Do You Believe Bill Gates?
The anti-offshoring camp has a new, unusual champion: Willam H gates, Jr., the Chairman of Microsoft. Gates, one of the regulars at World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting at Davos, hogged the limelight with his pledge to donate a few hundred millions to fight tuberculosis, he also made another announcement, which for some strange reason, most of the media reports missed.
Gates said majority of Microsoft research and development will remain within the US for next ten years. Yes, ten years. Red Herring in a report quoted Kleiner, Perkins Caufield & Byers managing partner Vinod Khosla saying that he was surprised how Mr Gates would make a 10-year prediction. Forrester CEO George Colony also questioned the wisdom of such a decision.
However, more than the wisdom of Gates’ decision, what needs to be questioned first is: whether Microsoft would actually do such a thing. During his visit to India last December Gates had thrown up some big numbers about his potential hiring plan in the country. “They will play a key part in product development, research and support services,” he had said then.
Microsoft already employs 4000 people in India and plans to take that up to 7000. In China too, it announced a JV with a Chinese government company, and Indian tech services firm Tata Consultancy Services.
For the time being the question is: which is a more relevant question?
If Microsoft does decide to keep core research in the US, what would that mean for the great offshoring debate? Or Do you actually believe that Microsoft would do that?
Bill Fates is nothing but a disloyal, greedy little geek. He wants more visas so he can pay the relative slave wages he can get away with to indies and pakis.
In the meantime, qualified american citizens go without a job.
bill gates is a disgrace.
When one is in mixed company or a refined setting in the USA, we refer to Mr. Gates as ‘Bill’ or ‘Billy’.
The real question for IT and ITS workers is – which direction are current trends carrying the US and the global economy? With recent huge capital injections into both the US and EU geo-political arenas – accompanied by wars and rumors of wars – 10 years can only be a plan. Every business must have a plan and MS is no exception.
Personally, I and most IT types working in small to medium sized businesses are two to three times as open about moving to a flavor of Unix in order to simultaneously run applications written for any OS. The keyword to remember for the next five years is ‘cross platform’.
Microsoft’s ‘Vista OS’ marks a turning point, a fork in the road, a paradigm shift. Vista’s analog might well be the ‘Titanic’. What was needed at Microsoft ten years ago was a spiritual revival, an awakening. MS and other global giants have become far too big for their pants so to speak. Their over-riding goals are those of most corporate forms; primarily market share, advertising to expand and of course quarterly dividends. Quality, innovation, productivity, reliability and value are struggling to even remain on a list at all.
I’m sure Mr. Gates wears many hats behind the scenes at Microsoft. I just wish he could wear ones with letters like ‘qc’, ‘value’ and ’stable’ sew into the fabric, but more importantly woven throughout the company.
A better quality of life is my hope for the entire world – and to have it “more abundantly”.
I do believe “Bill” or “Billy” as we in the USA refer to him – when one is in mixed company or a refined setting. The real question for IT and ITS workers is – which direction are current trends carrying the US and the global economy? With recent huge capital injections into both the US and EU geo-political arenas – accompanied by wars and rumors of wars – 10 years can only be a plan. Every business must have a plan and MS is no exception.
Personally, I and most IT types working in small to medium sized businesses are two to three times as open about moving to a flavor of Unix in order to simulaneously run applications written for any OS. The keyword to remember for the next five years is ‘cross platform’.
Microsoft’s ‘Vista OS’ marks a turning point, a fork in the road, a paradigm shift. Vista’s analog might well be the ‘Titantic’. What was needed at Microsoft ten years ago was a spiritual revival, an awakening. MS and other global giants have become far too big for their pants so to speak. Their over-riding goals are those of most corporate forms; primarily market share, advertising to expand and of course quarterly dividends. Quality, innovation, productivity, reliability and value are struggling to even remain on a list at all.
I’m sure Mr. Gates wears many hats behind the scenes at Microsoft. I just wish he could wear ones with letters like ‘qc’, ‘value’ and ’stable’ sew into the fabric, but more importantly woven throughout the company.
good luck to gates
respected sir,
i believe that microsoft defnitely achieve.
‘Majority..’ ????
Microsoft spends in excess of 6 Billion dollars on R&D.By ‘majority’,he may mean 51% and even if half of the remaining 49% comes to India I’ll be delighted.
I Do Really Believe in Bill Gates : Microsoft
I have Got Through the Bill Gates & Narayan Murthy Session..
In Between Our Pronoy Roy Little Lack-Luster…In It.
USA:INDIA…..+-+….
Manmohan:Sonia:PresidentOfIndia..
BhudaDeb Babu…..Bengali.Bengal, Chandannagore.Home
I do believe Gates
A focused person like Bill, would certainly put his money where his mouth is!
After all he is the same person who predicted that in a few years every desk will have a ‘desktop’ and the prophecy is more than true…
So if he has indicated that he would like to keep the investments at home for ten years, I am sure he has a blue print up his sleeve.
And as regards India and China – the saga will continue, as he cannot get this quality of manpower at this price.
So he gets to hog the news at home and out of it.