Vista to Create 50,000 Jobs in Europe 270
prostoalex writes "A Microsoft-sponsored study found that Vista will be a boon to European economy, as it 'will create more than 50,000 technology jobs in six large European countries and will lead to a flood of economic benefits for companies there,' News.com reports. Europe will see a total of 1.2 mln paychecks thanks to the new operating system: 'In the six countries studied, more than 150,000 IT companies will produce, sell or distribute products or services running on Windows Vista in 2007 and will employ 400,000 people, IDC said. Another 650,000 will be employed in the IT departments of businesses that rely on Vista.'"
Well, in that case (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well, in that case (Score:4, Interesting)
No, no ... you've got it wrong. Its a feature, not a bug. Since every day will have to be "patch Tuesday", IT departments will be able to better integrate patching into their routine ... by hiring staff dedicated to it.
Actually, the nubmers from the article are total bullshit. Those 650,000 staff would be employed whether the business used Vista or not.
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Obviously been sponsored by Microsoft and said companies future in Europe been in the balance I would jump to the conclusion thats its just MS rhetoric hintng that vista will create 50k jobs in Europe as a means for Europe to stop attacking MS's mode of operations.
I dont think the EU will fall for yet another blatent attempt by MS to pull its own strings in Europe.
They hould stick to the US for that coz we aint playing.
This is great (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:This is great (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broke
Mod Parent Up Informative (Score:4, Informative)
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You've gotta admire the spin though.
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It's hardly new. 90% of the "economic boom" of the modern computer industry has been due to the Broken Windows Fallacy for the past decade or so. Mere money is being passed around like crazy, spent on little more than flushing wealth down the toilet, not to mention far too much of my irreplacable time, which I could better spend than fixing stuff that needn't be broken in the first place.
KFG
Re:This is great (Score:5, Insightful)
You are so wrong. You just need to be asked to run small company with all bureaucracy done on paper with typewriter. Absolutely w/o computers. You would understand why the boom happened really: computer market stabilized, became commodity and business at large went from paper-based work flow to computer-based one. In fact, computers now allow small companies to increase business volumes: only because bureaucracy is magnitude cheaper now. Many small/private businesses were often running into NOT limit of productivity - but inability to book all orders properly. Now they can. Computers made that easy.
Though I hardly expect the average underage offsprings of computer era - which are made majority of /. readers /posters - to really understand what really computer and data networks did for small/middle/big companies. We already take all the goods for granted.
Just to give one example, especially important to USA with its large populace of public companies. Before computers came, public companies were really run by few people close to board of directors who have had slight majority of shares. For most of little/private investors it didn't made much of a reason to fly across continent just to participate in meeting/voting regarding some current maters. Now, with advent of computers networks, anyone with no matter how small share of company, can participate in voting - remotely & cheaply. That meant to the public companies whole a lot. Exec officers are now under more scrutiny, since large number of small investors really play role: sum of their votes often is large enough to influence decision making. The sum, to calculate before computers came, was impossible.
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I've been running small businesses since well before the MITS Altair was introduced. I've hand wired vacuum tube bistable multivibrators. As a child I learned to type on a Salvation Army Remi
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You would also then note that M$ doesn't really play important role in OS business per se. M$ really doesn't understand where from its fortune came from.
M$ was earning money making early very different PCs behaving similarly. Or in other words, all those fancy "white boxes" have had all the same interface with the same DOS based OS. M$ power was in control of hardware companies - not in its OS. DOS & Windows was a tool of such control. (Thief's knife has little value unless put against someone's thr
That's a Fairy Tail with M$. (Score:4, Informative)
You just need to be asked to run small company with all bureaucracy done on paper with typewriter. Absolutely w/o computers. You would understand why the boom happened really: computer market stabilized, became commodity and business at large went from paper-based work flow to computer-based one. In fact, computers now allow small companies to increase business volumes: only because bureaucracy is magnitude cheaper now.
Are you trying to tell me that the average M$ shop is paperless? Hold on a second. ... OK, now I'm back from laughing and crying. Large companies have some rudiments of paper replacement. Small companies have simply been throwing their records away or still have paper files. The M$ monopoly has cost us all lots and lots of money.
At fortune 500 companies, pdf and tiff may indeed have replaced paper records, but M$ had nothing to do with it and the actual work is still done one paper. If the company is highly regulated, like a nuclear power plant, they might have called in IBM to make a document serving and saving system and that has marginally decreased total costs. IT costs, as a portion of the total budget did not change at all! Employees loath and distrust their M$ workstations to the point that they carry their actual work on floppies or USB fobs. The M$ "file servers" are even worse about keeping data. All of the work in progress is printed out and done with pen and paper. The results are laboriously typeset with M$ Word. This is not the office of the future.
Small businesses have it even worse. In one way they have an advantage, a lack of legacy systems to draw them down. The problem is that they do not trust the local IT people they can afford to move them into the future with free Unix derivatives. They could do it all with free software but M$ spends billions of dollars a year in FUD to keep them from doing that.
I'm old enough to have seen it all happen and am bitterly disappointed by the slow pace of change. Family members helped computerize medical records at a large regional hospital back in the 70s. They hooked up a terminal in his house back in the day Ma Bell rented people their phones. My first "real" computer was an IBM clone. I hooked a typewriter to it and used it to print my papers, mail and CAD in the 80s. That is the model still used by most companies. 25 years later all correspondence, records keeping, even scratch work, should be electronic but it's not.
The overriding problems for large and small businesses using M$ are poor GUI and poor reliability issues. A lack of virtual desktops forces printing of all real work in progress. If you can't spread it out on your computer, you have to spread it out on your desk. M$'s notorious lack of stability and "complex" file formats rules out their use for real records keeping. Even if the business is bright enough to waste money on Acrobat distiller, so that formatting issues go away, the underlying OS and file system lacks reliability. As noted, only large companies have spent the big bucks on document archive systems people believe in. I've written elsewhere about the way the combination of poor GUI and reliability ruins place keeping and wastes employee time on reboots every day. All of these issues are solved in free software.
The cost of all of this intentional waste may indeed produce hundreds of thousands of jobs. How else would Bill Gates have all his billions? The problem is that every penny spent is waste and we would all be better off if those people were making things that people want and need instead of endlessly running circles around broken equipment which has failed to deliver on it's promise for decades.
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I just had an epiphany.
Twitter is astroturfing.
Not intentionally, mind you. He wouldn't take Microsoft's filthy lucre, nor do I think he's trying reverse psychology to promote them. But every time he posts something like this, his good intentions just end up so much proverbial paving material.
Simple cause and effect should tell you that his worst-case-scenario form of "advocacy" is a blight on this forum. Initial posts are characterized by name calling, long-disproven talking points, unqualified as
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That's like saying... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's like saying hurricane Katrina was a boon to the New Orleans economy, as it instantly created thousands of search & rescue, demolition, rebuilding and emergency management jobs.
You can spin anything any way you like.
Re:That's like saying... (Score:5, Insightful)
that's economics for you (Score:5, Informative)
The reason for such silly conclusions is that large, unquantifiable costs are ignored. In the case of Vista, it will probably create lots of jobs (because it will be a lot of work to install and maintain), but those jobs will not be productive jobs--they don't contribute to what the companies using Vista actually are supposed to do.
In different words, a company producing widgets will still be producing widgets pretty much the same way after Vista has been installed, they'll just have sunk a boatload of money into migrating, retraining, licensing, and hardware upgrades. Furthermore, the computer specialists doing all that work are kept from doing something actually productive. As a result, the cost of widgets has gone up and the economy is worse off overall.
Re:that's economics for you (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you've confused marketeers with economists. Economists (at least the smart ones) ask a fundemnetal question:
This activity occurs at the expense of what?
Evert transaction occurs at the expense of another - if I buy a sweater then I don't buy a TV. You can't just look at any one action but need to look at the impact of that action.
Politicians and marketeers trumpet job creation - those pork barrel projects - they create jobs and pump taxes back into the economy (which I will use to buy more votes) - forget what the original taxpayer might have done with the nmoney had we not taken it in taxes; spent some percent running the government (a deadweight load of sorts) and actually put less back in then we took out.
If Vista makes companies more productive then they can create more jobs - if not then teh net effect is zero (or less because of switching costs)
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I was going to take it a step further: shouldn't the more productive companies be able to cut jobs because they can produce the same output with fewer people? (Yeah, ok, I know this is a stretch for something like Vista, but it was someone else's fantasy to start
Still, I
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On the other hand, if you also calculate my ecological footprint, if everyone lived like me, we'd need four planets to support us all [earthday.net]. Good thing everyone doesn't live like me. It's good to be on top.
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That's like saying the WTC destruction was good for real estate in NYC. Where that may be true it's rather far from a good thing.
Re:That's like saying... (Score:4, Insightful)
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This is this biggest piece of crap to come out of Redmond sinc ethe brown Zune.
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On the downside ... (Score:5, Funny)
Due to the cessation of Windows XP, hordes of people employed to manage, fix and repair systems based around Windows XP will lose their jobs.
Luckily they are mostly expected to get jobs managing, fixing and repairing Windows Vista systems.
Thats it? (Score:5, Funny)
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"Slowly, one by one, the penguins steal my sanity" - Unknown
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Yup, that's it. (Score:3, Insightful)
in other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
But how does announcing this help their business? (Score:5, Insightful)
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If MS can sell that, I can advance my plan to replace PCs with offices full of Bob Cratchetts doing accounts with fountain pens and abacuses. I can create 5 million jobs overnight.
Too complicated (Score:5, Insightful)
Vista is so complex that it's going to be a nightmare to try to get a handle on it. These new jobs are glaziers making glass for windows broken by boys throwing rocks. False industry, and a burden on resources. These people could be doing something productive but instead they'll be put to work holding Vista together.
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IIRC, that analogy generally works best if it's the glaziers throwing rocks
Obviously bollocks (Score:5, Insightful)
Same goes for those that "will be employed in the IT departments of businesses that rely on Vista." Because previously they were using XP.
Vista brings nothing to Europe, but this is just about the EU actually making a stand against Microsoft's illegal actions.
Re:Obviously bollocks (Score:5, Insightful)
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There is a shortage already (Score:2)
Oh wait...
Broken window falacy of economic activity (Score:5, Insightful)
Now while I could probably be convinced that Windows Vista has _some_ productivity benefits over current systems I doubt it's really that large. In many cases the net contribution of these 650k people is going to be in fact negative as their disruption and need to prove their own continued usefullness actually decreases productivity of society as a whole - fixing things that aren't broken for example.
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I don't know, all those project managers spend their salaries, helping to keep the economy afloat...
EU (Score:2)
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When it comes to anti-spyware and anti-virus, these are both a bad idea in any case... It's foolish to allow this malware onto your machine and then try to remove it. Microsoft should be improving the OS so it's more resillient to such things, and therefore has no need for addit
Conflict of interest (Score:2)
For MS to sell a product that fixes the faults in their principle product is a conflict of interest. They should be required to fix the original product, not allowed to double dip on the fix also.
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You assume wrong.
The Media Player thing didn't result in Microsoft being forced to flog XP without Media Player in the EU. However, they are obliged to make a version without Media Player available. Nobody else, however is obliged to buy it.
OEMs, not much liking the idea of customers complaining that "Joe down the road just bought a new PC from (some other major OEM), and HE got media player!" for the
Sure it will. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sure it will. (Score:5, Funny)
Decline? (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand ... (Score:4, Insightful)
If I were an IT decision-maker in Europe I might read this differently. Hmmm, 50,000 jobs is a lot of Euros. What exactly are we getting for that huge expenditure? Maybe we should think a little more carefully about doing this upgrade and consider the alternatives.
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What "unique" capabilities would that be?
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Of course... (Score:5, Funny)
Steve Gibson was right (Score:5, Interesting)
sPh
[1] The old SpinRite guy who wrote a lot of good utilities in the DOS era.
Solution? (Score:2, Funny)
They probably could fix overpopulation too if they'd ship cyanide capsules with the installation media.
How is that good? (Score:2)
=="Vista to cost European companies $3bn/year" (Score:2, Interesting)
TCO? (Score:2)
Sounds like one more piece of ammo for Linux, the BSDs, or even Apple.
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Where's the edit button.....
Too bad... (Score:3, Funny)
How many more jobs would be created if ... (Score:5, Funny)
If this is how one creates jobs, one can create even more jobs if Europe switches to CP/M or IBM 370/155 or Cyber 170 NOS.
Switching costs? (Score:2)
How many jobs will it create to switch to Linux instead of Vista? Is it time to rewrite the TCO studies at the get-the-facts campaign?
News? (Score:2)
To paraphrase: (Score:2)
Assuming, of course, that the EU gets their way [slashdot.org] :-)
Fixed it for ya... (Score:2)
"A Microsoft-sponsored study found that Vista will be such a pain in the ass to install and support that it 'will create more than 50,000 IT support jobs in six large European countries and will lead to a flood of complaints for companies there..."
I'm amazed at the arrogance of publishing this (Score:2)
Did nobody in Microsoft's PR department see that this is bad news of monstrous proportions? Were they really shouted down by people who think the public is gullible enough to believe the 'broken=good for the economy' spin? At a time when businesses like mine can see no benefit whatsoever to changing to Vista, I'm stunned that they didn't bury this story as deep as they could. There's somethin
In other news... (Score:2)
So basically it's an economic disaster (Score:5, Insightful)
Vista to create jobs (Score:2)
Terrorist creates 50 000 jobs in Europe (Score:2)
What the article is *really* saying (Score:2)
50,000 Lawyers jobs (Score:2)
another microsoft-sponsored study (Score:2)
Vista will cost 2.5 Billion dollars? (Score:4, Insightful)
How is spending an additional 2.5 Billion Euro a good thing?
Or did they do this to draw away from the 5 Billion (100k new jobs) later in the article.
That 5 Billion is money that can't be spent on other things, is it really a good idea to flaunt how much vista is going to cost us?
Oh, it certainly will (Score:2)
Not to mention all the people who'll take up the challenge of being the first to whack DRM out of it so the spice flows again.
interesting numbers .. (Score:2)
At an average salary of UK£30,000 that would mean Vista adding 1.5^52 or roughly UK£1.5 BILLION to the European economy. Thats US$2,823,734,500 DOLLARS. I don't think so.
"IDC believes that more than half of the gain in Windows-related employment will be specifically related to Windows Vista. It is growth that IDC believes would not occur were Windows Vista not in the market,"
I fai
What MS really mean is.... (Score:2)
50,000 Jobs' Worth of Expenses (Score:2)
This is a good example of spin.
50,000 jobs? (Score:2)
Arg! No. Vista will cost companies 6.5 Billion (Score:2)
Taking that number and multiplying it by these new jobs which are going to be required to support Vista, and you're draining 6.5 Billio
Redundant Jobs (Score:2)
This is a losing proposition for Microsoft among businesses that can say "no" to Vista and are not afraid of jumping ship to other, more cost effective computing solutions.
Is
In other news (Score:2)
Neighbor state Mississippi is concerned that those 100,000 jobs are going to come from their labor pool, leaving them bereft of any Re-Construction laborers though they did say the lawyers and clerks will not be missed.
Alabama state said they were jealous as they hadn't seen that many new jobs created in the last
Sadly... (Score:2)
...all the jobs will be guards for the "relocation" camps to which those that violate Microsoft DRM will be sent.
Aw, geez, here comes another Flambait mod. Oh well.
Surprise! Windows creates jobs! (Score:2)
the EU better watch out (Score:2)
(http://crashrecovery.org/us-army-unix.jpg )
"It was also not by coincidence then that, in the same winter of 1994-95, McCoy revealed to me that he was using former Green Berets to conduct physical surveillance of the Washington, DC offices of Microsoft in connection with the PROMIS case. FTW has, within the last month, received information indicating that piracy of Microsoft products at the GE Aerospace Herndon facility were like
TCO (Score:2)
50.000 jobs? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like an army of IT workers supposed to assist Europe's migration to GNU/Linux...
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I agree with you. I thought all this modernization and automation stuff was supposed to REDUCE a company's investment in labour, not increase it.