Conference 7.286::digital

    His name is Bimal Sareen.
    
    Common Name:   BIMAL SAREEN
    Search Surname:  SAREEN  Search Given Name:  BIMAL,  BIMAL K  DTN: 
    223-2414
    Telephone:  508-493-2414,  508-493-2403 (Secy),  508-493-5260 (FAX)
    Intrnl Mail Addr:  PKO3-1/R50  Location:  PKO  Node:  TARKIN
    Username:  SAREEN  Org Unit:  ALPHA,  Computer Systems Division
    
    

	Thanks a bunch. Much appriciated!

	Anil Navkal

Who is Gov. Weld, and what is he doing in India?  Does Mass. have a 
foreign policy?

    yes, we're at war with New Hampshire, and friends with everyone else.
    
    Mark

    Gov. == Governor
    
    Governor Bill Weld is the elected head of the state of Massachusetts.
    The U.S., probably every state, and many large cities frequently go on
    "trade missions" to try and convince foreign investors to trade through
    their ports and build businesses within the region, state, or city.
    I believe many other countries send their representatives to the U.S., too.

 re: <<< Note 3736.4 by HDLITE::SCHAFER "Mark Schafer, AXP-developer support" >>>
                                    -< :-) >-

<    yes, we're at war with New Hampshire, and friends with everyone else.
<    
<    Mark
    
    Obviously  you don't LIVE in MA.  Friends with everyong else?  Who ya
    kiddin?
    
    tony (who'd be hard pressed to name two less friendly places to live!)
    

>
> Does Mass. have a foreign policy?
>

If they don't they will as soon as the Congress turns that responsibility over
to the states along with everything else.

�     <<< Note 3736.5 by REGENT::LASKO "The clue meter is reading zero." >>>
�              -< not a foreign policy as much as a trade policy >-

�    Governor Bill Weld is the elected head of the state of Massachusetts.

Slight nit...
                                                   ^
                                                   Commonwealth of Massachusetts

>�    Governor Bill Weld is the elected head of the state of Massachusetts.
>
>Slight nit...
>                                                   ^
>                                                   Commonwealth of Massachusetts


Would you please define the differences.

Al

The formal name of the state is "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts."  The
existence of this name does not mean that Massachusetts is not a state.  Bill
Weld does not give a "State of the Commonwealth" address, he gives a "State of
the State" address.  The Legislature works in the "State House," not the
"Commonwealth House."  The US does not consist of 48 states and two
commonwealths, it consists of 50 states.

There is no practical meaning to the designation "commonwealth" in this case. 
Another "commonwealth," Virginia, does not have any remarkable resemblance to
Massachusetts that it does not share with any other state.

						Brian

Doesn't Rhode Island has some long name like the Commonwealth of Rhode Island
and Plyptom Plantations?  I recall this from some trick questions about
which state had the longest name.

Jim

Plymouth Plantations.  I believe Pennsylvania is also a Commonwealth.

I believe RI's full name is "The State of Rhode Island and the Providence
Plantations."  Plimoth Plantation (not spelled Plymouth) is in Massachusetts.

    the dictionary meaning is "public welfare", which is apt for Mass.

    	Commonwealth simply means "we know what's best for you and you
    should be grateful." Witness signs on the roadways of Commonwealths
    which have endearing signs such as "Welcome to Pennsylvania where the
    speed limit is _still_ 55", "State Police patrol highways in unmarked
    police vehicles" (Ma.), "Use of radar detectors is illegal in Va." etc.
    
    	I'm not bitter though ;-).
    
    Phil

    
    Kentucky is the 4th "state" that is a commonwealth.  Puerto Rico is a
    commonwealth but not a state.
    
    --Jay
    

	...I heard it on Jeopardy or some other television
	game show.

	  Deleware
	  Kentucky
	  Massachusetts
	  Pennsylvania
	  Virginia

	Now...back to your regularly sponsored program :-)

	bw

>    	Commonwealth simply means "we know what's best for you and you
>    should be grateful." Witness signs on the roadways of Commonwealths
    
    And to think it used to mean common wealth...

    	Re: .18-
    
    	Roelof,
    
    	It _used_ to mean common wealth. Now it means hand-in-your-pocket
    and you should like it.....
    
    	Just MHO.
    
    Phil

    re: last few
    
    Actually, it means we all get to know the Governor better here.  That's
    because every time we reach for our wallets, we shake hands with him ...
    
    Steve :^(

>>        <<< Note 3736.19 by PFSVAX::MCELWEE "Opponent of Oppression" >>>
>>                     -< There are more than I realized... >-

More what?

	And I thought it was the "Peoples Republic of Mass."?

	:-)

						mike

>	And I thought it was the "Peoples Republic of Mass."?

No, that's the "People's Republik of Kambridge."

    Re: .21-
    
    	What I meant-
    
    	There are more Commonwealths in the U.S. than I've had the
    displeasure of residing or working in...
    
    Phil

    Commonwealths of Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,
    and Virginia.
    
    Hmm, I could have sworn there were only two in the sixties.
    
    ed

    The trick question is "how many states are there?"
    
    The correct answer is 47 states, 2 commonwealths (Mass and Virginia)
    and 1 other one that I forget (It's Louisiana which is the only "state"
    to base its legal system on French law -- they don't have counties they
    have parishes for example).
    
    Steveg

In keeping with the original topic concerning business with India.
I'm probably opening a Pandora's Box here but here goes...

I would like to follow thru with some discussion of Digital's 
foreign relationship with India and it's impact with american jobs.
Please do not interpret any of the following as negative to the 
Indian employees who work with us. I find our D.E.I.L. contractors 
very interesting, well educated, and very good to work with ....

But the following has always bothered me a little.

Digital brings in Indian workers on visas paying for transportation,
housing , etc. as a a requirement for the privilege of selling products 
in India.  These 'very nice' people absorb up 10-25% of our department's
workload and are not included within a department's headcount numbers.

Permanent american workers working in American jobs are getting laid off
to reduce headcount but the Indian people are often not affected.
It seems to me that this is the ultimate example of 'losing american jobs
to foreign workers' because they are jobs in America not jobs being
transferred out of the country. 

I would not be surprised if this is happening within many american
companies and perhaps with workers from countries other than just India. 

thus ... What is the real benefit of doing business in this manner? 

    Please do not include Virginia and that 'M' state/commonwealth
    in the same sentence.  Thank you - from a Virginia native :)

>>    The trick question is "how many states are there?"

I think you're playing fast and loose with the definition of a "state," but
taking your definition for a moment:

>>    The correct answer is 47 states, 2 commonwealths (Mass and Virginia)
>>    and 1 other one that I forget

But, but...  According to the University of Kentucky web page and the
University of Pennsylvania web page, both of these are indeed commonwealths.
And we already know about Massachusetts and that other unmentionable state
beginning with a "V".  ;-)

This topic was discussed, by the way, in 12DOT2::MASSACHUSETTS, topic 887.  At
the time, it was stated that there were four "commonwealths" (listed above). 
No mention of Maryland or Delaware (variously mentioned earlier as being
commonwealths, but nothing I've seen agrees with this).

We now interrupt this rathole to bring you your regularly scheduled topic...

						Brian

    
    I read somewhere that Texas still a territory  and could if it 
    wanted to divide itself into 5 new states. Don't know if its
    true or not,,  but hey,,  I'm a short timer.

    I looked up commonwealth in the New American Heritage dictionary
    and got the list of 5 presented earlier.  Delaware is a state.
    
    Texas is a state but their constitution -- which was approved by the
    US Congress when they became a state -- allows them to divide into
    5 states if approved by a referendum.  -- so I've been told.
    
    ed

    Yep.  We're the only state that can legally secede from the Union, per
    our terms of acceptance into same.
    
    								me

re Note 3736.32 by DPDMAI::EYSTER:

>     Yep.  We're the only state that can legally secede from the Union, per
>     our terms of acceptance into same.
  
        Didn't Texas already try that back in the 1860's?

    Re .27 - the new American Jobs rathole
    
    Other related questions:
    Is Digital an American company?
    What does "American" mean in this respect anyway?
    Should Digital give a higher priority (ok think of a better word) to
    Americans that it doesn't employ to, for example, Indians that it does
    employ?
    Non-US Digits have been working in the US (myself amongst
    them), many American digits work in other countries, is this good or
    should we stop the practice now?
    Why should this issue be raised with Indians?
    
    Mike.

>    Is Digital an American company?

Yes.  The headquarters of Digital Equipment
Corporation is (are?) in the USA.

Of course, this doesn't make any comment about
Digital Equipment Company Ltd, Digital Equipment Gbmh,
D.E.I.L, etc...

re: .27

It was predicted a coupla years back that "American" high tech companies
would start using more Indian and Russian engineers because they are
highly educated and don't cost as much.  Also, as predicted in cyberpunk
fiction a while back, multinational corporations no longer have any
allegiance to individual countries; they're motivated solely by profit
considerations and will play one state or nation off against others to
try to get the best deal for themselves.  This was typified in the Angola
situation where the US government was backing Savimbi while the big oil
companies cozied up to Dos Santos.

The question (more appropriate for SOAPBOX, i know!) is whether national
governments provide any benefit to people that unrestrained capitalistic
business does not.  Someone like Theodore Roosevelt obviously thought so,
since he believed government should be big enough to duke it out with
the largest corporation around when that corporation went against the
interest of the nation's general population.  Since the fall of the Soviet
Union, our politicians have been mainly leaning in the other direction.

- paul

re .27 and .36:

Governor Weld went to India to get business for American companies (Raytheon,
Welfleet and others) so that jobs will not get lost in Massachuset! He 
was not creating opportunities for Indians to come here to replace 
folks here. He was able to bag quite a few deals including Air Traffic
controller for Banglore Air port (Silicon valley of India). Not bad for a 15 
days  detour. If NH does not want jobs, MA will be glad to grab them!

In this global market any one who is serious about making money is going to
make the products at cheapest possible price and sell it at highest possible 
profit. All major software /Hard ware companies are exploiting a rich set
of talent pool available in Russia, East Europe, India and China. Not too long
ago our CEO too was in China  establishing some high level contacts to explore
business opportunities. 

Software engineers will have to move up the ladder of technical skills in US
to justify the salary ratio of 1:10. A software engineer with the skill level
of Principle Software engg earns about $4000-$6000/year salary in India! 
These income disparities are bound to play a roll on where a job gets done. 
Company like Digital can either take advantage of this and leverage its 
presence in Indian market or watch our competitors walk away with cream!

I can understand your pain. But world economy is changing rapidly. We can
not afford to shut our door (and minds :-)) and expect job security. 


Anil Navkal


BTW Not too long ago a whole bunch of French enginers came to my group, got
trained and took away the product I was working on, for support from France. 
But not too many raised an eye brow. Did we loose jobs? You bet! 
Only diffrence was that this time they went to France :-) 

 Re: .34    Why should this issue be raised with Indians?

I raised it because the situation here is a bit more unique than
the pure export of jobs to other countries. Why Indians? ... 
I am not picking on Indians... It is only a prevalence of Indian
workers that I am observing locally. Maybe we are importing waves
of labor from other countries (but it is not as obvious to me here
within Digital USA).

In this situation we are not closing plants and exporting jobs... 
we are importing a significant number of workers from India 
(paying for transportation and housing). 
This is a wave much larger than the Decies from France etc.

Maybe an analogy...
This situation is NOT like the closing of an automobile plant in Detroit
and reopening it in Mexico.  Rather... it is more like termination of the
workers in Detroit and flying in and housing Mexican labor to work in 
their place in the factories in Detroit.
  

Philp,

Why are you treating this situation any different than the one where farmers
in all over US use cheap labor from any where they can get it. In California
they use Mexican labor in droves! I know at least two farmers in here where
the farm workers come from Mexico!

The same can be said about Nannies from Europe. It does not alter the fact that
you shall contain the cost. Wait a few years and global 
improvement in communication will make the cost of getting software professionals
from India a history. I don't see how that will reduce our pain of losing jobs.

Trust me if Detroit could take care of the unions they will do just what you
said.  Detroit does not have any other business model. In fact they are trying
hard not to use any humans at all in a car factory. 

Now will you be just as uncomfortable with Robots running all around you? 
But then again that is exactly what is happening in all modern auto factories! 

Regards, 

- Anil

P.S. I am enclosing an article I got over internet that address and adds other
     dimensions to some of the issues discussed in this thread.

            Anti-immigration laws could damage high-tech industry;
                 Intel, IBM, AT&T rely on immigrant expertise
 
                                Business Wire
                                 Los Angeles

   March 16, 1995--Proposed federal laws aimed at cutting the number of legal
immigrants allowed to enter the United States could severely damage the computer
and semiconductor industries that rely on immigrant expertise, according to
Glenn Garvin, in the April issue of Reason magazine.

    Garvin, contributing editor of Reason, writes that some 15,000 Asian
immigrants are employed in Silicon Valley, roughly a quarter of the work
force, and the phenomenon is not limited to California. A quarter of the
researchers at IBM's facility in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., are Asians, and at
AT&T's Bell Labs in New Jersey, 40 percent of the researchers in the
Communications Sciences Wing were born outside the United States.

    "Immigrants bring with them high-tech expertise and the knowledge of the way
businesses organize and market themselves in other parts of the world," says
Garvin.  "But the recent battle against illegal immigrants threatens to stem the
tide of legal immigrants as well."

    According to Garvin, Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming has promised to
introduce a bill slashing the number of legal immigrants by 25 percent.  Last
year a House bill that would cut the number of legal immigrants by 65 percent
immediately and 85 percent in the long run attracted 73 co-sponsors from both
parties.

    George Gilder, who frequently writes about international competition and the
information superhighway, worries about the effect of such legislation on the
high-tech industry.  "At every important high-tech company in America, the
crucial players, half of them, are immigrants," says Gilder.  "You exclude
immigrants from our high-tech industries and what you get is Europe, where they
have no important computer or semiconductor company now after 20 years of
focusing on information technologies."

    Nathan Rosenberg, a Stanford economist who studies the history of
technology, agrees.  "A very large fraction of foreigners who come to America to
study and take advanced degrees in engineering and science stay here," says
Rosenberg.  "It seems to me that the American high-tech industry will suffer,
tremendously, if these anti-immigration measures go into effect."

    The article points to numerous examples of immigrants who have fundamentally
changed the industry and technology.  Andy Grove, CEO of semiconductor giant
Intel, is a Hungarian immigrant who fled Soviet tanks 12 years before joining
Intel at age 31.  Last year, Intel introduced the state-of-the-art Pentium
microprocessor.  The project is managed by Vinod Dham of India, and one of the
chip's two principal architects is another Indian, Avtar Saini.

    "Once we've gotten rid of the immigrants, who is going to pick the lettuce
and tomatoes," asks Garvin.  "Moreover, if the federal government imposes
drastic cuts in the number of legal immigrants, who is going to design the
computers?"

    Reason magazine is a leading social and political commentary magazine based
in Los Angeles.  For over a quarter of a century, Reason magazine has gone
beyond Beltway politics, challenged conventional wisdom, and offered a
refreshing alternative to Washington-based opinion.  Reason is published by the
Reason Foundation, a national public-policy research organization.
 

    
    Why Indians?  Because they are producing lots of educated, talented
    programmers and their labor rates are much lower than ours.  
    
    I worked with a group of these people when I had Wang as a client.
    Getting an overseas assignment with a "prestige" hi-tech company
    (well, I guess they thought it was prestige in Bombay) was a real boon
    for them.  The goal of most of the people I met was to go back and
    use the U.S. experience to boost their career in India.  
    
    Still, it's scary.  The standard line is "we're losing low-wage
    manufacturing jobs."  Look up and see the sky falling, folks...
    

>    Still, it's scary.  The standard line is "we're losing low-wage
>    manufacturing jobs."  Look up and see the sky falling, folks...
    
Then maybe we better make sure we invest in education and other things
for the future...  (The world is an increasingly competitive place, and
no amount of wishful thinking or protectionism is going to fundamentally
change the long term.  Also, educated people are increasingly the most
important resource - which is a change from the earlier natural-resource
driven/assisted manufacturing enconomies.)

Market forces aren't kind to half-hearted attempts, either when it comes
to products, or when it comes to nation states.  The US benefitted a lot
from not being on the front lines in WW2, but there still seems to be
a mindset that things "should" be the way they were in the 50s/60s/early
70s when the US had a very artificial advantage.  The world is moving on -
are we?  (If not, we have good reason to be worried, but it's something
we can chose to change - if we have the will.)

    Indians are easy to spot, aren't they?  I mean it is little bit more
    work to determine if the guy you just passed in the hallway is from US
    or Europe.
    
    - Vikas

    well, there are Cleveland Indians.  I can't tell if they're
    replacements, however.  :-)

>>                     <<< Note 3736.42 by HELIX::SONTAKKE >>>
>>                              -< Could it be ... >-
>>
>>    Indians are easy to spot, aren't they?  I mean it is little bit more
>>    work to determine if the guy you just passed in the hallway is from US
>>    or Europe.

That's unfair.  There are a lot of permanent Digital employees in the US who
are originally from India.  Likewise, there are plenty of permanent Digital
employees in the US who are originally from Europe.  It is *impossible* to tell
the contract employees from the permanent employees by sight, regardless of
where they hail from.

It is the case that a number of groups have hired a fair number of contract
employees from India; people making such a statement are most likely basing it
on observation of contractor hiring, not on observation of people walking
around.

						Brian

Re: Competitiveness...

We live in a finite system with limited resources.  If we keep competing
to do it for less, ultimately none of us will be worth very much.

Many of those losing their jobs in the current recession are part
of the most highly trained and skilled work force ever assembled
on the planet.

We're trapped in a vicious cycle, and there's no way out because our
culture can't see the bars of the cage.  [I sure don't have the answer]

- Peter

> We live in a finite system with limited resources.  If we keep competing
> to do it for less, ultimately none of us will be worth very much.

The problem with this statement is "it".  "It" isn't a constant.  A very
small fraction of the manufacturing workforce could produce the level
of goods available at the end of the 19th century.  However, most people
aren't satisfied with that standard of living.  (Also, there's more
to life than material goods, any many of those areas haven't see the level
of improvement in productivity that manufacturing has - education comes
to mind.)

> The problem with this statement is "it".  "It" isn't a constant.

The "it" refers to producing goods and services for consumption.

As each succeeding generation takes for granted what was a luxury
for their parents, we have to work even harder to pay for it all.
At the same time, we are impoverishing the planet, and ultimately
ourselves.

It's not a problem that can be solved in an hour.

- Peter