and Chinese workers who come here and work for pennies on the dollar while Bill Gates is selling his lame excuse to Congress that there aren't enough skilled IT workers here in the U.S. to fill jobs? There are many skilled IT workers in the USA, but not too many who will work for peanut salaries.

Why don't we all stop the flag waving about whose country is better/smarter etc.

Let's wave a flag about humanity, stopping poverty, AIDS.

Let's raise education around the world.

Better yet, let's use our collective brains(as I know there are alot in this forum) and do something better, than bicker.

I think the Borg had it right, something like "we are one", yadee yada.....

It is interesting to note that MUCH of what comes out of the US is really produced ALL OVER the world. That is one of the best things about the modern world... International partnerships. For example, much of the last two Windows OSs were designed by Australian programmers. It's the same with a lot of other companies too.

since many of the softwares sold here in India are developed by US companies. US will still lead the market as long as they don't take a narrow view on globalisation and its effects and use it to its advantage

With the US as the largest user base of IT products we still have the edge over the emerging countries like India. India has good schools and can teach their students how to write code. What they can't teach them is how things work in the Western Industrial Economies. They do not understand the big picture and therefore cannot innovate. If we give their programmers a well written functional spec to work with they may be able to produce the code. But I don't think they will truly understand the what and why of the project only the how. I never had any concerns about outsourcing IT projects to programmers in the emerging countries. The US companies that outsource have a flawed mentality. In the time it would take to write a functional spec they will understand and the resources needed to manage the project defeat the whole purpose. In the time it would take me to write a project spec and then review their work and explain the mistakes, I could write the program myself and end up with exactly what I want and I will know the code was written correctly.

This to me seems to be an ostrich like
position. Have you any real knowledge of
the abilities of Indian programming skills
or are kidding yourself. In the city I live
in US companies have purchased local
companies because they could get software
written faster, cheaper and with less
errors than they could in the US, are US
developers any better than developers
anyware else. Do we really know where a
piece of software was written. The software
we use may be more global than we realize

Things that are important are returning.

The point is the language similarity isn't enough to impart criticality to outsourcers. I have written detailed specs and had them come back wrong... I then remediate until the people do what I have told them. It becomes a 10-15 remediation cycle unless you have them do the spec.

With offshoring I have seen more scope creep, to the point it destroys the whole...

... but more cheaply. Happy days!

The actual work can be done more cheaply, the first time. But after all the remediations, not counting SCOPE CREEP, it ends up being more costly than being developed in house.

The company also doesn't build its own knowledge base... So it is fool's savings. Dollars that the companies receive nothing but the end product.

All too often, a company's short sightedness leads them to watch their talent leave because the interesting development happens elsewhere, and it leaves the company poorer technologically, and needing to replace talented personnel...

Most technological inovation has its birth place in the US, but over-confidence made her sliped off her first position. But if she can learn from her past, and make better changes, she can still maintain her lead in the IT world; predictably, till the next century.
The US still have the best work force in the world. This to her good advantage. The work force should be put to good use and the result will be good.

Must be a slow day for you, stirring up the US versus them debate on who dominates IT...

IT is not a United States thing, versus a Great Britain thing, versus a China thing. Tech is tech, worldwide. It's how businesses innovate and use that technology to its advantage that is important.

I know this is almost heresy on this forum, but business should drive IT, not the other way around. Good businesses know how to best utilize their computer resources to advance the business. IT for the sake of IT does not help business grow...

Thank you.

The Web itself, the most important part of it, came out of Europe (CERN). The telephone came out of Canada (Bell). The radio came out of Italy (Marconi). Americans are just generally misinformed on the origin of technology, because it is part of their civilization's mantra that they are at the centre of everything.

If they taught school kids where things were invented outside of America, then they would need to also identify the location of these places, and since there are only three atlases in the whole of the USA that would be impossible.

The attitude is very similar to the writings of propagandists of soviet era lol

But the problem is that there is potential for a rude awakening as all of the Indians return to India and the Chinese return to China. I worked in a US facility of a major IT vendor where ALL of the software developers were Indians!

What's the matter Alec, the US bashing begin to die down and ruin your day?

I always laugh when the Brits speak to others about arrogance. The UK (at least what we're exposed to here in the colonies) seem to take pride in their arrogance.

if:
1). You quit bashing an old thread;
2). You quit bashing Americans;
3). remembered that the United States defeated the British empire;
4). The United States came to the rescue of the British in WWII;
5). Remember that a newly emigrated citizen from England brought the plans for the Jaques loom with him from England when this technology was prohibited from export;
6). that your P.M., Tony Blair, was in bed with Bush and the Bush politics.

Play nice because there is dirt on both sides of the pond. More of it exists for England and the English colonies because of a longer history.

DNS was developed in 1983, which predates CERN. I won't down play Berniers-Lee's additions to the internet. Hypertext and other things added by CERN and other scientists, but DARPA-net was the foundation, and DNS made it into the web. The applications on top of that are means of utilizing that base to distribute and display information. As to who invented the web, well, I don't think the web was "invented". It grew from the basis of a connected structure with intelligent applications. The real capabilities are just beginning to emerge, with applications like MORPG, collaboration tools like Croquet and immersion tools like Second Life, along with the advancements in robotics, and distributed computing. The web is not fully implemented yet.

Regards,
Les H

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage

I don't know where you have been. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency developed the First Internet in 1968. I used it. This network was created to conntect our DOD labs with research universities. Our 465L computers had secure access to the labs and universities.

This network became the Internet we use today. Internet 2 is just further growth for higher speeds.

In fact every solid advance in the "flat world" came from the work in the DOD in the early 60s, & 70/80s. The explosion occured 8/9/95 when Netscape went public.

So before you write this stuff get your facts straight. Some of us actually helped to invent the "flat world".

Such questions are meaningless when we talk about concepts like Global villege.
- Development and researches are going out of US just from business angle.
- Equivalent talent and manpower is available out of US at cheaper rate.
- Employees in other countries (e.g. India ) work more seriously, happily spend 12-14 hrs a day on the projects given including week ends.
- The codes written by these people are more neat, readable, with lot of validations and proper documentation.

At last whatever work done outside US is as per the US standards and the copyright, IPR lies with US companies. In such case what ever gain is there that comes to US only. therefore on paper US is always going to be the leader. NO OTHER ONE CAN BE.

I agree that US is slipping it's position from 1st and is going down but surely according to me it will not go to the bottom. As the technology and it's innovation in US is still coming and some new projects and innovative techs are yet to be delivered from US. Apart from US, India, China, Japan, south East Asia, Europe and Australia are equally trying out their best to Promote It and it's development in their region. some are working in new ways while others are grooming the previously obtained technology from States. Thats I can say is the time. We can't predict now that US had gone down in the chart but still their is time. As we can see that many times some technology comes into the stage of starvation. The similer is the condition of US epicentric IT Technology. I also think that this is the cause of some hip-hops in the hiring ration for the developers and scientists coming to US and regected on the ground of Visas. Well thats U.S. Internal policy but they should have to be more understandable that for creating a technology we should be liberal and global. Lets see the future within next half year that what will the global char of IT centric technological nations will set and provide to the uses.
Hope I am not hurting any one.
Regards,
Vibhu Dwivedi
vihud@klgsystel.com

If you consider every country has a business model, and they do, that?s why so many people have died in all the wars over the last 100 years. They have died not about religion, but over which international business model that would dominate the world.

The attack on 9/11 was just the last installment of the international business model struggle, but for the most part, the United State has won the war and the Free Market model seems to be dominating business model, even in communist countries like China.

The United States victory in the business model wars has also been its downfall. We have seen that in raising oil prices, China gobbling up half of the world?s supply of concrete, and the fall of the United State dollar.

In allot of respects, the daily threat of Communist aggression keep the world from using resources, leaving them free for the United States, but those days are over.

Now the United State, along with Western Europe, no longer has that competitive edge of free enterprise to push the rest of the world around with, things have changed. China still has red bayonets for control, but their little Red Books have gone business blue.

The new world the United State has create is now starting to shine a light on our own hidden little red bayonets which nobody really wants to confront, but those days are over also.

The Reagan model which defeated communism now needs to be pointed at our tax code.

Ronald Reagan ran on three things, cutting taxes, deregulations of industry, and rebuilding the military.

Reagan?s tax reform was right for his time, but the international world he created demands a better business model. Simply put our system of taxes on all levels, local, county, state, and federal need to replace with the Reagan tax model, if we hope to survive in the world Reagan created.

Currently we suffer from a very sickening seesaw struggle of tax reform symbolized by Charles Rangel and George Bush, who have taken our paychecks and turned them into Chinese finger traps, and play the finger trap game which is tearing apart the lives of American families.

We need is to end the finger trap game, by deregulation our paychecks, by taking away the decision of how much tax we need to pay from Charles and George, and letting the free market economy drive revenue to the government..

How could this be done?

Currently, before Congress there is a bill which will do to the IRS exactly what Reagan did to Red Communist, and that was to put them out of the fear business. This bill is H.R. 25 and called the Fairtax.

If you want fast information about H.R. 25 you can go to Fairtax.org and find all the information you need to learn about a tax system where you decide how much taxes you want to pay, and a tax system which removes 100% of the tax from products and services we want to sell overseas.

Politics, religion and power all go hand in hand throughout history. A business model is part of that power, so you are partially correct.

However, those that have fought and died on the battlefield usually did not cry out "Capitalism or death". Religion has played the major part in almost every conflict.

A return to Reagonomics. Please this is the monkey that drove us into debt. Yes, he managed to convince the Russians to follow us into debt and we won by having better credit. But to return to this now would be financial suicide... wait a minute maybe we already have. However, I digress and need to get off this topic.

You're correct. If the U.S. tax system burdened companies even less, that'd help our economy.

I haven't had a chance to check out your Fairtax.org link, but hope too soon.

You're certainly correct about China. There was mass starvation under economic communism. This was corrected by their introduction of capitalism. As you note the government still maintains social and political control, but as they allow capitalism to rise their economy is skyrocketing. If you visit China today there are still a lot of rural areas, but cities are booming. It's like the industrial revolution (with accompanying pollution) - construction everywhere you turn, huge skyscrapers going up. Very impressive.

Now that China has our secret sauce (capitalism) combined with their size, they're nearly unstoppable.

Capitalism is still strong in the U.S. I think our biggest problem is our social / welfare systems burden tax payers and are a disincentive to working. That combined with broken homes lacking good male role models. The New Deal was very bad for America and we're reaping what we sowed.

Just wanted to say that I found the "actual" topic by Jason Hiner to be very interesting and well written (as are the vast majority od TR articles) and looked forward to reading the opionons of my learned collegues around the world.

I am however very disappointed in the quality of the TR members responses and unfortunately this seems to happen so often that I decided mention it here.

It would seem that we have way too much time on our hands and rather than staying "on topic", digress to other frivolous and extremely petty matters.

In reviewing the first 30 or so replies out of 211 at the time, only about 2/3 really addressed the topic in any form at all, and only after dealing with the other "junk" (just my opinion) being written.

While I appreciate how difficult this would be to solve, TR you have a problem. After going through this "disappointment" a number of times, I now find myself not bothering to look at some of the topics that seem interesting for fear of having to scroll through a number of frivolous, petty and off-topic replies.

Maybe the author should have the right to move, not delete but move replies to an "off topic" area, still leaving a link that could be followed to the off topic reply if one chooses. However, the "off topic links would not be included as one scrolled through using the "next" option.

I know - there are many problems with that suggestion but just trying to offer up something.

Thanks for listening and please feel free to move this reply to the "off topic" area

BAMPH

What, may I ask, do you consider your reply?

Just another reply along with mine that readers have to sift through.

"Part of the reason has to do with our economy and lack of government support; it?s also a byproduct of the extremely competitive market.?

I disagree. The competitive market has benefited the industry, in general. I must admit that even proprietary protocols, as much as I dislike them, can sometimes be a good thing. The government spending has increased substantially in the Homeland Security arena, so we can't really blame them. I tend to think that the focus of US IT interests has shifted toward security.

The rest of the world is finally getting to where we were ten years ago (with some technological advances, of course) and we seem to be falling behind because of the energy poured into security.

Unfortunately, that is a losing proposition. Not that we shouldn't do it, but it is almost always necesarily a reactive initiative, so we're always behind the 8-ball.

We "waste" a lot of time and money trying to keep up with hackers who are subsidized by foreign governments and whose only purpose is to make us waste time trying to keep up with them. Seems to be working.

I don't have the answer. But acknowledging the problem is a good first step.

But the competition has increased dramatically. If the US doesn't wake up it could very easily be surpassed as the leader in IT.

Can anyone really blame the next generation for not wanting to go into an IT role? With all the offshoring of jobs out of the US, not to mention the foreign workers coming here for jobs, there are certain careers that seem a bit of a gamble to take.

I know a lot of people who would have loved to go into an IT related field, but passed because of family who have lost their IT related jobs due to shipping overseas and had to be reskilled for a new career.

Sort of like flushing all that college money down the tubes if the jobs don't stay here.

To sum the evolvement of the tech sector one only has to look at CEO positions on the bottom line. Cash, cash, cash ? the richer the better. The driving force here is the more money that is profit the more successful Mr/Mrs CEO is. The tech sharing (internationally) has created multiple gaps in its evolvement ? lesser knowledgeable support of hardware and software. Language barriers that are down right frustrating to deal with ? I talk to people that hang up and call back until they get someone they understand. The service industry has really become a ?Your lucky your getting anything? this is free attitude. I wish a large number of customers would stop buying manufactured goods that do not support you in a descent manner. Industry would tell you if you want mediocre support for your computer it would cost you about 300 more per unit.
Another gap (or narrowing of one) is how this run to make the almighty buck has given our high tech information to the enemy. We have sold (given) our technology soul and right to an enemy we staunch experience of reverse engineering. Years ago they would have lost spies in trying to get this high tech information. Now we just give it to them so they can support it. We also sell it for more cash - an example of this is the 3Com deal to China ? why don?t we give them Intel also, better yet move GM over there so we can buy our tanks and cars from them, they certainly can do it cheaper. When we go to war with them we can order a bunch of new tanks, I am sure they will get here quickly.
Where we still have the edge is in our people, this is a global world and we need to remain a capitalist government. However, we need an internal awareness to stay ahead of the rest of our competitors and only show the parts that do not = the whole. In other words have the other nations do XY and we do the Z ? and no mater how much the XY is dissected the Z is never revealed. We have people smart enough to do this and it should be implemented ASAP to keep the US ahead of the rest of the world in technology and other nation security issues.

Are you nuts! Please name one industry that the US government has regulated to health and success? This whole article begs for more government intervention and regulation. More government involvement in the internet and technology will kill both. To be innovative technology companies must be free from ridiculous regulations that stifle growth and progress. If the government ran technology in the US we would all be using CPM on ASCII text-based terminals and storing our data and programs on paper tape. Less, not more, government intervention in technology is the prescription for technological innovation and success in the US.

You are correct in that I can not name one industry that the government has regulated to health and success.

I can, however, name one industry the the government deregulated into sickness and ruin - the airline industry.

The answers are:
We have not lost our position as of yet; until I see another country invent somthing like; CPU's, the Cell phone, The Internet, Broadband, WiFi, 3g+, the iPod, and all the other Myriad of tech gadgets designed here I think we can continue. I am a firm believer that it all starts with fostering education and creating a lure towards the very thing that made all of this creativity happen. We have to continue investing in people that continue to want to solve problems and that want to do it a better way. If we loose that fundamental driver we have crashed!

The key is invention! Other countries maybe making things better building off of our techenology, however they have not created from scratch what we have done here.

I'd say that one of the main reasons the US is no longer on top is simply that there are more players in the field these days, and all of them have been coming into the sector with most of the technical development, R&D and testing already done for them, so they get an immediate tech boost with none of the effort to get there.

Asia in general (aside from Japan) didn't contribute much until tech was mature; then their economies improved and they hopped in with both feet. Not that I have a problem with that. It was a great strategic move! Just gets annoying when they act like they've done it all themselves and have been players since day one. The time when they have to complete on a level playing field is already arriving, though, and it will be interesting to see how they fare.

Competition is good, though. I look forward to what develops as more players from different nations (i.e. with different ways of thinking and world views) and similar tech levels start to bounce ideas off each other, or are spurred in certain directions in response to competitors' successes (or failures).

One comment in the article I DO have a problem with is that "[m]any of the problems that the IT industry faces in the U.S are due to complacency..." It's not complacency; not by a long shot. It is, pure and simple, a reaction to the market.

First, IT-related degrees are more than twice the cost of most other degrees (and, frankly, generally not relevant to the current state of tech). The government has become more interested in paying for their own golden parachute and an oil war, and as a result, funding for higher education has suffered greatly. With the economy going to the sewers, not many folks (especially non-minorites and non-single moms, who can't get targeted higher-education help from 3rd parties because that would be 'discriminatory') can afford a high-cost degree out of their own pocket and still be able to live without some form of help.

Second, if one is able to obtain said over-priced, out-of-date degree (a LOT can change in 4-5 years), the person then needs find a decent job. Since most entry-level IT jobs pay FAR less than $25K, and expect their employees to have no life and a variable schedule (precluding getting a second job) how is a person to pay rising rent, vehicle maintenance, insurance, etc while at the same time servicing a student loan or three?

Third, if a decent job is found (which I admit, there are indeed some out there) one then has to put up with the company's attitude that they own you, and that you are nothing more than an appliance to support the 'important' function of the business, such as sales and marketing.

Hmm...pay lots of money for an over-priced, out-of-date degree; low wages, long hours; and, pretty much zero professional respect?
Why, when you can go into the trades and be earning twice as much in less time than it takes to get the IT degree?

So no, the problem is not complacency--it's a sound decision based on market facts.

Now, if we could pay hardly anything for a degree, get it in two years or so without having to pay for all the extra fluff that we are forced to here (Asians, you know what I'm talking about), and then get into the market place and be paid a decent wage...then you'd see some changes. Until then, however, what's the attraction of paying through the nose to get into a field that doesn't make the entrance costs worthwhile?

I believe the US has lost much of its ability to lead the world in more than just technology. I believe culturally, to take a phrase from Thomas Freidman, the world is flattening. The US is becoming a place of major inequality and that spurred by unpopular wars has turned foreign investment into a dangerous game. But I do want to stress the losing of this cultural war, per se. Not one US city was named one of the best places in the world to live by Monocle magazine. We are detroying the earth by our unrelenting CO2 emmissions. We continually short-change the middle class and have astronomically inflated health care costs. (Not to mention gas prices) The US is a myth and the myth is being debunked everyday. American isolationism is no longer a choice. To be a powerful country again, not just in terms of milary might, we need to embrace other cultures more, bring down health-care costs and provide better education and environmental protections. I can already see the deflating bubble that is America.

I don't like the arrogant tone of this article... it's the US "birthright" to be the world leader, any competitor is an "upstart" etc. Kind of like how the US president is always called "the leader of the Free World." No he isn't! He's the leader of the US, period. Other countries have their own leaders.

Anyway, there is a huge amount of innovation going on in other countries that Merkins with their isolationist, parochial viewpoints are unaware of. Which countries are the world's top three software exporters? Ireland, India and China. The US is nowhere to be seen in the top 10 list.

If the US has an advantage, it is that it has the greatest concentration of money, but even that is becoming a thing of the past as the dollar becomes worthless. In general I think the US has peaked and is going downhill, thanks in large part to George Bush Jr. 50 years from now, the US will be like England, a former imperial has-been that is sinking into irrelevence,

With globalization, disruptive technology can emerge from just about anywhere. The US has to acknowledge the playing field has changed significantly. IT has reached a maturity phase, and the next phase of growth requires global participation. Perhaps it wasn't deliberate, but the US' role has changed, when initiatives such as off-shoring and global expansion, to become more of a participant with no defined leader.

It'll be an interesting century.. if only the warmongers are kept at bay..

This news isn't surprising, as less and less students will want to go into technology (esp. computer science) since the jobs are being outsourced ever increasingly apparently. The "nearsourcing" idea, however, could show some promise. Still, Corporate America has basically wanted to slash the IT costs and this is, imo, an indirect result of the corporate backlash.

The articles quoted in the origional colume are accurate; however, they don't go far enough. First the Flat World operates on intellectual capital. Our country hasn't produced at the world level since 1995. Two, since 2000 there is not one University in the US that is ranked #1 in producing PhDs in any hard science. This includes all catagories of engineering, computer/IT, physics, chemestry and the list goes on. Three, our students in public & private K-12 schools are 25th in the world in language, and 17th in math. Every two years we fall one of two notches in each catagory.
Most depressing is that Chian, India, and now some south asian nations produce 2 to 3 times as many engineers as does the US.
Bottom line not only have we become 2nd or 3rd in IT, but our failed educational systems insure it will only become worse. The crisis is not IT or terrorism, but failed educational institutions.
Just recently Intel said, they did not need to hire another American to retain their dominance and profitability. They have research centers in China along with Microsoft and the students from these nations were better than ours and knew how to work. Bluntly we are getting our buts kicked and lack any plan to change. Rembember is takes 16 years to grow one high quality engineer/scientest.

I'm surprised that only one person mentioned that WW2 was fought with computers in the back rooms.

Military funding to fight the USSR was a pretty big motivator behind IT. The government put a lot of money into researching electronics, the IC, the Internet, crypto, and 3D graphics. Even BSD Unix from peace-and-love Berkeley had war funding. Half our tax money went to war-related uses, and a big chunk of that went into developing technologies. Even the "civilian" space program was just a front for developing war technology.

Without the USSR and its arsenal of nuclear missiles present as a credible global rival, the US has slipped into figuring out how to deal with the threat of homemade explosives. You don't need to be a "rocket scientist" to solve this problem.

You also don't need to be an American rocket scientist anymore, because China, India, and Russia are no longer enemies or potential enemies.

Don't get me wrong - I'm basically a pacifist and into human rights, internationalism, and all that. I don't want a return to the Cold War.

Part of the problem is that nobody thinks ahead as long as the almighty buck keeps rolling in nobody cares. They bother to think of what the consciences might be down the road. Come up with a plan make as cheap as possible (foreign) then swindle as much money as you can out of it while the going is good. Who cares about the future.

signed just an opinion

When I was in high school, my peers thought IT was for "nerd losers". A "nerd loser" myself, I appreciated the ability to get into this field.

However, I agree - management is less than competent if they give existing workers no place to move their careers forward. This is as much a contributor to "complacency" as every other argument presented, some of which are genuinely valid -- the rest of which serve to blame all of America's problems on the working people, which is not entirely accurate.

Most of us are overqualified for lettuce picking jobs, but underqualified for managerial positions. What's left? Pack up and try to move to India, China or any other country prospering right now? Which wouldn't work in the end, those countries are too busy helping their own people to let any foreigners in... it's great to help their economies and people get out of poverty, but why are more Americans heading toward poverty?

I won't deny some of America's youth are the wrong role models or watch the wrong people who sadly happen to be role models (blame the media industry for fostering that problem), but nothing is ever so simple that only one factor can be the cause. As Americans, we all have responsibility to our country. I'll do my part, to the best of my ability, for the causes America and its interests stand for.

Unless all the trends are suggesting a one-world government, in which case nobody can be a leader or follower; we'd all be working for the same common cause. That's fine by me, but has every president/ruler of every nation agreed to that mindset? The last I heard, China is threatening the US for badgering them over their lack of quality control over food exports... all the Indians I've worked with seem haughty, and after a while nobody wants to deal with arrogant people. I've observed that trend regarding arrogance in many locations, and until the boom of H1B temporary citizens, such arrogant people were as white and honky as I am, so this isn't about being "racist".

You are right. You cant pin it down to one factor. You dont have to look into a crystal ball to know where the US is heading. Schools and colleges are turning out more "aliens" than Americans. American influence around the world is on the wane. If we extrapolate all this, we'll realize that US cannot survive very long as the leader it is today. God forbid if the bottom falls off the mighty dollar !!(The signs are already there now.) The ramifications can be pretty ugly.

You claim that "Schools and colleges are turning out more 'aliens' than Americans." According to the Department of Education, however, about 2/3 of degrees are earned in the US by White, non-Hispanic students; 22 percent by members of groups other than Whites (includes Black, non-Hispanics, Hispanics, Asians/Pacific Islanders, and American Indians/Alaska Natives); and the remainder by nonresident aliens (5 percent) or individuals whose race/ethnicity was unknown (5 percent).

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan often liked to say, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

Sorry. I meant to say masters level and beyond. At Austin, there were certainly not too many true-blue Americans in my class. It was more like the UN General Assembly. You are probably referring to under-graduate studies. I had a bookmark to support my case. I'll try and post that as soon as I find it.

As far as I am aware, those figures referred to all degrees, not just undergraduate. As for the specifics, once again from the US Department of Education:

Nonresident aliens received 13 percent of all master?s degrees and 27 percent of all doctor?s degrees, much higher proportions than of any group other than White, non-Hispanics.

Advancement occurs when people and companies can develop a product, bring it to market and can make money out of it. That is not the case in the USA at the moment. If you come up with a good idea for the computer industry, one of three things happens at the moment:

1) You can't get venture capital for a software product, because it is clear that once you have created the market Microsoft will muscle in and take that market from you. They have the money to give the product away for free, a la Netscape, if it means removing competition.

2) You manage to pass under the radar and build your market only to have some patent troll sue you for billions because you have tripped over some trivial patent.

3) If your product has anything to do with hardware, the Chinese will copy it and push you out of most markets.

Given these circumstances, most just don't try. It is therefore clear that the USA is slipping behind and there doesn't seem to be the political will to do anything about it.

Ian

dear sir,
leading of IT is not a product or specific scince.
it is a mission need a nations to be completed.
so nations need leader and u.s has the experiencs to lead the world.
other nations may have the ability to play good role
toward the goal but u.s has to be the goalmaker.
from this vision u.s will be the leader forever.

eng. ahmad hadi
IT manager.
m.o.h
saudia arabia

I believe the same thing is happening in information tech today that happened in manufacturing 30 years ago; the rest of the world is catching up. After WW2, the US led by default because it was the only team on the field. As other nations recovered from the ravages of war and built their economies, they began to compete with the US economy.

The same is happening now as the technology "bulge" resulting from the push to space starts to subside. The US was the only team on the field and is now being joined by many others and having to actually compete.

In the 60s and 70s, the generals of American industry sat fat, dumb, and happy in their corner offices until it was too late. IBM did essentially the same thing in the 80s and 90s as it refused to believe the PC was other than a fad. Who's next?

Not when corporations hand out discounted or free training to foreign countries ("investing") - the lower cost of living in those countries is why offshoring occurs. It literally makes America impossible to compete.

If we are to be globalized, the entire world needs to be ran as one government, and on a level playing field in terms of the cost of living (to make 'developed' nations competitive again, before it's too late), and maybe even workers allowed to work or move anywhere they choose. Now that is not family-friendly, having to uproot all the time, but if it has to be done, it has to be done.

Guess what's probably not going to happen?

Now I do agree with the positives to offshoring - developing these nations, pulling people out of poverty, and the world needs all the scientists and engineers it can get. But why Americans are appearingly being tossed aside in the process, and makes no sense. We can't be a nation solely of supervisors, nurses, and CIOs. Unless we become a one-government world, then it makes sense.

...a level playing field in terms of the cost of living is not possible, not even under your proposed world government. Living costs will vary based on the desirability of the location and on other local economic conditions. The EU has been discovering this for the last decade or two.

Edit: The US has known this for years. Compare the cost of living in the greater New York, Atlanta or San Francisco areas with that same cost in almost any rural area.

Why would anyone live in a run down slum, when for the same cost of living they could be in a beach fronted palace?

Supply and demand. This works with people too. 10% of the world's population is Indian and under 25 years old!

It should be noted though that under the Big Brother single governement it would be less likely that the senior positions would be US based. India and China have 3 Billion people between them - if we are all the same then influence becomes a matter of numbers. Even if we were allowed to vote in this single government the UK and US would have minimal influence.

You would have your wish and US programmers would rule once more, except that Chinese and Indian managers would be telling you what to write.

US offshoring - developing these nations, pulling people out of poverty

Dont know when you guys will wake-up from your dreams.

Please give me a break

Companies don't outsource out of the
kindness of their hearts. They are driven
only by opportunities to increase proffits
get work done at lowest possible cost. Do
the work for same price or cheaper and it
won't be outsourced but your standard of
living will have take a dive to be
competitive.

>> US offshoring - developing these nations, pulling people out of poverty

Dont know when you guys will wake-up from your dreams.

Please give me a break


You don't understand Economics, do you?

>> US offshoring - developing these nations, pulling people out of poverty

Dont know when you guys will wake-up from your dreams.

Please give me a break You don't understand Economics, do you?

...not so sure that you do though.
(equally crass responses r us)

It's not about this nation or that nation, it's not about developing Third World countries, or any of that White Man's Burden stuff -- it's about big blocks of capital trying to make zillions of dollars' worth of ROI, without having to pay for the labor required to turn those dollars into products anyone wants to buy.

Any corporation that doesn't act that way can be sued by its shareholders. The trouble comes when your laborless economy turns into a consumerless economy because nobody can afford to buy the stuff the corporate machine is pounding out.

Some people believe that America is god's gift to the universe. The great white hand that feeds the world, frees the slaves and liberates the opressed... (Just ask them!

In other countries, the people are perhaps less well brainwashed or medicated.

While globalization sounds like a communist?s dream, remember that ?leveling the playing field? in terms of cost of living also entails leveling the playing field in terms of standards of living. And I?d hazard to guess that richer nations (like the U.S.) would end up with lower (worse) standards of living.

The irony is that the very capitalistic system that made the U.S. powerful is the same capitalistic system that?s sending it towards a decline via globalization. Perhaps it?s time for more protectionist/isolationist laws to at least slow the bleeding while the U.S. tries to adjust to the increased competition.

One side issue of all this globalization
and rapid developing Chinese and Indian
economies is that as they get richer they
are chasing the good life as is in the US.
And as they start consuming and wasting the
planets resources at the same rate as the
US, we will all be screwed. Oil is
disappearing from the planet at a rate much
faster than previously predicted industrial
pollution an increasing problem. Leadership
in IT will not be so important. In a fair
world we would all only use our own share
of the resources but when has that ever
happend before

Globalization has increased inequality, and it's not a "Communist's dream" but a capitalist's reality. America's standard of living has increased relative to the misery of the poor around the world, who find themselves homeless and dispossessed.

It only feels like it's getting worse because you're not a member of the top tiers of American society. Under globalization, American workers have suffered, too.

Isn't it obvious that following modern economic practices ultimately means raising every country on the planet to the same standard of living?

Given that, why, or how, on earth would any country think they can remain on top, or have some automatic right to do so? Seems pretty obvious that ultimately the largest countries will have the greatest power.

Or, is there some hidden bias here that says Americans are somehow intrinsically superior to other people, and so deserve more than the rest of us.

Bizarre!

Or, is there some hidden bias here that says Americans are somehow intrinsically superior to other people, and so deserve more than the rest of us.

It's called arrogance. Given what the average American knows about the rest of the world, it is most likely based on the same Northern European superiority that created the British empire, and manifests itself as "We know what is best for you."

They may have started in the US, but the idea that they are in some way interested in the US doing better than the Indians or the Chinese is ridiculous. The most obvious example of this is Halliburton moving to Dubai, but most large corp.'s have been offshoring jobs for years, and don't give a tinker's cuss for their fellow Americans.

Corporations are legally persons, but if you had a neighbor who acted with the same kind of callous disregard for you, that neighbor would be a pariah.

It's not nation vs. nation, it's class vs. class. It's class warfare, and as Warren Buffett said, his class is winning.

Because we can't/won't set aside our race/gender/nationality/etc... differences, and focus on the ways in which we are alike.

insofar as the US is an established customer base with a large amount of disposable income. Individuals running these companies concentrate on their (and their stockholders') return to the exclusion of all else. I've heard horror stories where suggestions are evaluated based solely on ROI. No tangible ROI, no approval.

The bottom line is the fact that an unemployed customer base has NO income.

Ah, the corporation - soulless but hungry. The corporation is not (as I understand it) directly owned by any individual in the way a sole proprietorship is. It has a board of directors - very often quite greedy - who are always asking the question, "How can we make more, more, MORE?" The ways Corporate America have answered that question have led to many of our economic and social problems. Why, for example, should oil companies be raking in obscene profits when some folks are paying three bucks a gallon for gasoline? Shouldn't the oil companies be suffering too, if supplies are as tight as they claim? Their collective profits are ALL OF OUR MONEY, from the suburbanite driving the SUV right "down" (in quotes because everyone has value but it helps the illustration) to the working-class urbanite driving a beat-up Nova. The soulless corporation is out of control.

I'll admit that sometimes it seems oil companies are involved in a monopolistic collusion, but people continue to drive cars. Capitalism at work. Apparently gas prices in the U.S. have not gotten to a point where consumers are unwilling to pay ? nor to a point where a new player can undercut the oil companies due to their ?extravagant? profit margins.

Once we do reach that point, it?ll become profitable to research and develop oil alternatives. Until the price hits that tipping point, the U.S. won?t do anything about fuel alternatives (nor about public transportation). I fear it?s all about money.

Public transportation is not an option in many places because of the distances involved, not to mention that the American car culture is too well developed. Our American push toward centralizing such activities as shopping, entertainment, etc. has made it essentially impossible to do more than survive without a car.

Myself, I laugh when I hear the Stupid Useless Vehicle drivers bitch about the cost of gas. I even asked one who held the gun to his head to force him to buy his 12 mpg Excursion.

Why has IT lost some of its sexiness with the younger generation? Look around. As fast as we develop technology, we offshore the work. Why pick a career with no job future? Just this week where I work, 15 more IBM project manager jobs were moved to Brazil. And our software application development teams are 80% Indian. Want a career with a future? Try selling insurance or working at Wal-Mart.

Gave us living in countries that were part
of it, cricket so it was not all bad, and
most of the time the rest of us are better
at cricket than the English

the rest of us, or have you forgotten all those food shipments - exactly how many tonnes of Long Pork did your let get from the Brits? lol.


NB: For those not familiar with New Zealand history, during the Maori wars, they used to cook the defeated English and have them for dinner, calling the meat Long Pork.

at cricket, a game much too deep and
intelligent for the yanks to get the hang
of. Best they can do is a variation of the
English girls game of rounders

us Aussies have been giving the Poms a good hit wiht the cricket bat for centuries now.

However, on a personal point - I'd rather be playing rounders with some English girls than playing cricket with some Indian men. Mind you, there's nothing personal about this; it's just the English girls have a better appeal.

Judus, j-mart, just where does your obvious hatred of the United States come from? Were you wronged in a previous life by an American, or is this just jealousy on your part. Not one of your posts actually addresses the initial question of this thread; all you've done is post insults; which reminds me of a quote my mother always said, "Small things amuse small minds."

BTW, when New Zealand accomplishes the things the United States has in our short (historically speaking) time in existence, then you can have bragging rights too. What other nation has accomplished what we have in such a short time, and what country is always the first to help other countries out after disasters, even those we consider "enemies".

The United States is not perfect, and we have much to answer for; however, there are more people trying to get IN than OUT, which speaks volumes to the freedom and opportunities available here to anyone with the hutzpuh to try and better themselves.

I second that. Who is employing and bringing the standard of living up for all these Indian Engineers? The hated Microsoft has a campus and is spending BILLIONS of dollars in India. I guess we have earned our status, lately, on the international scene. BUT WHY SO MUCH HATE? I would hope it is directed at our administration, but the comments are so petty and irrelevant, in so many ways, that this whole thread has become meaningless. It is a forum for nationalist chest beating. Let's all get on board the HATE train. There's one leaving the station every two minutes. I'm out.

"Isn't it obvious that following modern economic practices ultimately means raising every country on the planet to the same standard of living?"

No, while it is obvious that modern economic practices ultimately leads (in theory) to a similar standard of living globally, it does not follow that everyone else will be raised to our current (western, developed) standard.

"it does not follow that everyone else will be raised to our current (western, developed) standard"

Unless "we" are prepared to lower our standard it does. And I see little evidence of a willingness to lower standards of living in western countries.

I am curious about the use of the term "birthright" on the leading page.

If birthright had anything to do with it England would still be the leading industrial nation in the world as it was during the industrial revolution. It was, in fact, the US that took that crown followed shortly thereafter by Japan then Korea and so on. There is no birthright for anyone in the post WW2 compete-or-die economy.

has happened since Nations have existed.

When life is good people get lazy and forget why it became good. It does not need government to support the nation but the nation of people to steer the government. Otherwise the leaders become like the leaders of the Roman empire, lazy, lacking leadership, thinking more of themselves than the office they hold, belief that it is their birthright to be top dog, ultimately corrupt then the empire falls.
When it happens you have few friends. Look at the way the British Empire declined after two world wars. We bankrupted ourselves trying to save the world from ideologies we did not agree with. Then wrote the history books as the victors always do.

History repeats itself. Which only goes to prove that man is not yet smart enough to rule the world.

Regarding WW1 and WW2, I for one am very grateful to the British Empire for bankrupting itself to ?save the world from ideologies it did not agree with.? They did everything possible to avoid a fight; and I?d put a world governed by Nazism in a different category than the mere existence of ideologies that didn?t suit my taste.

with you Mikiel.

The point was that when your Empire starts to decline for what ever reason you will have few friends.

One of the reasons for this is that while you were at the top you became arrogant and failed to consider other people.

The British Empire has not completely died. Considering the US is a former colony of that empire and that basically many of the former colonies form part of the British Commonwealth. Most if not all of the commentators here live in (or are from) either Britain or one of its former colonies. I would say the Empire still exists to some extent.

being born in the U.S.

By PC, I'm guessing that you mean x86-based PC as there were many technological alternates in the early 80's. IBM won out by understanding who would pay, ie. business. My point is that personal computing broke out in many parts of the world, pretty much simultaneously, though only one technical solution has stood the test of time and that was not because of technical superiority.

Claiming that the Internet (note the cap i) was born in the US is not the safest claim either. The Internet is more than a physical information channel (ARPAnet), including many protocols (eg HTTP) that help generate the context that converts information from simple characters in to ideas. So, while it is very true that research in the US lead to inter-networking, the Internet is an amalgamation of research and ideas from a much wider geographical area.

I am pretty sure he meant what he said -- the 'Internet' was invented with-in the US. The definition may have changed over the years to accommodate changing technology and the addition of protocols (HTTP, etc.) and contributions from many countries around the globe, but it began in the US during the mid-60's.

With that said though, TBL's protocol is what lead to massive acceptance and use throughout the world.

Do not get the Internet (US) confused with the WWW (UK).

Although Berners-Lee was a Brit his WWW/HTTP work was done at CERN in Europe (French/Swiss).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN

"Internetworking" and TCP/IP, UDP etc. can be considered American in origin (off shoots or DARPA research). But the "Internet" as we know it today and WWW are based on HTTP which is certainly not exclusively American.

Right you are, too many people do not understand that the Internet is _not_ the WWW. The WWW is just one of many protocols that make up the Internet.

I think you just confirmed my claim - the PC and the Internet, as we know them today, both had their origin in the U.S.

Nothing dodgy about that. You can certainly make an argument that there have been lots of international contributors to both, but the origins are pretty clear, especially when you start talking about their economic development and business impact.

U.S. is losing it period.

There are unique things which makes US a country which has and will enjoy leadership in technology, this is said by a Frenchman-European:

- in the US it is possible to admire individuals with technical skills: the 2 Steves, Larry... all super-geeks of the techsphere have been admired for their technical creativity first, for their business skills after. In Europe nobody can say "I'm going to be good, very good at web semantics, and famous", at best he will be famous at his University. Said differently the US has heroes of the technology and cultivates this culture. Do you think there are Chinese or French heroes like this? Give me a single name. French heroes are of the passt, in arts and litterature, when technology had almost no role. Same for the UK, Germany, Austria... US admires Neil Armstrong or Steve Wosniack; the Europeans Mozart or Plato.

- US Universities have ressources, education or research is a business or future business, not just another Governmental Policy or the fruit of politics. You have to save, work or get funded to get to the University, you don't go mainly for fun. Universities are businesses, not only subsidized public entities, there to do their best out of the masses with tax money.

- in the US it is possible to experiment and fail, moreover experiment with capital. All over the world it is culturally impossible to fail and to talk about it, said you learned something. All over the world there is no such place for venture capital dedicated to technical and geeky thinks. Yes there are some exceptions and success stories elsewhere: SAP in Germany, GSM technologies in the European Nordik States... some good imitations all over the place. But the main source is still the US.

Think more globally, make a British English version of Windows to please the Englishmen, try to use the metric system more often, hire locally some people who understand others cultures, and leadership will stay for some time.

India and China are Civilizations that have
been around a very long time. At a time
when western civilization consisted of a
few rickity huts they were building vast
cities. Both these countries have a culture
of hard work so I would expect their
brightest an best to have a growing
presence in all technology areas

Capitalism has brought the US to this point.

Consumerism is what we're good at anymore. However, if you can't find work, you can't spend. If you can't spend you're not a consumer and therefore not valuable.

We should all adopt a more global view. How can I, as a Father, not prepare my children to complete in a global economy. My own sense of entitlement is reckless if I'm ok with my kids watching TV and playing XBOX all day when children of the same age in China, India, etc. are struggling but learning - math, science, engineering.

For whatever reason, the US does not put the same emphasis on education and workforce preparation as other countries. These countries also understand that the US is not the only well to draw from. There are consumers everywhere so the eggs are spread among many baskets.

I try to remain positive about our future in IT. It's difficult, because even in my small market we have to outsource (offhsore) large projects because in-sourcing or self-sourcing is too expensive.

yes it is loosing as compition has increased and many Asian countries are moving speedily in IT Technology.

Ummmm, I was under the impression that the Internet was coined by someone British. Doesn't make a lot of difference though, Britain has the same problem.

It boils down to the corporate sector not liking anyone who doesn't fit into their particular way of going about things. As many who were initially at the cutting edge had a rather unconventional viewpoint and way of going about life in general, the bureaucrats tried all they could to get rid of them because they could not be conveniently placed in a box. It's a bit like the outbreak of real creativity in the music scene during the sixties. Slowly the corporations regained control, upped the profits and music went downhill fast.

Chris

Its not just technology, US is losing its leadership in general and loss of leadership in technology is just one of the outcomes of a broader fall from the pedestal. Far too many things need to be fixed to stop and even reverse the fall eg public morale, economy, brain drain, making it easier to run a public company etc. I think we still have a chance but not sure we have the leadership to get us out of the woods.

The issue here isn't simple, but an important factor being glossed over is the country size and population density. Much of the advances in IT now are not dramatic developments in new physical devices, but in software, and the use of existing equipment and software in new ways. these areas of advance don't need big money to make, but do need suitable infrastructure to establish the new systems.

The smaller a country, or the higher the population density, the easier it is to spread the cost of new infrastructure and make it cost effective. Thus, the very size of the USA (like in Australia) is hampering the deployment of suitable infrastructure, and the use of the latest technologies.

As an example, Australia has a problem with broadband being equally delivered to every citizen - to do this properly means subsidised satellite services or the laying of huge amounts of fibre optic cable. To upgrade the exchange that I use, would require the laying of around 80 kilometres of fibre optic cable to allow the dozen of us on this exchange to access decent broadband. That's not really cost effective, nor is a sat service for 12 people to share. This causes major issues for us to use the latest IT software and the like - so many web sites are useless unless you have broadband, they drown them in large graphics an Java files, making them impossible to download in a reasonable time frame on a basic dial up service. This same problem re distance and thin coverage also affects the USA, but not as much as Australia.

In most other countries in the world, you take an area within a 50 kilometre radius and you have millions of people within that circle, in large parts of the USA, Canada, and Australia, you'd be lucky to find 1,000 people within the circle.


Thus the problem is more the roll out and deployment of the new systems that rely on the high tech infrastructure, which only happens when it becomes cost effective to do so in the local area.

As long as greedy corporate executives focus on their bonus checks and not the long term health of their company, they will continue to send IT work offshore. The more work sent offshore, the fewer people that will want to pursue an IT career. A very ugly, downward death spiral for the U.S IT industry.

"greedy corporate executives" are doing EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE TOLD TO DO BY THE GREEDY SHAREHOLDERS -- That is -- "we the people" who own shares in the company and expect to make a profit.

Ever hear of stocks, bonds or mutual funds? Do you have money invested in any of these things -- or prefer to put it in a sock under the matress?

Corporate executives are ORDERED to make a profit by the shareholders. If they don't make good profit -- using whatever means necessary -- they get the axe.

It's called CAPITALISM.

And like it or not, that's what makes much of the world go 'round.

I don't expect that any time soon most individuals are going to move their money from profitable companies to 'ethical' ones.

I'd say there are a LOT of people reading this post who DO have shares in these 'evil' corporations... (People who hope to someday have enough money in their retirement fund to actually be ABLE to retire.

Like it or not, sending knowledge-work or production offshore to places where it can be done faster, cheaper and/or better is not going to go away.

Not as long as people expect to make a profit from their investments at least.

Note that bHarris didn?t say ?As long as greedy corporate executives focus on their bonus checks and not the ethics of their company.? He said ?As long as greedy corporate executives focus on their bonus checks and not the long term health of their company.? You?re both right that companies place a huge emphasis on pleasing their stockholders. However, it seems that many decisions from the top down are based on gain/loss this quarter instead of long term ROI. (I bet many readers here in IT departments can attest to this.) Your company can?t last long and certainly can?t remain a leader with such nearsightedness. Since many stocks (at least held by the masses) are in retirement plans/401k?s, I?d hope that shareholders would be happy if CIO?s would look at long term ROI instead of tweaking this month?s earnings. (Unless of course your retirement plan is based on junk bonds and day trading.

I do not buy that. Corporations who do business in a country must follow the laws of that country no? What is the difference between an Enron and an ethical corporation? Greed is not good and corporations can not justify "using whatever means necessary". Companies that act like the "mafia" should be treated like the "mafia"; Russian, Sicilian or American. We the people need to be vigilant.