The photo of the last stand of doomed IT workers
The IT employees at Northeast Utilities in Connecticut tried to save their jobs. The contacted local media, local politicians. They told anyone who would listen what was going on.
An IT worker writes: 'Emotionally, we are broken'
Training your replacement must be an awful experience. It’s bad enough to lose a job. It’s an entirely different thing when you believe that U.S. government H-1B policies are assisting in the transfer of your job...
Northeast Utilities creates STEM jobs -- in India
Northeast Utilities, via its offshore contractors, brought in H-1B visa holders to replace its U.S. workers as a prelude to moving work offshore. This kind of thing used to make people angry, but it’s so routine today that few...
The downside of Silicon Valley's focus on ultra high-end skills
Silicon Valley’s wealth may be concentrating in firms that only hire people with ultra high-end skills. It’s just not their path to success to do otherwise.
Facebook’s purchase of mobile messaging platform WhatsApp illustrates...
IT workers were, in the end, lost
IT job cuts appear to be in progress at Northeast Utilities in Connecticut, thanks to a move to offshore a significant number of jobs. You may wonder how this happens. Why is it so easy for U.S. companies, even a utility with a...
A better model for HealthCare.gov is Weather.gov
Instead of beating up the government for its HealthCare.gov rollout, let’s look at what the U.S. gets right. It excels at providing data to businesses, individuals, application developers, researchers, or anyone with a need for...
Northeast Utilities brings on H-1B workers
Connecticut state lawmakers held a press conference Thursday demanding answers from Northeast Utilities about its unofficial plans to ship IT jobs to India. This press conference was mostly wind and fury. The state may have lost...
Background check on Navy Yard shooter turned up traffic violation, not gun use
There is reason to believe that the government’s ability to spy on people is overrated and Aaron Alexis, the Washington Navy Yard shooter, helps make the case.
The company that employed him, The Experts, said that it “enlisted a...
Scapegoating India over H-1B visas
Norman Matloff, a computer science professor and leading H-1B critic, sees the visa debate taking an ugly turn. The Indian firms, including the Indian-Americans who create IT services firms here, “are being scapegoated for abuse of...
North Carolina's state of hostility
North Carolina Republicans have a super majority in the state house and are downsizing government by cutting unemployment benefits and education. The goal is to deliver tax cuts and to reduce debt. There are many protests and...
Assorted rants, mostly about PCs
Four separate items:
-- Nothing is more aggravating than to read "the PC is dead." But I understand where this comes from. The PC displays at Best Buy can look like a tussled rack of cheap clothing at T. J. Maxx. The 2013 IDC and...
Is this the most outrageous IT product placement ever?
Did you see Iron Man 3 this weekend? Did you notice the Oracle Exadata server in the van?
No spoiler alert needed. I’m not giving away anything about the movie. It’s a decent popcorn crunching film that may include the strangest...
Facebook is but a dorm room
Creative people are inventive throughout their life. For them, the creative process is about continuing advancement. But in high-tech there is a tendency to believe that creativity is the domain of youth, something that may be true...
I love my Chromebook but worry about its future
Within weeks of getting a Chromebook Samsung Series 5 550, I was checking eBay to see what it could fetch.
You may like the Chrome browser and Google Docs on a full featured machine, but moving to a Chromebook is like stepping...
Maybe Yahoo is right about telecommuting
It might be that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision to end telecommuting is serving as a layoff-by-other-means. It will put some employees in untenable positions. But it is also possible that Mayer wants to shock Yahoo out of its...
In the Midwest, concern about the H-1B
With the prospect of a deal on immigration, the tech industry is in overdrive in pushing for an H-1B cap increase. Its efforts include supporting fluffy organizations to write boilerplate letters in support of a virtually...
Offshore costs rise with H-1B rejections
The effort in the U.S. Senate to increase the H-1B visa cap may begin to deliver benefits immediately to Indian IT outsourcing firms, according to Hong Kong-based CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, an equity and financial services...
Fight data caps with Super Wi-Fi
Data caps are the clearest sign that America is in decline.
We either come up with a strategy for removing data caps, or surrender the future.
Part of this comes from personal experience with my mobile phone.
The short story is...
A rising star, Sen. Rubio, avoids a sinking ship, the H-1B visa
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is considered as someone who will help shape immigration policy for the Republicans. But what will Rubio do about tech immigration?
Rubio, who is often cited as a potential 2016 presidential...
Is kiosk use similar to offshore outsourcing?
Elevators once had attendants. When elevator operators were replaced by buttons, did shoppers start using stairs in protest? I don’t think so, but going to the human cashier at my local Safeway or Giant feels like an act of...
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