3 ms·

U.S. chip manufacturing in the age of the iPad

9 points by J3L2404 16y ago

gregpilling 16y ago
I have to disagree with this quote from the article "But not all manufacturing is created equal. "The vast majority of manufacturing is destructive to the environment. Like paint and toy manufacturing. And if you build more manufacturing plants here like Foxconn--which build Apple's iPhone in China--Americans wouldn't want to do those jobs. It's mindless, grunt work," he said." (Vivek Wadhwa being quoted) So about the comment on destructive manufacturing, I would refer to the Subaru Zero Landfill manufacturing plants - see <a href="http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/124147/article.html>Edmunds</a&#62 http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/124147/article...; and to the comment about mindless grunt work I offer a personal anecdote. I had a company of 20 employees, and we did manufacturing here in Tucson. One day I was expressing gratitude to the office assistant about her consistently excellent work in keeping the mundane office chores under control (filing, mailers, etc) and she replied "thanks, I am an office robot - it is what I love to do". I was flabbergasted - she loved the work! Personally I hate filing, mailers or any of the mundane things and I view it as torture, but she loved it. So I did a little survey at the next company meeting and found out that half the employees like closed ended work like filing or packing inventory and half the company liked open ended work like sales or figuring out how to make something. The closed ended group would finish their jobs on Friday afternoon and not think a single thing about work until Monday morning. The open ended crowd would send emails at odd times of the night and weekends, obviously thinking about work all the time. So my experience is that people like Kat (my office robot) love the closed ended work because they know where the beginning, middle and end of the job are and if they have done a good job or not. The people who like open ended jobs like them because they are not the same every time - and I note that Wadhwa (and programmers, salespeople and writers etc) have open ended jobs. It should be hardly surprising that they don't understand the other point of view. I think there are a lot of people that would like 'mindless' manufacturing work, if they were given the opportunity. PS. If anyone needs a great office person, Kat is now living in Portland OR. Send me an email and I will pass it on to her.
URSpider94 16y ago
It's pretty disingenuous to suggest that Apple should artificially prop up American technology manufacturers by giving them business that they don't win fair and square. The companies mentioned in this article, like Toshiba and Samsung, are manufacturing their products in first-world nations (Japan and Korea). They are competing with the USA on features and support, not just cost. Not to mention that Intel has never prioritized the mobile business -- they sold off their XScale division, which had sizable market share in the space, less than five years ago.

9 points by J3L2404 16y ago

I have to disagree with this quote from the article "But not all manufacturing is created equal. "The vast majority of manufacturing is destructive to the environment. Like paint and toy manufacturing. And if you build more manufacturing plants here like Foxconn--which build Apple's iPhone in China--Americans wouldn't want to do those jobs. It's mindless, grunt work," he said." (Vivek Wadhwa being quoted) So about the comment on destructive manufacturing, I would refer to the Subaru Zero Landfill manufacturing plants - see <a href="http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/124147/article.html>Edmunds</a&#62 http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/124147/article...; and to the comment about mindless grunt work I offer a personal anecdote. I had a company of 20 employees, and we did manufacturing here in Tucson. One day I was expressing gratitude to the office assistant about her consistently excellent work in keeping the mundane office chores under control (filing, mailers, etc) and she replied "thanks, I am an office robot - it is what I love to do". I was flabbergasted - she loved the work! Personally I hate filing, mailers or any of the mundane things and I view it as torture, but she loved it. So I did a little survey at the next company meeting and found out that half the employees like closed ended work like filing or packing inventory and half the company liked open ended work like sales or figuring out how to make something. The closed ended group would finish their jobs on Friday afternoon and not think a single thing about work until Monday morning. The open ended crowd would send emails at odd times of the night and weekends, obviously thinking about work all the time. So my experience is that people like Kat (my office robot) love the closed ended work because they know where the beginning, middle and end of the job are and if they have done a good job or not. The people who like open ended jobs like them because they are not the same every time - and I note that Wadhwa (and programmers, salespeople and writers etc) have open ended jobs. It should be hardly surprising that they don't understand the other point of view. I think there are a lot of people that would like 'mindless' manufacturing work, if they were given the opportunity. PS. If anyone needs a great office person, Kat is now living in Portland OR. Send me an email and I will pass it on to her.

URSpider94 16y ago

It's pretty disingenuous to suggest that Apple should artificially prop up American technology manufacturers by giving them business that they don't win fair and square. The companies mentioned in this article, like Toshiba and Samsung, are manufacturing their products in first-world nations (Japan and Korea). They are competing with the USA on features and support, not just cost. Not to mention that Intel has never prioritized the mobile business -- they sold off their XScale division, which had sizable market share in the space, less than five years ago.