General Category > Comic Related Discussion
ipad for reading (not just golden-age) comics
John C:
--- Quote from: Drusilla lives! on June 26, 2010, 02:13:52 PM ---So if things seem to come full circle, well that shouldn't surprise anyone IMO. :)
--- End quote ---
What surprises me isn't that we reinvent (after all, there's only a finite number of ways to organize computers, an each has its distinct benefits), but rather that it hits with such regular frequency (today it's Google and Facebook; in 1995 it was Sun, Microsoft, and AOL; in 1980 there were the BBSs; and in 1965, they were planning ARPANet) and that it's almost precisely the same story every time. And that, well, everybody's always surprised...
GeneYas:
--- Quote from: JVJ on June 26, 2010, 11:30:37 AM ---More clearly made and understood this time, Gene. I agree with you that businesses don't need large local hard drives on their desktops. Does that mean you envision businesses going back to the dumb terminal model? We've come a long way in 30 years to end up where we started. Only difference is the mainframe gets replaced by the net. Hmmm... Seems like a precarious position to me. ALL of the arguments in the 80s for desktop PCs revolved around "what if the mainframe goes down?" To avoid production (i.e. all work) just stopping, they gave us PCs. I have the same question for the net. So much inter-connectivity demands a robust network. If everything depends on the Internet and the data in the cloud, we're back in the same scenario as the mainframe and its hard drive. Might happen, but it's fraught with weaknesses.
Been there, got out of that.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
--- End quote ---
In 1999, where I work.... we had a full in-house IT department They could do anything. Results were instant. The IT department was our friend. In 2001, the IT department was shrunk, and moved off site. It handled multiple geographic locations, and service was atrocious. You could reach the call center in the Philippines, but the things they could fix over the phone were limited. In 2005, we shifted to SAP software for business management. The software was rolled out and they were immediately telling me I needed a dumb terminal. Dumb terminals were placed everywhere. I argued against a dumb terminal at my desk and won, but that was how the software was pitched to management. Management wanted dumb terminals with low paid employees to just plug in numbers. It's ended up being the opposite, but the sales pitch worked to get the software in the door. I believe cloud computing is an inevitable goal that will be forced upon us over time. The sad thing is that 90% of the consumers will openly embrace it because it will be dressed up to look pretty and it will do wonderful things by the time they accept it.
Gene
John C:
--- Quote from: GeneYas on June 27, 2010, 04:42:08 AM ---Management wanted dumb terminals with low paid employees to just plug in numbers. It's ended up being the opposite, but the sales pitch worked to get the software in the door. I believe cloud computing is an inevitable goal that will be forced upon us over time. The sad thing is that 90% of the consumers will openly embrace it because it will be dressed up to look pretty and it will do wonderful things by the time they accept it.
--- End quote ---
Ah, but take heart, Gene, because that's exactly how we ended up with all the engineering outsourced to places like India, the Philippines, Russia, and so forth. And how's that working out?
At least in the New York area, where you couldn't find a good software development job unless you were very lucky, five or six years ago, today the experiment has failed (for now) and you'd be hard-pressed to find a company outsourcing development.
IT will follow, once enough CEOs and CTOs are embarrassed at high-profile meetings by a blue screen and bad support for their ever-increasing costs. Claiming you've saved money by inconveniencing everybody doesn't hold up when you've lost a few major contracts along the way.
narfstar:
Have you called customer support and gotten fewer people speaking with heavy accents? Companies found that most people did not want someone on the other end of the line they could not understand. Seems you are more likely to get someone who at least sounds like they are American
John C:
--- Quote from: narfstar on June 28, 2010, 06:11:39 AM ---Have you called customer support and gotten fewer people speaking with heavy accents?
--- End quote ---
Actually, I'm not sure it'll work for anybody else, but I pretty much stopped calling customer support when I realized I could send angry e-mails and end with, "if you can't handle this, please forward immediately to someone with greater authority rather than contacting me to explain that you're unable to help." It's been surprisingly effective, though I do need to know exactly what I need to happen. Without solid direction, nobody ever seems interested in helping.
--- Quote from: narfstar on June 28, 2010, 06:11:39 AM ---Companies found that most people did not want someone on the other end of the line they could not understand. Seems you are more likely to get someone who at least sounds like they are American
--- End quote ---
Coming from a company that used one of the big overseas services, I can tell you it goes beyond that. You're basically hiring a staff that, on an individual basis, makes a few pennies a day with the goal of closing the case.
In other words, they're paid crap, and they're not being paid that crap to help you or care about the client's business on any level.
There are ways to make that work out, but most companies think the solution is to either suck it up or call the manager screaming that they're only keeping to the contract. It's not...
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version