Jamaica seeks product assembly agreement with China

[Don1]

Why do you want to know?

when people like to chat about issues I like to focus on solutions...hence my interest.

[Jawge]

Let me ask you this: when the routers that link say a bank in US to europe goes down; do you call a burger flipper resolve the issue? If there is programming glitch in a sotfware do you call on manual labor? Move to embedded systems; in cars, elevators et al (most of these systems run on windows or linux) do you call on amual labor? Ja could do product support for toyota dealers in the US alone and live nice.

Boss know the market before you speak.

[Jawge]

so you have solutions for maldon's reform. yes?

[Don1]

so you have solutions for maldon's reform. yes?

I have a piece of the puzzle

[Jawge]

Good, are you going to send it to them?

[Assasin]

Nobody is saying this is all we need. This is however very good for low and middle class income earners. Many single mothers who are the backbone of Jamaica and who shop inna cornation market. This only stand to boost middle class income.

Did China, Taiwan and Honkong grow on hitech jobs or low tech jobs and then move on? In India doctors are now doing customer service jobs as there is more demand and pay for it.

[Assasin]

that a true but we are where we are and with a jump start many will actually show their true colours. As you and I know nothing is better than a dedicated Jamaican worker.

Digicel is a prime example as many of the workers who started out with them have been able excell with a little bit of training. It is not that some are dumb but they just don't have the oppurtunity.

[Don1]

Boss let me add that product support is not really low end these days. You have to have highly qualified people (depending on the sophistication of the product) who even trouble shoot remotely. You may be thinking of answering phones about bill payment. That's not what I'm talking about.

I guess some are lower end than others.... but this is a low end slot in the IT matrix.

We do need many low end jobs and a strategy for that...we also need a longer term strategy for value added jobs as well.

That strategy is MIA.

[Islandman]

Oh I agree. I am not sayign that we don't have the aptitude for those jobs or those higher up the scale. We have as many smart people as anybody else.

Its just that if the education system not producing a mojority of graduates who are literate and easily and quickly trained then you can end up with investment but little economic growth and wonder where the money going.

But the flip side is that without the economic growth it is hard to sustain an affordable education system of any quality, as the PNP found out in the 70s. Thats why it is not an easy problem to solve.

At this point though i will take the low-end jobs and see where we can go from there.

[Assasin]

Well HEART is successful. The funny thing is HEART is a second chance to people who didn't get a first. The main reason in my book is it was not stuffed with political hack. It was people who went and took test and qualified for most part and trained. Give credit to Seaga for starting and PJ et. all to continue in that mode.

As you say it is a double edge sword, You need the oppurtunity as well as the education. The oppurtunity encourage the education.

[Don1]

Good, are you going to send it to them?

There is no sending to "them"

It has to be sent to someone who is responsible, motivated and able to execute.

otherwise it's a waste of my time.

[Jawge]

It's obvious that yu don't know the industry. Do you think windows was built by just one set of programers? I can recall the head of NAS saying it's impossible for any one human to understand the OS for the space shuttle. That said; with the pace of changing technology and demands, you have people specializing in certain applications and products. This way you get quick answers to problems. If theVOIP application goes down do you think the CEO wants to here from the Net admin. that he is studying or researching to come up with a solution? No you call Cisco or whoever makes that phone to get it resolved (you will be then be transfered to Mexico, CR or India). As time progresses and technological products get more sophisticated most if not all will have to be supported by robots (see bill joy's essay) but for now subsets can use human support.

I know you are not in the business and don't know the industry. I wasn't speaking about IT in terms of support I was leaning to towards embeded systems (look it up).

[Don1]

It's obvious that yu don't know the industry. Do you think windows was built by just one set of programers? I can recall the head of NAS saying it's impossible for any one human to understand the OS for the space shuttle. That said; with the pace of changing technology and demands, you have people specializing in certain applications and products. This way you get quick answers to problems. If theVOIP application goes down do you think the CEO wants to here from the Net admin. that he is studying or researching to come up with a solution? No you call Cisco or whoever makes that phone to get it resolved (you will be then be transfered to Mexico, CR or India). As time progresses and technological products get more sophisticated most if not all will have to be supported by robots (see bill joy's essay) but for now subsets can use human support.

I know you are not in the business and don't know the industry. I wasn't speaking about IT in terms of support I was leaning to towards embeded systems (look it up).

Nonsense...these are low end jobs staffed by people who do not have any great expertise. They know the small particular area, program or system they are trained to support on a phone call.... the training may take a few weeks....and they are provided with manuals to walk thru issues.

if you regard that as not low end in today's tech environment you need your head examined.... then again we all know you need it examined fram a longa time.

Jamaica does need many such low end jobs but must aspire to and build the knowledge base to move up the value chain to creating products & services under contract and/or independently....just as India has done successfully.

Indian tech companies like Infosys and Wipro now compete with and often outcompete Western rivals like IBM, Computer Associates, EDS etc.

Suggest you stick to operating whatever system you operate...you may be competent in that....leave POLICY to people who study and work in that area.

[Jawge]

Boss how yuh luv chat fart so? low tech? six weeks? Who yuh know learn linux (especially the kernel) in six weeks? Do you think I'm talking about making a directory , copying a file or laoding the os? Have you ever written a line of code? Do you really know about embeded systems?

China that you boast about can tell you that when the soviet union deliberately shiped dismantled fighter jets to them; they could not put it together with all the manuals they had (forget about reverse engineering). The Russian experts had to come and show them step by step. Matter of fact the only country that could handle high technology in this region is cuba. You don't seem to know that the reason why India, china and even Iran seem to have a grasp on technology is because of the USA during the cold war days. The military and its technology has a lot to do with a country's commercial technology.

Now please tell me what you call "high tech" and how will JA secure a partnership or contract in this area.

[Willi]

Wha?

Intel had a chip Fab in Costa Rica!!

I dont know Linux or even Unix. I stopped programming long time, but I used Fortran, Pascal, COBOL and APL. I did work in dbase and Informix as well.