Readers' Comments

Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 23 April 2003
Note: the comments below are the unabridged submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.
From: Dave
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Strength of New Zealand dollar hurting opportunities

The company I work for has it's head offices and parent
company located in the US and Europe.

When our dollar was weak against the US, we had lots of
projects coming our way.  The other offices were willing to
put up with a 12 hour time difference cuasing delays in
communication because we could get the job done at less
than half the equivelent dollar cost.

Now that we are back above the 50c barrier they are not as
eager to do so, when they could theoriticly save money by
keeping the projects local to them and make use of more
efficent communication to save costs.

It's all very well for project managers to spout
about "Chasing the sun" development, but it can also hurt
the company if there are serious issues that need to be
resolved/talked about then and there.




From: Mauricio Freitas
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Telstra response to Herald Sun

http://www.telstra.com.au/newsroom/release.cfm?ReleaseID=27101

Because of Geekzone (www.geekzone.co.nz) I subscribe to all
sorts of press releases... This one is directly related to
this case. Of course, they deny.

That's the rule: deny, deny, deny.




From: Richard
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Globalised jobs

It's not just programming any more.  About a month(?) ago I
saw an article via Slashdot (can't find it right now) about
how other "white-collar" jobs were being moved to cheaper
markets - accountancy, architecture even things like reading
x-rays and providing diagnosis.

The writer was based in America and was very concerned about
the consequences - most people in the west have been moe
than happy to let the low-paid "blue collar" jobs move
offshore as the vast swathe of the middle classes were
largely unaffected.  This, it would seem, is certainly going
to change and will have important consequences for the
"first world" nations.

Perhaps when tele-robotic surgery is common-place even in
our cash-strapped hospitals will be outsourcing surgery to
much cheaper surgeons around the world.

Who knows?  Certainly it's going to mean massive change if
theses trends contine.

Perhaps I'll move to China.  At least I'll be guaranteed a
job...




From: Graham
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Career Choices

It's an old tale, but it's still a good one.

An entrepreneur and a trade-unionist were standing beside a construction
site, watching the workers driving massive bulldozers and using all the
modern gear to do their work.

The unionist said “if only they hadn’t invented those fan-dangled new
things, there could have been a thousand men using shovels employed on
this site”.

To which the entrepreneur replied “and if they hadn’t have invented
shovels, there could be 100,000 men using teaspoons working down there”.

The moral of the story is to encourage our students into a career path
which uses an commercial mindset that will employ the best tools for the
job (bulldozers, Indian code cutters, whatever) to produce more for less
cost.
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