[Paquadez]

This thread started in http://forums.techguy.org/t174135/s.html
which is the discussion about the Financial Cost to Rebuild Iraq.

However, since there are some pretty significant issues that emerged, concerning the strategic and financial dangers of outsourcing technology, ComputerFix and I agreed that it deserved a separate thread, to widen the debate and fuurther explore the issues, herein.

Paq

[plschwartz]

PAQ
Let me cut to the chase.
Knock off have been with us for a long time, as we can tell by poor contemporary reproductions of classical statues, european porcelain etc.
The question is what can be done about it?
Tariff wall are the usual response. But I can remember a certain disagreement betwixt our two peoples over British attempts to protect its manufacturing.
With our great need for imported energy I do not think we can go back to this kind of tariff-wall policy.

BTW I do believe there are a lot of americans afraid of this kind of change and I wonder how much the Clinton-Gore insistence on getting ready for the 21st century scared these folks. And why a 19th century attempt to seize oilfields was so attractive to them.
But as ole Heraclitus said you cannot step into the same river twice
I think the sad fact is that we cannot prevent movement of production and now services off-shore. The only way to maintain some of our standard of living is to exploit the advantages that our political and educational systems have given us.

Well this is gloomy gus signing off.

[Paquadez]

Absolutely right, PLS.

The mistake the UK made, was to gradually and then increasingly at an exponential rate, cease manufacture of high volume - low cost items, since they were cheaper from abroad: but then not replace them with low volume - high cost items, which required a far geater application of science, skill, innovation and technology.

As GB pointed out, silicon is now a soft technology, since with a bit of expert input, almost any country can achieve it.

However, no country apart from the USA (Intel) can produce comparable PC CPUs, mainly because Intel work with MS.

Intel also achieve probably the highest silicon "Real Estate" Value in CPUs. (i.e. the value of each finished wafer before it is die cut into separate ICs).

The big question in my mind is, once (e.g.) HP have placed ALL their production offshore and run down their capacity and more importantly, their ability to design and make PCs, what do they replace this with?

If Carly has her way "Services", which is precisely what killed off ICT (our last mainframe manufacturer) in the UK.

Paq

[plschwartz]

PAQ
but see http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1640/

Does it make sense to think of a CPU optimized for linux?

[Paquadez]

Yep!

Linux has already gained circa 30% of the "Serious" server market.

With "On Demand" computing, where all the majors are headed, more and more laptops and PCs will not require such an oudated, unstable and expensive OS.

Paq

[Paquadez]

Sorry, People.

I have confused Candy!

This debate is now at:http://forums.techguy.org/t175700/s.html

Paq