JDN, you may be right about the revolutionary aspect of the Internet. A source of it's power, of course, is the substantial improvements in computer and network speed and power with simultaneous reduction in cost over the past 15 years. I am now able to buy all the equipment I need to work very efficiently at home, and I can develop and deliver the products to my distant customers over the internet. That's a huge savings compared with years ago when I had to get into the car and drive 90 miles to some sites, work there, and if some little problem occurred I'd have to drive back there the next day. It is an enormous increase in efficiency for my kind of work (software development). And for investing (I spent hundreds of dollars a month for delayed quotes to do my Utilities trading method in 1987-88). And now we're just seeing the beginning of hand-held internet devices...
Regarding EMC: Mike R. probably would not be pleased about what happened. One of his speeches on the site is about the search for the 50-to-1 employee (the one who produces what 50 normal employees produce -- he hasn't found her/him yet), and how victory is dependent on winning the war for talent. It all sounded great to me, the kind of place where performance that stands out would be greatly rewarded. But, actually, it wasn't a job I would have accepted, because right now I'm working at the absolute cutting edge, Windows 2000, XML, Java, Javascript, DHTML, etc., and what I would have worked on there was a bit behind the software state-of-the-art, with no web content. It's a kind of work I like (similar to my many years working for the Navy), but I couldn't step away from the crest of the current wave for that. Had I become an EMC employee, I might have told someone we need to get our act together on interviews (just as I did at my current company, which let me sit in the lobby for 1.5 hours on my first visit!), but to do that now would seem unkind to the frazzled employees, who are likely doing the best they can under trying conditions...
Kevin |
