economic policy

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Microsoft's success in China

Microsoft appears to be making inroads in the Chinese market. According to a blog post over at Tech Republic, Microsoft, through aggressive price reductions and a willingness to grant more access to source code, has managed to convince the Chinese government to use Windows and Office. Similarly, Microsoft has opted...

Tags: Open Source, Microsoft, Economic Policy

Blog posts 2007-07-30

Kernel hacking, politics, and computer hardware

A recent interview with Con Kolivas, former Linux kernel hacker, makes for an interesting read. Mr. Kolivas became well known for some of his performance-related patches, and oddly enough, he did all this as a HOBBY, without any previous experience in computer programming. His day job is as an anaesthetist...

Tags: Programming, Open Source, Hardware Infrastructure, Economic Policy

Blog posts 2007-07-27

The UK's triumph of good sense

As reported on Tuesday on Ars Technica, the British government recently decided not to extend copyright protection beyond 50 years. Music industry lobbyists wanted to extend protections to 95 years. The committee charged with analyzing UK Intellectual Property laws, however, were actually inclined to REDUCE copyright protections, though bowed to...

Tags: Economic Policy, Digital Media, Patents

Blog posts 2007-07-26

The sinking dollar and offshoring

As noted yesterday, the falling value of the dollar is making it more costly to do business with India.This should be good news to American programmers. If it's getting more expensive, then the price differential between Indian labor and domestic American labor goes down. This means the advantages of domestic...

Tags: Economic Policy, Outsourcing

Blog posts 2007-07-25

Sub-$300 PCs and SKU proliferation

As reported yesterday, Wal-Mart has started selling a Sub-$300 PC that runs Windows Vista just in time for the back-to-school shopping set. Though the machine won't win any performance awards, it still strikes me as "not so bad" for a $300.00 PC. It sports an 80GB hard drive an a...

Tags: Microsoft, Economic Policy

Blog posts 2007-07-19

Microsoft's Google concessions

As reported yesterday, Microsoft agreed to modify the way it handles options for desktop search in response to an official antitrust complaint filed by Google. This followed official statements from high-level executives that claimed these complaints had no merit.Some commentators call it "caving." I call it an obviously sensible thing...

Tags: Microsoft, Google, Economic Policy, Antitrust

Blog posts 2007-06-20

Don't hide from global competition

Everyone has some pundit with whom, for whatever reason, they are ideologically in tune, and with whom they consistently agree. My ZDNet readers have me (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...choke, cough). I have Fareed Zakaria, Editor of Newsweek International.I have strong difficulties with people who are...

Tags: Economic Policy, Outsourcing

Blog posts 2007-05-31

The endless journey to 3G

As reported yesterday on ZDNet, Nokia is in a fight with Qualcomm over patents that were part of a cross-licensing deal between the two companies which expired last month. Yes, patents don't just harm software companies, but splash around the competitive landscape like an exploding creature from the mind...

Tags: Economic Policy, Mobile, Wired & Wireless

Blog posts 2007-05-30

Lou Dobbs and illegal immigration

This is a technology blog where Im supposed to discuss technology topics. On occasion, I dive into economic issues that relate to technology, such as antitrust, or more relevant in the case of this blog, outsourcing and skilled immigration through the H-1B visa program. Illegal immigration from Mexico and H-1B...

Tags: Outsourcing, General, Economic Policy

Blog posts 2007-05-03

Microsoft, just give the protocols away

Some might expect me to rage yet again against an overreaching European Commission as it blows more smoke in its interminable battle with Microsoft. Ive called the EC policy wherein they force Microsoft to document protocols deemed essential to interoperability then judge them not worthy of protections normally associated with...

Tags: Open Source, General, Economic Policy, Antitrust, Microsoft

Blog posts 2007-04-23

Thoughts on standards

A lot of people are of the opinion that there should be only one standard for any particular problem domain. You hear that most often from people in the ODF camp (though that might be somewhat self-serving), but you even hear it to a certain extent from fans of HTML...

Tags: ODF, General, Economic Policy

Blog posts 2007-04-19

Death and taxes

Oh, the sweet joy of being an American during tax season. Those who have never experienced a foreign tax process might not be aware that ours is particularly onerous. Most countries dont require citizens to file returns at all, unless an individual runs a small business that doesnt automatically withhold...

Tags: Economic Policy, General

Blog posts 2007-04-17

Ending H-1B indentured servitude

As noted in a previous blog, the quota of H-1B visas was filled within a single day, leading to a situation where the visas will be allocated based on a lottery system - hardly a sensible means by which to allocate such things. What many articles discussing the situation didnt...

Tags: General, Outsourcing, IT Management, Economic Policy

Blog posts 2007-04-13

H-1B limits, outsourcing and Rome

The H-1B visa limit for 2008 has been reached, and it managed this feat in one day. In fact, the US Citizenship and Immigration Service received 150,000 applications as of Monday afternoon, even though they are only allowed to issue 65,000 visas (plus 20,000 more for individuals with Masters degrees)....

Tags: Outsourcing, General, Economic Policy

Blog posts 2007-04-05

IPTV and prospects for regional TV stations

"French Tuesday" is an event held in various cities around the world on the first Tuesday of every month. The venue changes from event to event, and as the name suggests, is organized by French expatriots in a particular city. It gives me the chance to practice, to a limited...

Tags: TVs, TV & Home Theater, Broadband Internet, NETWORKING, IP television, TV5, French Language, TV Stations, network, broadcasting, TV

Blog posts 2007-03-09

The artificial nature of national borders

A recent article that popped up on Digg on a mildly unrelated topic (essentially, it discusses fears of a Nafta superhighway stretching from Canada into Mexico) got me thinking about a subject that, at least nominally, affects IT workers. Why do we as humans restrict to the level we do...

Tags: Economic Policy, General, Outsourcing

Blog posts 2007-03-06

Additional Resources

VA now loves its VistA software

In a VA hospital recently and watched VistA at workThe VA hospital in Omaha Nebraska handles about ten times the load of a normal hospital and every single bit of the load is possible because of their software. My sister had a big glitch show up in her medical...

Tags: Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), HEALTHCARE, Vista Software, Yes Vista, VA Hospital, MUMPS, hospital, Microsoft Windows Vista

Discussion threads 2009-10-15

Move over Enterprise 2.0, it's now Social Business Design

Given the relatively friendly pounding I took over my Enterprise 2.0 - what a crock post, it's gratifying to see that it has stirred some interesting interpretations and thoughts on the topic. That's always good and especially pleasing when one considers that most blog posts are the equivalent of digital...

Tags: BPR, Enterprise 2.0, Re-engineering, Cohen, Oliver Marks, Business Process Engineering, Organizational Structure, Business Process Reengineering (BPR), Human Resources, It Operations, Dennis Howlett

Blog posts 2009-09-21

Washington finally embraces tech; the benefits will be here soon

It's fitting that Washington's top IT administrator, U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra, would come out to Silicon Valley to announce one of the federal government's largest technology initiatives - a cloud computing marketplace for government agencies that's designed to reduce red-tape and allow faster deployment of money-saving, energy-efficient cloud-based software. ...

Tags: Silicon Valley, Washington, Benefit, Sergey Brin, Tech Industry, Government, Cloud Computing, Virtualization, Federal Government, Internet, Hardware, Sam Diaz

Blog posts 2009-09-16

News to know: Adobe; Sergey Brin; Apps.gov; Oracle; Facebook

Here are today’s notable headlines. You can get News To Know via email alert and RSS daily. For continuous updates see BNET’s around-the-Web tech coverage. Sam Diaz: Adobe to acquire Ominture; CEO calls move a 'game-changer' Larry Dignan: Feds launch Apps.gov; Cloud computing players...

Tags: Adobe Systems Inc., Facebook, Larry Dignan, Oracle Corp., Microsoft Zune, Microsoft Corp., Sergey Brin, OIN, Enterprise Service Bus, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Tablets, Notebooks, Cloud Computing, Middleware, Enterprise Software, Software, Operating Systems, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets

Blog posts 2009-09-16