Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (7511)	12/21/2002 12:49:51 PM
From: tony	Respond to of 306849

call centers, customer support, programmers, all back office operation in computers except hardware, accounting jobs is moving out of USA. Some companies keep only 10% of staff here. Even State, Fed or county jobs are not secured. First step will be no increase in wages then 10 % reduction in wages then 10% firing of workers. This script will take five year to play out. Not many people know that we had 500 Billion Fed Deficit. I guess this year may end up higher as payrolls are declining. Now we will be paying 200 Billion to fight Iraq. We could not lend 1.8B to UAL and let 55% Employee owned stocks go down the toilet. We can bailout LTCM, insurance companies. We have a problem. State revenues are going back to 1995 level. That means lots of cleaning up. Unfortunately states have no choice but to clean up the mess. 1991 recession was cake walk. Our economy is going through major realignment. 30 year fixed rate has been low since 1994 around 7%. I think most of the people are buying based on adjustable rates which are real low. Handyman job is easy, I fail to understand why people do not join it. No training or education is required. All in IMHO.

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (7511)	12/21/2002 2:05:16 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

How much of the computer support (say Dell) is outsourced overseas, like to India etc.? When you call support up on the phone where are you talking to? Romania? Doesn't all this outsourcing reek havoc on taxation systems? No individual income tax, witholding goes to the US government. Just another way that the internet tears down borders. I see tony answered this already... and you are not asking only about Dell- but up until last year Dell hadn't outsourced anything at all. Now this is something of a trick question because Dell does assembly really- the boards etc used in Dell computers come from Asian countries- Dell sends the designs and the boards come back so there is definitely outsourcing along the supply chain which in Dells case is fairly intense. But for everything else- call center, IT/database work other support- everything is in house. In the early 90s when Dell was first starting to ramp there was a perception that you couldn't compete doing all that they did in the US. As time passed the failure rates from the outsourced manufacturers shot up and Dell had it all under control. When Dell has a QA type problem, they stop the line in house and change the design right then- then they move the reengineered stuff to the outlet, that is a superior way to handle "bugs" in a certain line. Anyway imo Dell shows that outsourcing is not always the best way. I believe in the late 80s a lot of heavy manufacturing was outsourced and the pendulum swung too far... we may be getting close to that in technology now but you have to let the market forces do what they will. I'm talking about companies like Applied Materials who have chosen to outsource large parts of their IT dept... purely because they have had problems with this area in the past. You cannot outsource your problems and I'm sure they will come to understand this but for now they think outsourcing is the way to go... ok. One important thing to keep in mind is taking india as an example... the size of the potential market for US technology products is 5x what it is in the US... a billion people with only 1-2% online currently. Same situation in China. It is best to create friendly business partnerships with these countries fairly early on. Now you could say they have no purchasing power which is true but with the decline in technology prices, it won't be long where DVRs are selling in India too.. the difference is we buy many of these and throw them away, there it could be a luxury purchase... ok. Lizzie

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (7511)	12/21/2002 5:27:11 PM
From: RealMuLan	Respond to of 306849

>>How much of the computer support (say Dell) is outsourced overseas, like to India etc.? When you call support up on the phone where are you talking to?<< Majority, not all just yet. I got a Dell computer about 7 months ago, and called a couple of times for their tech support/customer support, all in India. Good thing is that no more waiting like a couple of years ago, when had to spend hours of waiting on phone. but you need to get used to their accent. And a guy came in to change the MOBO, I asked him whether Dell has contracted out all its customer service to India, he said not all but majority. And he went on complaining about he could not communicate with them, to the degree that it negatively affected his earning, because he is a contractor, not paid by hour, but by each task. And he had to spend a long time to make himself understood, or the other way round.