06.29.09
Gemini version available ♊︎Microsoft Prepares a Bogus Study to Defend Abandonment of American Workforce
Summary: The visa catastrophe goes further than ever before, Nortel’s relationship with Microsoft is on the rocks
IT IS WORTH emphasising well in advance that the problem at hand is not one of nationality; this broad and well-recognised problem is the degradation of working conditions and wages, which is turn makes the rich even richer and the working people (the ‘masses’) more coerced. Microsoft is rather unique in its area when it comes to offshoring, but to describe this as a problem pertaining only to technology is simply to forget that digital goods transcend borders at low costs, so the economic rules differ tremendously.
Who can ever forget how Microsoft laid off its own employees? The following new article about MySpace serves as a timely reminder.
Of course, MySpace isn’t the first company to botch their layoffs. Earlier this year Microsoft asked some of its laid off employees to send back part of their severance checks. Microsoft’s goof was perhaps more insulting because the company didn’t realize its mistake until after many employees had cashed their checks, so the company actually wanted employees to return money that was already in their bank accounts.
This was a true insult to employees of Microsoft and such mistreatment continues to this date as Abramoff visas actually discriminate against American workforce, not just put it on par with ‘imported’ workforce.
A pro-Microsoft publication is now pushing out there Microsoft’s new ‘study’ that falsely suggests “America is stupid,” to put it intentionally bluntly. That’s the type of message that Microsoft and Intel have been pushing out there for years and now it comes from a Microsoft-commissioned study, which means its goal since inception is to promote this one party line — a self-fulfilling hypothesis by some measures.
Redmond, Washington – Budget constraints mean American IT professionals are spending less on innovation than their counterparts in the UK, Japan and Germany, according to a new survey.
While many IT professionals are investing in specific areas of IT infrastructure, 55 percent say the economy has changed the role of IT and 51 percent say that budget constraints are the biggest barrier to their innovation, according to the Harris Interactive study, commissioned for Microsoft.
It gets worse. There is another new article where Microsoft’s partner in India (one among several) mocks the American workforce.
CEO of Microsoft’s Indian Partner Complains American Grads Are ‘Unemployable’
The CEO of a major Indian corporation sounds off on what he sees as educational inadequacies
HCL Technologies is one of India’s most powerful and respected tech firms. The company scored a massive $170M USD outsourcing contract from Microsoft last year. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer lavished them with praise, stating, “That extra mile walk by the team (at HCL) has increased our mutual trust and has taken our relationship to newer heights. ”
They just try to justify offshoring. Microsoft has recently shown that it is moving more of its workforce to India and Steve Ballmer would even blackmail Obama to make such trade conveniences happen.
Speaking of Microsoft and layoffs, Nortel’s people who were working with Microsoft are to be pushed away. An IDG report suggests that the Microsoft-Nortel partnership is at jeopardy, despite new reports of materialisation.
Nortel has laid off senior staff in the UK who were responsible for the company’s unified communications partnership with Microsoft, according to sources.
This article can be found also here in BusinessWeek, which apparently starts just buying articles, like the New York Times. █
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aeshna23 said,
June 30, 2009 at 8:00 am
This is a tricky issues. Free enterprise works. It makes us prosperous. I suppose it is inevitable that some jobs will move to India, with its tradition of high quality education in mathematics. And there is the idea in economics that wages should tend to equalize over regions which does rather suck when you are used to living at the top, but I suppose you do have to think about the bottom.
On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder if Roy’s article does point to a real issue. How much are these problems for the United States exacerbated by Microsoft having its artificial monopoly because of software patents and Microsoft’s corrupt business practices?
(By the way, I like spelling Microsoft, M$. It saves me 7 seven key strokes, but it seems we are haters if we do.)