Module4: The World is Flat IT Interview

            The job I have chosen to explore is Software Engineering.  The reason I have chosen this field is that I will be going into this field.  Since I will be entering this field someday, I have some friends and acquaintances that already work as Software Engineers.  Compared to other fields, Software Engineering is a relatively new occupation; as well as other computer science occupations. 

The history of Software Engineering begins in the 1950’s when programming languages started to appear.  Some of these languages are Fortran, COBOL, and ALGOL.  The primary reason for these languages at the time of their development was to assist with scientific, algorithmic, and business problems.  Some of these languages are still used today and in some cases are used extensively.  For example, when you go to a store and purchase an item with a credit card, the underlining algorithm ultimately uses the COBOL language for the transaction; thus, millions of transactions are made daily using an old, low level, secure language such as COBOL.

Later, in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s object oriented programming languages started to emerge.  Some of these languages were Objective-C, C++, and Smalltalk.  In the early 1990’s open source software, a way for anyone to view the computer code to the program, was introduced into the computer science world.  Open source software, in ways, is superior to closed source software, because more people can develop the program and a collective knowledge is available to develop better applications.

In 2004, according to U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 760,840 individuals held a software engineering position in the United States.  Many of the software engineers work as employees or contractors.  The entities that software engineers work for can be businesses, government agencies, and non-profit organizations; however, some software engineers work as freelancers for themselves.  Many large organizations employ specialists to carry out the software development process.  These specialists are mainly analysts, developers, architects, testers, technical support, and managers.  Small organizations require software engineers to take the role of all different specialists to complete the task of software development.

The dot com bubble burst of the 1990’s led to an impact of software engineering jobs leaving the country.  Currently, statistics do not show a threat to software engineering positions; however, computer programming positions have seen a decline. 

Having programmers and software engineers around the globe can be a great benefit to a company.  When the programmers and engineers leave for home after work in the United States, the programmers and engineers in India arrive at work to continue the work.  Then, when the individuals in India leave for home, employees in Europe arrive at work to continue where the Indian employees left off.  In essence, the company can have employees work 24 hours per day and not have to payout any overtime. 

While talking to a friend of mine that is a full-time civilian software engineer for the United States Air Force since 2004, he mentioned to me that they outsource many of their projects to contractors located inside the United States.  They do not send their projects offshore, because when material leaves the bounds of the United States, the entities outside the United States do not fall under United States jurisdiction and can use that material elsewhere or send it to other unapproved entities. 

            He enjoys many aspects of a software engineering occupation.  He is able to accomplish different tasks every day, which helps in making the days an adventure.  The tasks stimulate him in a way that he can stay current with changing technologies.  When he compiles programs, he can see instant results from his work, which makes his job that much more gratifying.  He also considers this occupation as, what he called, “a family friendly career” and the money is good.

            Some of the things that make the occupation difficult or disliked are the following: at times he experiences slow down periods, documentation needs for new or existing applications, at times end users can be difficult to work with, and sometimes the schedule can be fairly erratic but has regular hours.  Overall, he enjoys the field.

Module 3: The World is Flat (pages 137-199)

Offshoring entails that a company be established in two different countries.  According to “The World is Flat,” offshoring is defined as not just moving a task or a job to another entity, but either establishing a factory and office or relocating a factory and office to a different country.  Outsourcing is different than offshoring in that outsourcing only sends tasks and jobs to different companies; then in turn, the different company completes the tasks or jobs and sends the information or product to the requesting company.  Offshoring is establishing or relocating a factory for the same company outside of the country; thus, the same company has multiple locations, inside and outside the country. 

Offshoring has advantages and disadvantages.  Some of the advantages include: having your company inside a country that can leverage labor and health benefits to the advantage of the company; which in turn, increases revenue and makes it possible to channel more resources to research and development.  Another advantage to offshoring is the company can send work that may be tedious and the jobs, perhaps, many would deem unfavorable.  I think probably the best advantage is having your foot in a country that has a massive manufacturing capability with costs at a manageable amount.  The disadvantages are jobs that leave the country.  Many American people lose their jobs to low paid personnel with little to no health benefits included.  The result includes higher unemployment rate, and in many instances, when the unemployed find employment, their wage can be considerable lower than their previous job. 

            Friedman describes supply chain as a system for a company that moves a product or service from a supplier to a customer.  Wal-Mart has come to grips with the reality of harnessing such a powerful tool.  Wal-Mart is the first company to send private information to their suppliers.  When an item is sold at a register at Wal-Mart, a notification is sent to their supplier to ship another to Wal-Mart’s distribution center. This process greatly decreases the duration when an item is “out of stock” at a Wal-Mart location.  Wal-Mart also barters with their vendors and suppliers to have the best quality at the lowest price; thus, decreasing cost.  Also, Wal-Mart has implemented software that greatly enhances their efficiencies.  When one of their trucks unload merchandise at a distribution center, that truck is then sent to a nearby supplier to receive a shipment; the truck is nearly always loaded with some kind of merchandise, which increases efficiencies in the logistics department.  Wal-Mart has also had their suppliers tag the merchandise.  These RFID (radio frequency identification microchips) tags are attached to pallets and assist Wal-Mart employees to identify what is in the box.  The RFID tag stores information like the manufacturer, expiration date, temperature needed, color, and type.

Supply chains are a powerful tool that increases efficiencies in companies.  Through a supply chain costs decrease, efficiencies increase, and executives are happy.  Through Wal-Mart’s people, information technologies, resources, activities, information, and organizations; Wal-Mart has taken charge of their supply chain.  Since Wal-Mart has an outstanding supply chain, inventories are kept low, out of stock items are replenished quickly and efficiently, costs are at a minimum, relationships of trust are made between supplier and Wal-Mart, and maybe the most important to customers, savings are passed to consumers.

Google has really made possible, the impossible.  Before the internet and the World Wide Web, we had to go to a library to discover and read about new things; but now, we have the world library at our fingertips.  Through services like Google’s search engine, we can search through millions of documents and the most relevant pages and document appear at the beginning of the search results.  Through Google, businesses can find addresses, get intelligence on future and current employees, translate into a foreign language, find suppliers, and many more services.  The only negative impact is that Google stores the information you look at.

Module 2: The World is Flat (pages 77-136)

            Friedman describes a process of software which is called workflow software in his book “The World is Flat.”  Workflow software implements software that simplifies a process that was normally done by paper.  In a job I had years ago, orders were taken by the sales people.  The sales people would enter the orders into the computer system and print out a paper copy of the order.  The sales people would then walk over to the warehouse and give the paper copy of the order to the employees that were operating the warehouse.  The warehouse people would take the paper copy and pull the items from the warehouse stock.  The pulled order would get staged to be delivered, an invoice printed, and finally get delivered.  The process got simpler when a new software process enabled the sales people to stay at their workstation, while completing the tasks they had originally done.  Instead of printing a copy of the order and hand delivering the paper copy to the warehouse employees, the salesperson would enter the order, process the order, and send the copy of the order electronically to the warehouse.  The warehouse also would have a paperless system.  When the order was sent to the warehouse, the warehouse personnel would see the new order and be able to print “pick labels”.  The labels contained various information; information containing part number, description, quantity, customer’s name, and a purchase order number.  In this example, the workflow software enabled sales people and the warehouse personnel to be more efficient. 

            Friedman describes open source software as community software.  Open source software uses the collective knowledge of many developers.  These developers produce and enhance software that fulfills their needs and wants in a software program; however, many pros and cons exist with open source software.  Open source software will generally have some type of support or responses to problems or bugs in the software.  If you are a developer, you can implement new features and share them with others.  Open source software generally has fewer bugs and is more secure than closed source software.  Licensing for closed source software can be a little tricky; companies must purchase many copies of the closed software in order to install the software on multiple computers; open source can be installed on any system without worrying about licensing issues.  Some cons include: versions of the open source software are sometimes discarded, meaning that new versions of the software become available and support and updates for the older version are discontinued.  Open source software caters to the developer’s needs and not so much for the needs of the end user. 

Open source software is important because with the collective knowledge, experience, and needs of developers; many great ideas and innovations come to pass.  Developers can work off the progress of others and better any program.  Proprietary software is limited to the people that are hired to develop the software, while open source software has no such limitations and is limited to the developer’s knowledge and expertise only.

Outsourcing is sending a task or project to a different entity.  Whether the task or project is sent to a different country or sent to a different company within the same country, it is outsourcing.  Outsourcing has pros and cons.  Some of the pros consist of lower costs, more expertise, and more efficient.  Some cons include: no control of the development process, no control of the outcome, work being sent to outside countries, thus inflating the domestic unemployment rate.

Friedman expresses how great India has become; however, he has yet to mention the negative impact of outsourcing.  Everything he has said from page one to page 136 has magnified the greatness of India.  He explains that India was the second buyer of the fiber optic system, meaning that India got a steal of a deal.  I feel that Friedman thinks the United States to be inferior to India and also places India on a pedestal because of the way he writes.

M1--The World is Flat (pages ix-77)

 

In the book “The World Is Flat” by Thomas L. Friedman, Friedman introduces different stages of globalization.  These stages are globalization 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0.

Globalization 1.0 started with Christopher Columbus sailing to the new world in 1492.  Soon after Columbus, countries such as Spain, France, Portugal, Britain, and others sailed the sea to expand their empires.  This expansion was mainly due to imperialism or religious reasons.  To continue globalization 1.0, they sailed to South America, North America, Africa, and India to name a few places and declared those places as rulers.  The countries that were expanding were flexing their muscles and demonstrating their ability to grow in land mass.  During globalization 1.0, the world shrank from large to medium size.

            Globalization 2.0 includes the expansion of companies to a global market.  Companies now were able to be multinational and make further expansions into foreign markets.  In globalization 2.0, many industries changed rapidly causing an industrial revolution.  Within this rapid change, major modifications in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology aided growth and development in a profound way.  During globalization 2.0, telecommunications improved where people didn’t have to rely on the pony express.  The telegraph, telephones, personal computers, fiber optics, satellites, computer networks, the internet, and the World Wide Web were invented to streamline communication and improve the speed and reliability of the message.  Globalization 2.0 resized the world from medium to small.

            Globalization 3.0 moves individuals and companies to an equal playing field.  Before the year 2000, most technological improvements were accomplished by western civilizations.  Now, companies outsource many of their tasks to India, China, and many others.  Companies resources (manpower and capital) are freed up so that these resources can be used in different more beneficial ways; thus, creating a greater need for a global economy.  Outsourced tasks get accomplished in an efficient and timely manner and the best part is that a lot of the work is done while sleeping.  When offices close here, offices open or are still open in foreign countries.  This streamlines the work and makes it more efficient.

            Friedman understands and depicts the importance of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  The fall of the wall not only freed captive people of the Soviet Union ultimately, but it tipped the scale between capitalist and communist economies and governments.  When the wall fell people had to align themselves to the one system left behind.  The reason why this event is the most significant is that when the wall fell, people that were captive behind the wall suddenly received a “get-out-of-jail-free card.”

            Friedman then describes the importance and significance of the first internet browser to be released, Netscape.  Netscape is noteworthy of mentioning because it was the beginning of the World Wide Web as we know it today.  The web browser displayed information stored at a far distant location and made it possible that the information was available to everyone who owned that software application.  Today, when information is needed or wanted, most times individuals use the World Wide Web through a browser.  The web browser came to be the top software application used.

            While reading this book I get mixed feelings toward the globalization of companies when they outsource jobs that can be handled in their own country.  I personally have called a support line for a company and have been directed to a place in India.  To me, nothing could be more frustrating when I need help and either I can’t understand the person on the other end or after the support call, I am more confused about the situation than before the call.  I do understand that companies outsource to save money, resources, and manpower (perhaps I would do the same if I were a CEO of a big company); however, sometimes the customer service is better when it’s handled at a closer distance.