More, I love Microsoft

[Rastus P Shagnasty]

SEATTLE    On a cloudless summer day, Manish Prabhu stares out at a converted soccer field thousands of miles from his native India and watches a cricket ball skip past some fielders dressed in white.

The story, Warning to leftys it's on Foxnew

[pxsant]

The comment that sticks out like a sore thumb is "Microsoft has to work harder these days to attract and retain the best and brightest Indian engineering talent.".   I wonder how hard they work to attract and retain he best and brightest US engineering talent?

[Rastus P Shagnasty]

pxsant, I'll bet you know the answer to your own question.

They have to work less hard every day, as they replace all the 'merricans with crickplayers.

[codger]

And yet practically everyone on this board relies on M$ in a major way for their livelihood. Are these the same people who spent every free moment villifying IBM in the 1990's? How is M$ an improvement. I see them as being more anal than Big Blue ever was.

What would it take to create a viable alternative? Open Systems isn't enough.

[Rastus P Shagnasty]

It's MSs to lose.  They will have to screw up pretty big IMHO to lose the lead.

Muck Ficrosoft! But as their stuff keeps my lights on and my family fed, ah symbiosis!

[JBB]

I think to create a viable alternative is going to take the equivalent of the AT&T break up.  The evil Fed is going to take action against the anti competitive nature of Microsoft and divide it up.  Individual business units will become individual companys in their on market segment.

Anyway, that's how I see it as possible.  Otherwise, it's never going to right itself.

[codger]

Quote: think to create a viable alternative is going to take the equivalent of the AT&T break up.

Nevah gonna happen.

With AT&T broken up, my total phone expenses are triple what they were before the "evil" AT&T was deregulated.

[JBB]

Your total phone expenses, but then, would that include services that weren't around before AT&T was broken apart, at least, in your neck of the woods.  Wireless for example?

[The Gorn]

Quote:With AT&T broken up, my total phone expenses are triple what they were before the "evil" AT&T was deregulated.

Adjusted for inflation? I doubt that. A phone line with no calling features can be purchased for <$30/mo in most areas.

And long distance, even the "default" plans, are dirt cheap in terms of inflation adjusted money.

Besides, people get 1000x the utility out of phone connections that they used to.  If AT&T had not been broken up, you would be paying for EVERY feature by the minute. Residential DSL service would probably cost well over $100/month.

No, not all effects of divestiture were favorable to consumers or the economy. AT&T's divestiture basically squeezed out AT&T as a top research and development organization, and the notion of an engineering career, which reached its pinnacle with Bell Labs, has become a quaint memory.

Nah. Basic communications  are utterly dirt cheap, probably cheaper than they were in 1980. The reason they aren't cheap for average consumers is that average consumers have gotten hooked on wireless, DSL and calling features (caller ID, voicemail, etc etc).

The REAL cost to divestiture is the Wal-Martization of the economy. Pre-divestiture, big companies told you what you would pay, but the economy was relatively stable.

Post-divestiture, everyone pays their way, constantly, all the time and must at all waking moments justify their existence.

[Tandem Guy]

I worked a few years ago at Target headquarters up in Minneapolis.  They had all the H1-B's cramed into these mini-workstations/cubes.  All on one floor of the building.

The smell from food and body odor was unbelievable.  

And BTW, they come into the office when they are sick.  We would have flu epidemics during the winter.

TG

[JavaMouse]

Quote:they come into the office when they are sick

Doesn't everyone?  In my entire working life, I haven't worked in an office where people stay home when contagious.  They only seem to stay home if they are physically unable to come in.  When I stayed home once for three days with the flu, I got the impression that I was considered to be slacking.

[codger]

Think about the service and support when AT&T was running the show. They handled every aspect of connectivity. Now you have to have service plans. Absent support agreement, you pay $60 - 100 per hour for in-house repair.

When I said my phone expenses tripled, I meant that I spend far more. Inflation does not account for the increase. Of course I now have a cell phone (actually 3 different cell numbers), and all of my LD calling is done on them. The land line w/o LD is around $30/mo. The land line support here is for $hit.

[I D Shukhov]

Yeah, that's an interesting observation.  I'd like to see an anonymous snitch hotline where you could report someone who's sick.  

Larger companies could have a nurse on staff.  Smaller companies would use whoever was functioning as a health and safety officer.  This person would go to the sick person's cube and evaluate the person, asking some questions and taking their temperature.  If they were symptomatic they would be sent home.  

How is this any different than other safety issues?

[David Cressey]

You make some very good points.

Certainly the AT&T break up influenced rates.  competitive pressures tended to favor the consumer.  OTOH,  the government regulated rates had limited AT&T's income during the monopoly years.

Deregulation is always accompanied by a little chaos.  Look at airline deregulation, starting in the late 1970s. A little chaos is typical of a forward moving market economy.  AT&T represented the stability of a benevolent monopoly.  For some people,  stability is too much like stagnation.  

I honestly think the break-up was necessary for the kind of radical overhaul of the phone system we have seen over the last thirty years or so.  Most younger people take this radical overhaul for granted.  

[David Cressey]

Quote:Think about the service and support when AT&T was running the show. They handled every aspect of connectivity. Now you have to have service plans. Absent support agreement, you pay $60 - 100 per hour for in-house repair.

Who needs in-house repair?  I've never had a problem with my in-house wiring.  I've had occasional problems with telephones and modems,  but I was always able to isolate it down to the particular unit by myself.  

The people who hire the phone company to come and diagnose their home phone network are the same kind of people that hire GB to come to their home and fix a loose connector.

Quote:When I said my phone expenses tripled, I meant that I spend far more. Inflation does not account for the increase.

Does inflation plus increased use account for the difference?

Quote:Of course I now have a cell phone (actually 3 different cell numbers), and all of my LD calling is done on them. The land line w/o LD is around $30/mo. The land line support here is for $hit.

Land line support varies widely in quality,  right down to the individual linesman/lineswoman.  Overall quality has been going down,  as the phone companies put their best efforts on chasing after the cell phone market.  That's the market for you.