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A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

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Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#151

Post by duncan_bayne »

forgotmypw wrote: post #139
tptacek wrote: post #76

Historically Slovakia gets lumped with Eastern Europe in popular perception - Slovakia is nothing like Romania, the Ukraine, Albania or even Poland in turning out petty criminals or promiscuous online fraudsters. Not to forget Western Europe, France has a far more unhealthy work culture and fraud at work and as a way of living is far more acceptable than in Slovakia. Germany and Austria tend to value probity far more…

>the Ukraine Referring to Ukraine as "the Ukraine" has been inappropriate since the end of 1991. Just this detail paints the author as being out of touch.

Yeah, the correct term is "Russian Federation" these days.

:(

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#152

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

Mizza wrote: post #142
danso wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK I won't get into an argument of whether stereotypes or prejudices are good/bad and I'm sorry if I implied that. I can't speak for the GP (u/alexk), but I interpreted his assertion of "People should try harder to decouple their biases from facts especially in their public writing" as saying that using stereotypes as factual evidence leads to weak writing. For example, this graf: > Yet if these people or their frien…

> The author apparently thinks IBM's off-shoring would be fine (indeed, "no issues at all") if the work outsourced to Slovakia stayed in Slovakia (rather than be outsourced to India) Yeah. It's a blog post from a Slovakian offshoring company. Of course he does. I don't expect that this Slovakian blog post about why Slovakian offerings are better than Indian offerings will be free of bias, and in fact I think it's unr…

Well, Identifying the bias behind a viewpoint is thinking critically about it.

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#153

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

throwaway7312 wrote: post #140
lainga wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole article smacks of a people-are-their-nations attitude I'd expect from a copy of National Geographic circa 1890.

As an expatriate who has traveled through dozens of countries and lived long-term in a handful, let me assure you: different national personal characteristics are very real. Put an Englishman, a Norwegian, and an Italian in a room together and it is more than their accents that tells you who's whom. Or a Chinese, a Japanese, and a Korean for that matter. Pick up your suitcase and get outside North America for a bit.…

>> Put an Englishman, a Norwegian, and an Italian in a room together and it is more than their accents that tells you who's whom.

Unfortunately, that's very difficult to know for sure, for instance because you can't just take the accents out of the people and see if you can guess their nationalities from their behaviours.

Also, I don't know how you can tell that the differences between an Englishman, a Norwegian and an Italian are due to their nationality and not just the difference in personalities you'd expect to see between any three people- say any three Englishmen or Italians etc.

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#154

Post by ksk »

raesene9 wrote: post #72
ksk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those appear to be products - which is different than hiring IBM to develop something for you. IBM has had a storied history in tech from developing/popularizing the PC to OS/2 to their thinkpad laptops, to designing systems for the space shuttle, and natural language projects like the Watson. I don't think IBM lacks talent. Its almost seems like when you can get away with milking the system, nobody seems to have any…

Unfortunately IBMs history doesn't really provide any evidence of their current competency. You really don't have to go far to find stories of IBMs cost cutting, moving staff to the lowest possible cost locations, poor treatment of staff etc. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/06/ibm_retracts_agreed... is one recent example.

>Unfortunately IBMs history doesn't really provide any evidence of their current competency.

I gave current examples of competency. Its trivial to find others. In any case, my point was merely to differenciate services from products, so I'm not sure what you were replying to anyway.

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#155

Post by will4274 »

forgotmypw wrote: post #149
will4274 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> out of touch Or maybe just not perfect? Google trends show that "the Ukraine" is about 1/3 as popular as "Ukraine" in common usage. It's more like calling the FSB the KGB - wrong, for sure, but was correct for decades, so not at all surprising that people still say it. http://www.businessinsider.com/why-ukraine-isnt-the-ukraine-...

Can you please link the Google Trends? I am curious how to do one of these searches that compares using it with "the" and without.

There is a screenshot in the Business Insider article I linked

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#156

Post by lainga »

throwaway7312 wrote: post #140
lainga wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole article smacks of a people-are-their-nations attitude I'd expect from a copy of National Geographic circa 1890.

As an expatriate who has traveled through dozens of countries and lived long-term in a handful, let me assure you: different national personal characteristics are very real. Put an Englishman, a Norwegian, and an Italian in a room together and it is more than their accents that tells you who's whom. Or a Chinese, a Japanese, and a Korean for that matter. Pick up your suitcase and get outside North America for a bit.…

What makes you think I haven't "gotten outside North America"?

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#157

Post by wolco »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #137
lazyasciiart wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you assuming that nobody would be based in Bratislava who is not Slovakian?

Spoiler: you're wrong, the author is Canadian.

But what is his background? Canada is not a melting pot and many keep strong ties cultural backgrounds.

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#158

Post by newfoundglory »

wolco wrote: post #157
lazyasciiart wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoiler: you're wrong, the author is Canadian.

But what is his background? Canada is not a melting pot and many keep strong ties cultural backgrounds.

His name is pretty Anglo Saxon, he had a solidly well off Canadian childhood and he has previously lived in Russia, France, and Austria.

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#159

Post by alexk »

Mizza wrote: post #120
alexk wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for calling this out. I think we should do more of it on HN (and everywhere else). People should try harder to decouple their biases from facts especially in their public writing.

I'll play devil's advocate here: I actually greatly prefer when people expose their biases early on rather than try to hide them through weaselly or bland language. I think immediate total aversion to nationally biased language is a specifically American trait (and left-coast American at that) - as the result of contemporary cultural conditioning and general lack of exposure to international identities. Europeans are…

> I think immediate total aversion to nationally biased language is a specifically American trait (and left-coast American at that) - as the result of contemporary cultural conditioning and general lack of exposure to international identities.

I am Russian

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#160

Post by bobdole1234 »

itronitron wrote: post #105
rgbrenner wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The managers needed IBM to tell them about the concept of institutional knowledge? They need to be told that people with experience have learned their jobs? That new employees need training? This is like Management 101. Just how incompetent are these managers?

The competent managers likely had no say in the matter.

That's a trick question, there are no competent managers in government service for the most part. They either burn out from managing without the ability to recruit competent staff, or they moved elsewhere to make drastically more money.

I'm sitting with a 4x multiple on my old public service job.

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