Lovely, Just lovely. Just heard On CNN, Lou Dobbs. (but can't find it on
their site)
During a Beijing news conference John Chambers (Cisco CEO) Says "We believe in
giving something back and truly becoming a Chineese company." "China will
become the IT center or the world" "China will become the largest economy in the
world."
CNN Reports: Cisco is investing 32 Million into Changi and is training
10's of thousands of Chineese university students in Cisco technology.
So.. I guess we will be cranking out those H1b's...Plan to kiss your raises
and or jobs bye bye to some specialized cheap imported Cisco trained networking
person from China.
Lovely, Just lovely. Just heard On CNN, Lou Dobbs. (but can't find it on
their site)
During a Beijing news conference John Chambers (Cisco CEO) Says "We believe in
giving something back and truly becoming a Chineese company." "China will
become the IT center or the world" "China will become the largest economy in the
world."
CNN Reports: Cisco is investing 32 Million into Changi and is training
10's of thousands of Chineese university students in Cisco technology.
So.. I guess we will be cranking out those H1b's...Plan to kiss your raises
and or jobs bye bye to some specialized cheap imported Cisco trained networking
person from China.
Oh, I don't know, somebody has to stay over there and assist the spammers and their colo websites.
Hmm..we're flooded by CCNA's and CCNP's that often hardly know how logon
to a router as it is, so this will probably add a lot more, a bit like
the MCSE craze a few years ago
When they say training thousands of students, they're not talking
thousands of CCIE-level specialists that actually know what they're
doing.
If anything it looks like we should feel sorry for people working
production for Cisco since it looks like production will be completely
based in China in the not too far future.
I've always personally taken anyone who said "but I'm an MCSE" with a grain of salt. I've had equal respect for the A-plus and Net-Plus certifications, which are basically bought.
I used to have more trust in the /CC../ certifications but I find I may be laughing those off too quite soon.
MCSE - Microsoft-claimed Substitute for Experience.
A-Plus - The only possible grade in a pass/fail test.
Net-Plus - An accounting term for "how can we net more money with this bull**** certification"
Not one of the above properly teaches you how to run, say, DNS correctly (my opinions on the Active Directory DNS butchery notwithstanding).
I'm sure in time I'll come up with others sometime after I have to argue with green CC.. people who think the paper makes them infallible and prove them wrong with a 20-second search of cisco.com.
I've always personally taken anyone who said "but I'm an MCSE" with a
grain of salt. I've had equal respect for the A-plus and Net-Plus
certifications, which are basically bought.
I take most certifications with a grain of salt, including degrees,
unless someone clearly demonstrates he know's what he's talking about,
is able to make intelligent decisions and learns new techniques quickly.
In which case a certification is still just an add-on
I used to have more trust in the /CC../ certifications but I find I may be
laughing those off too quite soon.
The vendor's introductory certs (CCNA, CCNP, JNCIA, JNCIS) don't say
anything about a candidate, except exactly that ("I got the cert"). CCIE
and JNCIE are still at least an indicator someone was at a certain level
at the time of getting the certification, but are still no substitute
for experience and a brain in good working order. It's too bad there
aren't better "general" (non-vendor specific) certs, since what often
lacks is general understanding of network architecture and protocols.
You can teach anyone the right commands for Vendor X and they'll prolly
get a basic config going on a few nodes, but when troubleshooting time
comes it's useless without good knowledge of the underlying technology,
which none of the vendor certs teach very well (IMHO anyway
I think the IT field as a whole, programmers, network guys, etc... are going
to go the way of the auto workers in the 70's and 80's. I am a CCIE working
and on a second one and it saddens me that all my hard work and advanced
knowledge could be replaced by a chop-shop guy because from a business
standpoint quarter to quarter the chop-shop guy is cheaper on the books.
Never mind the fact that I solve problems on the network in under 30mins and
save the company from downtime but I am too expensive. I used to love
technology and all it had to offer but now I feel cheated, I feel like we
all have been burned by the way the business guys look at the technology, as
a commodity. Thankfully I am still young (mid 20's) I can make a career
switch but I'll still love the technology. Anyway I am going to start the
paper work to be an H1b to China and brush up on my Mandarin.
People, you're in tech. It will never stop changing. That means you
should never stop learning. If you stop learning, yes somebody else
is going to take your job because as an area of tech matures, tools
to manage it become better, less sophisticated people can do the job,
and operational cost of that widget goes down. Do you really want to
still be hand-editing BGP configs in 5 years time? Should web monkeys
still make $80k for writing HTML? Go learn something new and be the
badass at that and you'll keep making your 6 figure salary.
Or, to look at it from a humorous point of view: It's just a matter of
time until neurosurgeons will be coming from ITT tech.
Hey, I feel your pain and am seeing the same things happen all over our industry. Sadly, globalization is not a new trend and it will never end but I think its time WE alter its course. Its time for all American Tech workers to stand up and let our voices be heard. Modern capitalism does create a race to the bottom effect for labor which seems to have no end. Workers world wide need to realize they are at risk for the same slippery slope we now see in the United States. No one is insulated. Unless we all mobilize and make our voices heard the economic landscape will leave us behind as another casualty. This made worse by the multinational corporation who’s only desire is to satisfy stockholders needs. We as world citizens need to come to grips with the fact that we must compete with workers internationally but we should be doing so on FAIR playing field. Pure free market capitalism has no concept fairness and equity and no room for correcting the drastic changes that can sometimes cause great societal costs. Capitalism is not inherently bad but it is an imperfect system in need of much guidance. Historically the only way this system has been improved is by Labor action, political involvement and transparent government. Getting upset about job losses is useless and futile we need to take action!
Don’t Support Outsourcing
Don’t buy from companies that outsource US jobs. Be very vocal and call and mail these companies and let them know you will not support them. Let them know you are watching what they are doing and will vote with your Dollars. Check out the site below to look up any company. http://www.workingamerica.org/
Be Politically Active
Be politically aware and active! Remain politically active and tell your state & local politician and the president that they need to be protective of American jobs and leveling the playing field in world wide labor market.
Don't buy from companies that outsource US jobs. Be very vocal and
Now please go unplug all your cisco and juniper equipment.
Then open up your servers and remove all the RAM / hard disks etc that are
made in Malaysia / Taiwan etc.
Oh wait - check the labels on your clothes. The last Macy's I visited had a
whole lot of shirts / trousers / underwear that had US brand names but were
all made in Vietnam / China / Bangladesh etc. You might want to strip them
off and wear just your own, all american skin.
Sheesh. Please take it to Lou Dobbs, or if you have any more rational
arguments than these to advocate what looks like a boycott of cisco
equipment, please take it to somewhere like Dave Farber's IP .. lots of
posters there love to beat this dead horse even more than you do.
I appreciate and respect your opinion. Please offer me that same respect in kind. I am aware of the fact of our diverse global economy and only think as many in US do we should be fair and equitable to all parties WORLDWIDE.
So.. I guess we will be cranking out those H1b's...Plan to kiss your
raises
and or jobs bye bye to some specialized cheap imported Cisco trained
networking person from China.
There is an implicit assumption here that the objective of 100% of these trainees will be to move as economic migrants to "the West". Wrong folks. Very very wrong. Notice how China as a *consumer* is growing faster than anyone else around ? While there may well be some (what's the right word ?) "retro-sourcing" of cheap labour into the US (and the EU), I suspect that once any initial levelling of the field happens, there will be just as much, if not more, movement the other way.
There is a lot of jingoistic rhetoric here, and not enough rational thought about the objective - building big networks in the biggest economy of the near future.
PS I hate *all* certification with a passion, regardless of level and including things like my BSc which was just a great excuse to drink lots for a few years. The person doing the selection of candidates should have enough expertise themselves to make a rational judgement based on a face to face interview.
Its time for all American Tech workers to stand up and let our voices
be heard.
Perhaps it's time instead to make sure you're good at what you do and
try to be on the forefront of tech, rather than whining about how all
those bad people from abroad are stealing your job. It's largely our own
fault labour pricing in large outsourcing countries like India are so
low, and now it's coming back to bite some of us.
We as world citizens need to come to grips with the fact that we must
compete with workers internationally but we should be doing so on FAIR
playing field.
Strangely people only start calling for a level, fair playing field when
they feel something's threatening their own little piece of the cake. If
most companies and governments we're happy to work for wouldn't have
been undermining other people's economies for ages, we wouldn't have
this problem and we would have a more or less fair playing field. But
now practices that we still are making money of is making our companies
stronger, but our workforce weaker, so in the long term probably our
overall economy will be weaker. Anyone else see the irony here..?
Don't Support Outsourcing, Don't buy from companies that outsource US
jobs.
Hmm...let me see now, no Juniper, no Cisco, no Oracle, no Microsoft,
basically not a single vendor left...ah yes, we should just stop working
completely and dismantle the Internet, that might just do the trick.
well said. for some reason (could be my wacky soviet upbringing), i've
always felt that only people who have no confidence in their own abilities
can feel threatened by those of others. somehow, when you're busy doing new
and interesting stuff, you just don't have the time or the inclination to
get up on that soapbox..
Its time for all
American Tech workers to stand up and let our voices be heard.
Yes, definitely. Emigrate to the countries where the jobs are
going to. Learn to speak a new language if necessary, after all
you are all smart people, right? Learning a new human language
only takes a couple of years to get fluent enough to handle
a job in the tech field.
Salaries in these countries may be low from a US perspective
but they are usually high within the local economy of the
foreign country.
There's always more than one way to skin a cat...
--Michael Dillon
P.S. This list has people on it from around the world
including all the countries to which US jobs are fleeing.
Although I agree with you on many points I think its time people stop complaining and take action. My point was not to idly complain about the outsourcing trend and claim that protectionism is the answer but, to ask if there is a better way to deal with the long term trend for ALL of us. Boycotting is just one way to send a message rather than simply complaining.
Your perception of Americans I think is very skewed by the media. You obviously did not read my post and wanted take a cheap shot. Many Americans like myself have always been fighting for equity, fairness and democracy from the beginning in all our activities. Try not to equate a people with what you read and hear in the media and realize they have much more diversity of opinion than is portrayed therein. I argue we BOTH American and international workers (that means you) need to change the system so that we are all treated fairly. I don’t think this is an off the wall ideal. But to each his own.
Hmmm. I had no idea there were only 2 networking companies, 1 database and 1 OS. =) With the rich competitive nature of the market I will continue to support companies which conform to a baseline of ethical business practice for all workers worldwide.
Then you all need to stop purchasing from Dell, IBM, HP, Cisco, et al. They've all outsourced quite a bit to the third world. 90% of the parts for any of this stuff come from Asia. The US has lost more manufacturing jobs in the last 3 years then the previous 22. There are 18% fewer tech jobs in this country than there were 4 years ago. You'll also need to stop dealing with Citicorp and Bank of America and the rest of the big financial companies that have moved IT operations to Bangalor or deal with companies like Keane that do as much as possible offshore. Motorola is moving R&D to China (tantamount to giving away military secrets). I can go on. Those last two statements don't make much sense to me. The way to fix things is to remove the incentives to move the jobs overseas in the first place. Fair trade, not free trade.
Your perception of Americans I think is very skewed by the media.
You obviously did not read my post and wanted take a cheap shot.
Although this is hardly the place to discuss this, I never said
Americans, I said "we". I'm Dutch, and we've got an equal amount of
people whining about the same problems, thinking we'll be invaded and
robbed from jobs because Poland joins the EU and Philips and CMG
out-source to China and India. It's the same everywhere in the Western
world, and my message was not intended as an attack on either an
invidual or one country and it's people.
I realise this is very generalising, but the majority of the people in
all our countries couldn't care less if we rob the rest of the world
blind, until there's a slight possibility they might actually be
affected themselves.
Hmmm. I had no idea there were only 2 networking companies, 1
database and 1 OS. =) With the rich competitive nature of the market I
will continue to support companies which conform to a baseline of
ethical business practice for all workers worldwide.
I would like to do the same, but the fact of the matter is that in some
key areas there's not much choice, especially when it comes to
hardware...unless I've missed something I haven't seen an Open-Source
carrier-grade routing system that can rival C or J's, and just about any
commercial hardware manufacturer in the world has a production plant in
one third world country or another, or at least uses loads of low-priced
parts (memory, IC's etc.) that are manufactured in those same places.
There's no escaping it if you're working in networking and IT.
>The way to fix things is to remove the incentives to move the jobs
>overseas in the first place.
So are you suggesting wages (and standard of living) in America are
reduced to the level of those in the 3rd world?
Hmmm...
A beginning software engineer in Bangalore makes 15,000 Rupees
per month which is about $330 USD. On the other hand, he can afford
to hire one or two full-time servants to look after his
apartment, cleaning, cooking, driving him home from the bars
when he's had one too many.
Is this a higher standard of living or a lower one?
Many Indian citizens who emigrated to the USA have returned
home because they want to INCREASE their standard of living.
Let's just agree that lifestyles in different countries
are different and diversity is a better thing than forcing
everyone to adopt American standards and lifestyle. Many of
us on this list are not Americans and many of us have had
a taste of the American lifestyle and decided that life is
better elsewhere.
And now we come to the Internet. This is the great enabler
that allows people to live where they want and still participate
in the modern world, work in challenging occupations and
lead an intellectually fulfilling lifestyle without the
constraints of geography. For the past 12 years I have been
doing everything that I can to support this type of Internet
and I'm now quite confident that it has enough momentum that
not even the members of this mailing list are capable of
stopping it. The Internet today is like the big wave
and nobody will stop it. This list is for people who
want to ride the wave and find a fulfilling career doing so.
If you really want to try and stop the wave, go ahead,
but I think you should do that work elsewhere.
This race exists because of imbalances in prosperity in world. The ultimate effect will be to completely level standard of living in the world, which in the greater scheme of things will be a good thing. This level will be far higher than it is now for the vast majority of people in the world. For some unfortunately it will no improvement, possibly even a slight drop.
It's easy for me to say though, I live in a country that has gone from one of Europe's poorest, to one of Europe's richest in barely 20 years, thanks to globalisation and external investment (and EU grants and tax breaks to help attract that external investment).
