Archive for November, 2003

WSJ.com - America Plays Fair. Does China?

Allen November 28th, 2003

Not sure if we can truly say we “play fair” when we start slapping import duties on “American-made bras”. Mind you, there are no American-made bras anymore.

A quote from the article:

We have been patient, but America’s patience is wearing thin. While China has made some progress in moving into compliance with its obligations under the WTO, we have seen a loss of momentum. The AmCham-China chose 14 benchmarks to test China’s WTO commitment performance. As of July 19, China had made good on two, had made some progress on seven, and had significant problems with the other five.

A flood of counterfeit products is being produced, consumed and exported by China. The Business Software Alliance estimates software piracy rates in China exceed 90% and it is reasonable to assume that the vast majority of the Chinese government is operating with pirated software. China’s state-run banks are another concern. China’s savings are trapped in a system of indentured capital. There is no economic justification for the loans extended to unprofitable businesses in China, and nonperforming loans are a form of state subsidy. According to some estimates, nonperforming loans account for as much as half of China’s lending portfolios.

Another blog entry (should be above this one) addresses issues of a possible slow-down in the Chinese economy. Lots of inefficient companies who are “chasing the smart money”.

I remember reading another hard-copy article about Chinese companies who are suggesting that companies setting up shop in China should not design efficient systems. The idea that Chinese workers are paid so cheap that it’s not worth the effort to design such systems.

More comments on this sort of activity later. I’ve been listening to Lean Thinking and they have a lot to say about overseas shipments of goods and moota.

WSJ.com - America Plays Fair. Does China?

Allen November 28th, 2003

Not sure if we can truly say we “play fair” when we start slapping import duties on “American-made bras”. Mind you, there are no American-made bras anymore.

A quote from the article:

We have been patient, but America’s patience is wearing thin. While China has made some progress in moving into compliance with its obligations under the WTO, we have seen a loss of momentum. The AmCham-China chose 14 benchmarks to test China’s WTO commitment performance. As of July 19, China had made good on two, had made some progress on seven, and had significant problems with the other five.

A flood of counterfeit products is being produced, consumed and exported by China. The Business Software Alliance estimates software piracy rates in China exceed 90% and it is reasonable to assume that the vast majority of the Chinese government is operating with pirated software. China’s state-run banks are another concern. China’s savings are trapped in a system of indentured capital. There is no economic justification for the loans extended to unprofitable businesses in China, and nonperforming loans are a form of state subsidy. According to some estimates, nonperforming loans account for as much as half of China’s lending portfolios.

Another blog entry (should be above this one) addresses issues of a possible slow-down in the Chinese economy. Lots of inefficient companies who are “chasing the smart money”.

I remember reading another hard-copy article about Chinese companies who are suggesting that companies setting up shop in China should not design efficient systems. The idea that Chinese workers are paid so cheap that it’s not worth the effort to design such systems.

More comments on this sort of activity later. I’ve been listening to Lean Thinking and they have a lot to say about overseas shipments of goods and moota.

Don’t Trust Your Code to Strangers - Making I.T. Work - CIO Magazine Sep 15,2003

Allen November 28th, 2003

An argument against outsourcing your IT work. A quote from the article:

He told me that before Wal-Mart’s people actually write and deploy an app, they make the developer work in the job the app is being written to support. If Wal-Mart devises a new point-of-sale system, for example, software team members have to spend time working the cash registers first. Design empathy for software development is, of course, a wonderful thing. There’s also no argument to be made against the world’s largest retailer’s enviable returns on its enormous IT investments. The numbers speak for themselves.

That said, making your programmers work the registers or inventory the stockrooms represents a level of involvement that’s not taught in most software curricula. I had never heard of or observed a major company making that kind of ongoing commitment.

Listening to the user, yes; being the user, no.

But the Wal-Mart story provokes an obvious but underappreciated aspect of software development methodology. Empathy may or may not lead to high-quality code, but it surely improves the chances that the app will be adopted and implemented by its intended users. CIOs can’t afford to ignore the critical link between software development and application deployment. Yet they often do. They believe that they can actually save money by outsourcing the development of code and divorcing development and deployment. That’s simply not true.

I can’t help but wonder that the shops that outsource (either near-shore or off-shore) their IT see IT as a cost burden to be minimized. IT is not seen in these shops as having strategic value.

Only time will tell if the great IT diaspora will bring true cost savings to the companies pursuing this trend. However, I do know of one company where the “non-IT” workers are now setting up shadow IT departments because they can’t get comprehensive, responsive and correct solutions from their offshore partners.

These companies are saving paper money on the IT budget and loosing real money from shadow IT budgets.

Don’t Trust Your Code to Strangers - Making I.T. Work - CIO Magazine Sep 15,2003

Allen November 28th, 2003

An argument against outsourcing your IT work. A quote from the article:

He told me that before Wal-Mart’s people actually write and deploy an app, they make the developer work in the job the app is being written to support. If Wal-Mart devises a new point-of-sale system, for example, software team members have to spend time working the cash registers first. Design empathy for software development is, of course, a wonderful thing. There’s also no argument to be made against the world’s largest retailer’s enviable returns on its enormous IT investments. The numbers speak for themselves.

That said, making your programmers work the registers or inventory the stockrooms represents a level of involvement that’s not taught in most software curricula. I had never heard of or observed a major company making that kind of ongoing commitment.

Listening to the user, yes; being the user, no.

But the Wal-Mart story provokes an obvious but underappreciated aspect of software development methodology. Empathy may or may not lead to high-quality code, but it surely improves the chances that the app will be adopted and implemented by its intended users. CIOs can’t afford to ignore the critical link between software development and application deployment. Yet they often do. They believe that they can actually save money by outsourcing the development of code and divorcing development and deployment. That’s simply not true.

I can’t help but wonder that the shops that outsource (either near-shore or off-shore) their IT see IT as a cost burden to be minimized. IT is not seen in these shops as having strategic value.

Only time will tell if the great IT diaspora will bring true cost savings to the companies pursuing this trend. However, I do know of one company where the “non-IT” workers are now setting up shadow IT departments because they can’t get comprehensive, responsive and correct solutions from their offshore partners.

These companies are saving paper money on the IT budget and loosing real money from shadow IT budgets.

Front Line Voices: Hi Daddy

Allen November 28th, 2003

I tend to be somewhat cynical and wary of “sob” stories. Many people live in the world who seek to live off the emotions of others.

However, this story comes from a site that I trust and the story sounds true.

So this Thanksgiving weekend, ask yourself, “How can I show proper thanks for all the blessing I have been given in this life?”

Once you answer that question, visit this site.

Front Line Voices: Hi Daddy

Allen November 28th, 2003

I tend to be somewhat cynical and wary of “sob” stories. Many people live in the world who seek to live off the emotions of others.

However, this story comes from a site that I trust and the story sounds true.

So this Thanksgiving weekend, ask yourself, “How can I show proper thanks for all the blessing I have been given in this life?”

Once you answer that question, visit this site.

Melinda Lee — Turkey Basics (Including the Ultimate Brine)

Allen November 28th, 2003

Cool page describing how to “perfectly” roast a Turkey. Also includes a pretty good sounding brine.

Of course, if we weren’t eating sawdust turkeys to begin with, we might not need a brine.

Conviced the DW that we should try a Heritage Turkey next year. We’ll see….

[Via MetaFilter]

Melinda Lee — Turkey Basics (Including the Ultimate Brine)

Allen November 28th, 2003

Cool page describing how to “perfectly” roast a Turkey. Also includes a pretty good sounding brine.

Of course, if we weren’t eating sawdust turkeys to begin with, we might not need a brine.

Conviced the DW that we should try a Heritage Turkey next year. We’ll see….

[Via MetaFilter]

Fables of the Reconstruction - Bush isn’t really favoring Halliburton and Bechtel. By Daniel Drezner

Allen November 24th, 2003

If there is going to be a vast right-wing conspiracy to favor Halliburton and Bechtel, one would hope that Dubya & Co would be, say, competent about it.

Unfortunately for H&B, there appears to be little correlation between the size of the contribution and the size of reconstruction contract.

Quoting from the article:

Running the numbers, the good news for the Center for Public Integrity is that there is indeed a positive correlation between contributions and contracts. The bad news is, the correlation coefficient turns out to be 0.192 and not statistically significant. To understand how weak those numbers are, go to this Web site and move your cursor to 0.2. An old joke among statistically minded social scientists is that “the world is correlated at 0.3.”

[Via
Dean's World]

Fables of the Reconstruction - Bush isn’t really favoring Halliburton and Bechtel. By Daniel Drezner

Allen November 24th, 2003

If there is going to be a vast right-wing conspiracy to favor Halliburton and Bechtel, one would hope that Dubya & Co would be, say, competent about it.

Unfortunately for H&B, there appears to be little correlation between the size of the contribution and the size of reconstruction contract.

Quoting from the article:

Running the numbers, the good news for the Center for Public Integrity is that there is indeed a positive correlation between contributions and contracts. The bad news is, the correlation coefficient turns out to be 0.192 and not statistically significant. To understand how weak those numbers are, go to this Web site and move your cursor to 0.2. An old joke among statistically minded social scientists is that “the world is correlated at 0.3.”

[Via
Dean's World]

Next »