There won't be anything left to outsource as far as the Mac is concerned.

And I am just a little more than concerned, looking forward to Wed aapl conference call with little apprehension and anxiety.

Anybody here feelin the same way?

What are you worried about? Apple isn't going anywhere....they have had some major sucesses this year...

This Macworld will be another embarrassment for Apple. You can thank Steve Jobs for making sure this show is a flop.

It wouldn't surprise me if the truck is from IDG in a desperate attempt to generate some publicity for the show, using reverse psychology.

Funny to see the liberal labor union types boycotting one of the most liberal leaning companies (Apple, at least their constituency and CEO) since Ben & Jerry's. Kinda makes you think that they can't decide which handout they want more. Ha.

Get off it. If your non-skilled job has gone overseas, increase your value by educating yourself rather than trying to bring down the rest of this great entrepreneurial economy.

Kinda like Apple asking the gov't to mandate the use of Macs because MS keeps growing its market share. Apple would be out of business in a month if they took such an attitude. Instead, they strive for improvement.

Um RC, how is this a flop for Apple? Apple has nothing to do with it. Which of course is the major problem for the show in the first place. Bad for MacWorld Boston, but how is it bad for Apple? Please explain.

In theory he's right but...

The equal pay for equal work idea has resulted in the lowering of salaries and environmental standards, and health benefits and such in the first world not a raising of those in the third.
http://www.techsunite.org/news/techind/031120_tonelson.cfm
http://www.opednews.com/kelly040804_outsourcing.htm
As someone said a couple of years back, "Globalization will eventually allow all of us to work for a salary a Pakistani brick hauler would think generous."

The second issue is that let's assume for a moment that the theory is correct and after several decades the system will balance out and all IT workers around the world will be paid what we're worth. I don't have several decades to wait. People coming out of school today don't have several decades to wait. We need to feed our families NOW. The idea that I'll get a decent wage when I'm 70+ is meaningless. How do you tell some 18 year old to go into IT in the hope he'll get better wages near the end of his career? Most of the 18 year olds I've talked to won't even think about an IRA

This country needs a strong IT sector to remain competitive in the world. We won't have it if we don't make sure that the jobs are here. If we don't make sure that the jobs are here AND well paying we won't have the graduates coming out of college tomorrow either.

Steve Jobs by refusing to participate in Boston Macworld guaranteed that show attendance would drop even more than usual. Apple's non-participation only highlights in everyone's mind that Apple is moving on from the Mac to iPod/iTunes and other PC peripherals.

DrDude, you consider computer programming to be a "non-skilled job"?

"Steve Jobs by refusing to participate in Boston Macworld guaranteed that show attendance would drop even more than usual."

I held an Intel convention in my garage last week, and NO ONE showed up! Intel is doomed!

They're IT professionals afraid of the rising interest in Mac-based solutions, especially among 'alpha geeks.' Quite rightly, IMHO--I too would be afraid of systems that greatly decreased dependency on hard-won expertise in taming the trouble-prone, insecure technologies of the Wintel world.

<b>"If Market share continues to decrease...."</b>

You're under the mis understanding that Market share translates to install base. Apple's install base is GROWING.

If PC users replace their computers faster than Mac users that decreases market share for Apple... even though Mac users are buying their computers more often than they were before.

Well, the IDG guy is wrong. Levels of pay will never be equal. There will always be discrepancies in pay around the world. It is only a matter of where and how much, because, as they say, "The future is here...it's just not evenly distributed," and they're right.

In a few years it will be the Indians complaining about how the Africans or the Filipinos are undercutting them. This cycle has already happened in manufacturing.

Second, it's pointless of anyone to start whining about outsourcing now, since it's been going around for decades. The only reason it's getting press now is that it's happening to educated white collar people who and write to the paper and live next to affluent influential neighbors. How come we weren't feeling so doomed when it was poor Americans getting their jobs outsourced to Japan, then Hong Kong, then China?

Finally, because we have the highest standard of living it should not be surprising that it is US here in America who have anything to lose. Of course someone can undercut us. There's no one above us for us to undercut, and everybody below us.

---The billboard, which can be seen at the .Mac HomePage of loug, does not make it clear who is being targeted by the campaign, or why. Mr. Sholkin says his company does not yet know who is behind the billboard, and TMO is attempting to find out more about the group and its aims.---

(if you use the idisk utility type in loug to open his public folder, in it is a free pass to the exhibit hall -$35 value)

Thought you would like to know!

nt

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RealityCheck wrote:
Apple's non-participation only highlights in everyone's mind that Apple is moving on from the Mac to iPod/iTunes and other PC peripherals.

Wow. Give me whatever RC is having, but make it a double. Then maybe I can get into the mental state that could convince me that simply everyone is thinking this.

Personally, I'd wait until the financials come out to pass judgement. Apple has been showing steady growth in both income and revenue for a while now; let's hope they can keep it up. Then we'll have some facts to back up the Apple doomsday predictions. Not that RC needs facts to back up his babbling, since as we've seen in the past, he's just fine making stuff up in order to get people all excited.

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RealityCheck wrote:


It wouldn't surprise me if the truck is from IDG in a desperate attempt to generate some publicity for the show, using reverse psychology.

Like your mindless efforts?

If you outsource jobs for less money, but your market is here, where there is big money, what happens is you are destroying your own market. Which is what happens. Profit margins are sort of stable, but gross is still going down and down. SO, the company has more profit, less money. Less money, less jobs. Less jobs, less people buy product. Gross goes down, so cuts happen to increase or, these days, salvage margins. Educate yourself to increase your value? Those are the jobs disappearing. You could become a physician, i s'pose. Course, more and more people are losing their health insurance, so Dr's are feeling the pinch now as well. Insurance companies and finance companies are starting to get hit pretty hard. None of it is real money. All paper. All service. No value added. Making non existent money off of someone else's non existent money. Meantime, we ship our ore out to become someone else's steel which in turn becomes someone else's buick, and the average value added per unit is 15 grand. Which doesn't come back to america. We lose. Rich, Poor, everyone. I'm so sick of this simplistic Ayn Rand BS. If you truly think you're going to be among the point one percent who is wealthy, then go ahead and fight that war. The laws of probability say it isn't going to happen to you. But if you disagree with everything I've said, you're most likely not going to take a realistic point of view in the first place.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=546

Let's see -- in the industries where union membership rocket above the 12% national average we see -- resounding failure, nationally and internationally. So some losers want us to not attend Macworld for their offbalance and irrational fears -- there's little substantive care. In fact, this is quite a motivator. Too bad union thugs will seek violence against those whom disagree with them.

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Anonymous wrote:
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=546

Guest, how does the Office Depot deal indicate Apple is on the decline?

http://x180.net/Journal/MacOSX/WhyMacRocks.html

[Profane reference deleted by DT]

must have grown up with a silver spoon in your mouth...that is usually who you here this bs from....daddy pay for everything, college, car, etc? I don't believe in unions but.. I will take the benefits that people have greatly sacrificed for...blah, blah, blah. Most people are not liberal or conservative on every issue. They have different points of view on different issues. If they don't they are like you closed minded & ignorant.

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DawnTreader wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=546

Guest, how does the Office Depot deal indicate Apple is on the decline?

I'm hoping it was posted as sarcasm. Otherwise...

RC, There are a number of reasons why Apple is not attending:

1) Dispute between Apple and IDG regarding the location of MacWorld. Apple did not feel the location was in its best interest. It benefits IDG far more than Apple. That is their choice to make.

2) WWDC just ended last month. With the expectations everybody has of Apple releasing new products at every convention, it is a pace that is unsustainable

3) Expos cost a great deal of money for Apple, in this case probably with little perceived return. It is money that would be better spent on advertising to the masses rather than just to the expo attendees.

Try again.

Well, this one anyway. If you were to add up the money I have made in my career and split it into what is directly attributable to a foreign source and what is not, you'd find more than half of what I have made is due to my ability to work freely with people around the world.

Once recent example... A friend of mine is Indian born, had two kids here, set up a business here. He maintains a small office in town, owns a home here, pays taxes. He and his decided that the kids needed to spend some time growing up in India as their families still live there. So he outsourced his own job to India, yet maintains ownership of his home, still keeps the office (and contracts with me to keep an eye on it), still pays taxes and bills and contributes here.

It was quite common in the dot-com boom for European companies to want to set up shop in the US. I was the first US employee of one such company, which set up shop 3 miles from my home and paid very good salaries to many US citizens in its stay here. During the 90s, the US was seen as the center of free trade, and small companies wanted to come here because we welcomed them and we welcomed the opportunities of the global marketplace, especially in the IT sector! Now, the IT labor force here is regarded around the world as a bunch of whiners. Even our own CEOs like Carly Fiorina of HP have expressed the sentiment, and you know what? They are right.

What blows me away is that all any disgruntled US IT worker has to do is re-embrace free trade, and that worker suddenly distinguishes himself from the legions of the disaffected. Simultaneously, embrace the purpose of business (make money) and ditch the feel-good free software rhetoric. Do that, and if you've got decent skills, you are instantly appealiing to people outside the US who would like to believe that we still want to compete, but don't find many qualified workers here who do.

To conclude... Last time I was in Boston for MacWorld was 1996, just at what seemed to be the beginning of the Big Dig. Traffic moved nowhere, and it seemed to this California boy like outside downtown, there was an overuse of brick as building material. It was slighly ironic that the largest brick building near the convention center was THE BRICKLAYERS UNION! This brick thing was great schtick for all the non-chowderheads. Everyone noticed it. Disgruntled US IT workers protesting in Boston should look for a lesson in this.

Why is no-one protesting Apple's outsource of call center jobs to India?

They use a company called "Transworks". Googling finds little information on the subject. The best I've found is one job description: http://www.jobs.net/pls/jobs/jdisplay?jobid=J4Les&search1=finance

Got to say, Apple and Transworks have both done a great job of keeping this quiet.

It's been little publicized, but most Asia-Pacific (like, Australia, New Zealand, HK, Japan, etc) calls are being routed to India, and it's only a matter of time before US calls are sent there too - because it will save Apple money!

And, given enough time, the US and other non-Indian call centers will then be closed down.

Sure, Apple's customer support quality will dip even more, but at least the bottom line will look better!

There's a good chance this is the first time you've heard about this Apple outsourcing, but be sure - it will be big news soon enough.

The only thing that is going to stop globalization of the workforce, environmental concerns, and many many other things is the deaths of about 3 Billion people or so. The more people in the world, the more you better be able to work with them (and be able to beat those who refuse to work together).

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deasys wrote:
They're IT professionals afraid of the rising interest in Mac-based solutions, especially among 'alpha geeks.'

That isn't far off either. I've talked to other IT people that flatly have told me that Macs will cost jobs because they require less mainenance.

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DrDude wrote:
Funny to see the liberal labor union types boycotting one of the most liberal leaning companies (Apple, at least their constituency and CEO) since Ben & Jerry's. Kinda makes you think that they can't decide which handout they want more. Ha.

Get off it. If your non-skilled job has gone overseas, increase your value by educating yourself rather than trying to bring down the rest of this great entrepreneurial economy.

DrDude, I fear you may not fully grasp all of the issues, here. Apple is not being boycotted, or is not the target of this campaign, but rather IDG. Apple is not involved.

Also, the recent great furor over outsourcing is not about unskilled jobs, which are largely already gone, but rather high-tech jobs, as I mentioned in the article. Mind you, I am of mixed opinions on this issue (long term outsourcing is better for the world, as it will bring up living standards elsewhere, while I think it foolish for companies like Apple, Dell, IBM, CitiBank, etc. to outsource support jobs due to what often amounts to a poor customer experience), but if you are going to argue the issue, at least argue salient points.

WOW! Never thought this would be the place for econ 101 to pop up! To the guest who has issues with Ayn Rand, I only hope that you find an economic theory as proven as free-markets to raise the standards for everyone who comes into contact with it. When the Koreans started undercutting the Japanese steel industry, (sound familiar?) the Japanese sounded all the same warning bells. Japan, the US, and all the other democratic free markets are still around, and will continue to be so. EVERYONE benefits here (in a long term perspective) because everyone gets better jobs. The US doesn't rely on farming anymore as the main activity, or even production. Now we are into services and information. And as those jobs get exported, we'll be in the forefront of whatever comes next. As for those who "can't wait 70 years" for that, the goal is to stay on top of what is going on and make what you enjoy doing valuable to someone else. That's what it's all about. So doomsayers beware! Optimism is everywhere!

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grshaner wrote:
WOW! Never thought this would be the place for econ 101 to pop up! To the guest who has issues with Ayn Rand,

oh wait, she's already dead. Good riddance.

It's worth noting that her primary theories were not economic, but religious. And man oh man did the real world pop holes in those. Besides, look at what having a free market economy has done for the rest of the world - driven it into poverty.

It's only the first world that has any cash, and that because we have the technology, the resources, and basically have socialist economic systems.
What the hell is welfare, really?

...remarkable wrong. You might want to clarify and statements about her -- otherwise you're appearing beyond foolish

Hey, I'm as liberal as they come, and I think outsourcing is the natural order of things. If all those factory jobs hadn't gone overseas in the 60's-70's we'd all be stitching levis in some sweatshop. Be thankful that america gets to be the world innovators while everyone else is stuck doing the grunt work. Trust me, you don't want the jobs being outsourced, as better ones have and always will replace them.