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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

Offshore outsourcers likely to beef up security following Bangalore blasts: A series of bombs have exploded in Bangalore and companies that have technology operations in India are likely to need increased security precautions following what appears to be a terrorist attack. According to various reports from Reuters and Rediff.com, nine bomb blasts have rattled Bangalore, which hosts...; Tags: India, Bangalore, Rediff.com India Ltd., Sacchin Uppal, Outsourcing, Business Security, Security, It Operations, Business Operations, Outsourcing & Subcontracting, Larry Dignan; Blog posts 2008-07-25
Government, markets and regulation: Government, markets and regulationJust Another Gov't Program Gone BadFannie Mae was created in the Depression to create liquidity in the mortgage market. Lequidity had been wiped out by the stock market collapse and bank runs.As with all government programs, it just grew and grew and never went away. ...; Tags: Mortgages, Vertical industries, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, mortgage, government; Discussion threads 2008-07-24
Managing growth - a followup to yesterday's guest blog: Yesterday, Dean Cycon of Dean's Beans wrote a guest blog for this column on "Starbucks' Dirty Little Secret". The blog is worthy of some followup, as well as some additional information that Dean shared with me about their corporate philosophy. Growth is good for a company,...; Tags: Trader, Blog, Dean Cycon, X2 Development Corp., Strategy, Management, Christopher Dawson; Blog posts 2008-07-23
Accenture gets deeper into the green IT services game: Need some outside perspective on the green status of your IT infrastructure? Accenture, which is one of Forrester Research's darlings when it comes to green IT services, has created a set of services called the Accenture Green Technology Suite that handle anything from basic green "maturity" assessments and modeling tools...; Tags: Game, Data Center, Accenture Ltd., Green IT, Data Centers, Storage, Hardware, Data Management, Heather Clancy; Blog posts 2008-07-23