 By Rick Grams October 31, 2005
For at least the past three years (my own humble opinion) the Intel chip has been overrated within the technology industry. Computer companies that rely primarily on this chip architecture are providing one trait to their customers, a sales line. For those that do not know, inside PC style computers there are one of two brands of processors. The processor will either be an Intel brand processor or an AMD brand processor. An article posted by The Register
out of the United Kingdom highlights the technical details of
the weaknesses in architecture that both Dell and HP continue
to support There's more to the subject of these two companies. It is bad enough that they emphasize marketing over that of a quality product, but they also support the concept of using the cheapest labor in the world to build their products. Reviewing the web site www.hireamericancitizens.org I found a "Company Hall of Shame" list that includes both Dell and HP as companies who sponsor "American worker replacement programs". In case you do not know what that means, it basically consists of Americans training non-American people how to do the American job. When that training is successfully completed, the American job goes away (it truly just ceases to exist) to a different country. This trend is completely anti American in concept and in practice. However, once again there is
a company proving the trend does not have to be followed in order
to be successful. MPC computers (formerly known as Micron) continues
to invest in the American workforce with high quality products.
Reviewing news articles on companies that believe in America,
I ran across a transcript from a Lou Dobbs broadcast. The broadcast
focuses on the company's In-sourcing initiatives for manufacturing
and technical support. There is a point to all of this. Computers and technology have become the tools that run the world. The computer is part of a larger business plan within any company, and my hope would be for a business plan to include long term goals with an awareness of economic impacts within our American society. As our community of Ketchikan has felt a major economic punch due to the mechanisms of outsourcing and the availability of substandard products (examples include trees from other parts of the world vs. local trees, fish farming vs. wild salmon, and imported totem poles vs. hand made totem poles) I think it is important for all to be aware of this underlying impact on the business of technology that many take for granted. Rick Grams and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sitnews.
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