Computer Business

I see two big problems in the business world today, and that includes the computer industry.

The first is the Republican free market fixation on driving down costs. Witness Bill Gates request for more visas for foreign engineers, and the outsourcing of code development to India.

The second problem is boss's. I used to give people who were in charge the benefit of the doubt. I assumed they knew what they were doing, because the people who put them in charge knew what they were doing. It took me years to realize that most of the people I worked for were terrible managers. Maybe I have had a string of bad luck, or maybe I haven't been as discriminating in where I work as I should have been.

Maybe there are a few companies around with some good managers, and maybe some of these companies reward their employees with compensation commesurate with their worth. I would like to find one of these companies. I certainly have never worked for one. But then I can be "difficult to work with". Among my troublesome characteristics is that I "don't suffer fools gladly".

I find it very difficult to evaluate a prospective job from an interview, even a lengthy one. And it usually doesn't make any difference. If they offer me a job, I'll take it.

Recently I was thinking that I needed an agent, someone to promote me and my skills. It used to really bug me that employment agencies got these huge commissions for doing virtually nothing. But now I am beginning to understand.

I recently came up with the idea of using a 32-bit microprocessor for our next product instead of the 8-bit processors we have been using. I am the only developer here. My rational is that it is easier to develop an application using a cpu with a larger address space than having to manage exteneded memory using a small chip.

There are numerous reasons from the standpoint of software development to use a bigger, faster chip. If we were building millions of units, it would probably be worth it to expend the extra effort to write the program to run on an 8-bit chip. Since our total volume can be measured in hundred's, the development cost will far outweigh the extra cost of the bigger processor.