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"The next 10 years will change the world more than the last 30," he told an audience of more than 600 students and faculty, making a thinly veiled reference to the 30th anniversary of the software giant, which Gates co-founded after dropping out of Harvard University at age 19.
Gates' speech--titled "The Impact and Opportunity of Technology: Why Computer Science? Why now?"--marked the final stop on his three-day college tour, which also took him to Columbia and Princeton, the Universities of Michigan and Wisconsin, and the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.
The crux of his message was nothing new, as the Microsoft mogul has been vocal about the need to boost a shrinking supply of computer science graduates. He delivered hour-long talks at five tech-heavy campuses last spring.
His appearance at Howard, which counts 73 students bearing scholarships from Gates' foundation, was part recruitment effort, part product pitch.
Gates racked up laughs when he showed the audience a recruitment video featuring the title character from the hit indie flick "Napoleon Dynamite." And he garnered a chorus of ooh's and ah's from the audience when he went through a series of demonstrations of tools developed by Microsoft, including the soon-to-be-released XBox 360 game system and a digital photo album program with three-dimensional features.
"There's nothing more fun than doing this," he said of the software profession. "From Microsoft, we need to recruit the best and the brightest and get them involved with these projects."
Gates mused about the inevitable digital turn he envisions other devices taking--the newspaper turned tablet PC, the television news broadcast that displays only what the viewer wants to see, the camera phone that can snap pictures of price tags on products and instantly flag places to find a better deal.
But he also took time to reminisce about the olden days when he was writing software to run on a computer equipped with only four kilobytes of memory.
"Very soon, having four gigabytes of memory will be quite common," Gates said. "Improving something by a power of a million is quite dramatic...We simply don't find that kind of improvement anywhere else in the world."
During a question and answer session, students dressed in job interview attire couldn't resist asking a few questions about the company's competition. Asked by one information systems major how the company keeps up with Google, Gates replied: "What we need to do is make a better search engine."
A sixth grader from Howard's Middle School of Math and Science later asked about Apple Computer's influence on the company's operations. After pointing out that he helped to write software for an early version of the rival machine, Gates conceded with a smile, "They've contributed a lot. They've done a good job."
See more CNET content tagged:
Bill Gates, student, computer science, audience, Microsoft Corp.
by Tim Robbins).
I think they did that part quite well, showing the recruitment drive
and promising the world to get fresh young talent.
The rest of the movie was a bit far fetched!
by Tim Robbins).
I think they did that part quite well, showing the recruitment drive
and promising the world to get fresh young talent.
The rest of the movie was a bit far fetched!
Excuse me Mr. Gates, we don't need your pathetic talk on how "PHUN" IT jobs are, showing students games as worthy as the rest of your products (CRASH!) The world needs real IT solutions that work, not virus replicating buggy incompatible Microsoft products. www.AnythingButMicrosoft.org
I suppose the C students might opt for MS.
Excuse me Mr. Gates, we don't need your pathetic talk on how "PHUN" IT jobs are, showing students games as worthy as the rest of your products (CRASH!) The world needs real IT solutions that work, not virus replicating buggy incompatible Microsoft products. www.AnythingButMicrosoft.org
I suppose the C students might opt for MS.
Does anyone remember the engineer who applied several times to Microsoft, and then was only hired when he made a stink with a well-covered personal protest outside the company's headquarters?
Cronyism abounds in the hiring practices at Microsoft. I know a few people who have been hired by Microsoft, all of them had friends inside the company.
Micosoft complains that it can't find enough U.S. Engineers, this so far from the truth, it is a ridiculous lie.
What's happening is people can't find enough friends (usually of the same ethnic background). That's why company's are complaining they need more H-1ber's. It's the biggest, undisclosed, employment discrimination fact, of our time.
Fortunately, I have been steadily employed for several years now, and I am probably paid more than the typical Microsoft employee in my part of the U.S.
Does anyone remember the engineer who applied several times to Microsoft, and then was only hired when he made a stink with a well-covered personal protest outside the company's headquarters?
Cronyism abounds in the hiring practices at Microsoft. I know a few people who have been hired by Microsoft, all of them had friends inside the company.
Micosoft complains that it can't find enough U.S. Engineers, this so far from the truth, it is a ridiculous lie.
What's happening is people can't find enough friends (usually of the same ethnic background). That's why company's are complaining they need more H-1ber's. It's the biggest, undisclosed, employment discrimination fact, of our time.
Fortunately, I have been steadily employed for several years now, and I am probably paid more than the typical Microsoft employee in my part of the U.S.
__________________________________
R.K.
http://www.Remove-All-Spyware.com/
__________________________________
R.K.
http://www.Remove-All-Spyware.com/
http://news.com.com/Indian+outsourcers+follow+a+megatrend/2100-1022_3-5896290.html?tag=nefd.top
It's hard to expect any career longevity for software engineers in the US. It's like telling people to get into the TV manfacturing business 30 years ago. Why do it when it's moving to other countries? Companies aren't able to offshore all of software engineering yet, so they still have some of that here, but they can't wait to move more of it out of here. A career is 30-40 years. Does anyone really believe that anyone should embark on a software engineering career in the US at this time and expect it to last? Where are Microsoft, Oracle, HP, Intel, etc. doing most of their hiring these days? Clue: not in the US.
In 20 years, peak oil will really be hitting and things like this won't happen. It will be too expensive to outsource like this, manufacturing will have to come back to the US as transportation costs will be too high (and companies will regret the fact that they mothballed all those factories) and places like India (I ALMOST hate to gloat) will be in BIG trouble as they don't have the infrastructure or the land to be able to feed what will then be a population beyond the ability of their country to feed.
- The value of the dollar will plummet, as resource exporting countries see only equal relative value in our manufacturing exports.
And
As more countries have dollars, dump them, and drive dollar inflation.
- The cost of oil can only go higher. Pushing things back into the local markets.
- Software engineers will increasingly have to look for small companies for work. Benefits will decrease along with salaries.
- The U.S. economy will resemble that of the rather dourful 1980's, Reaganomics.
So lets recap: 2/3 of the US economy is related to GDP. Companies are outsourcing some of the best paying jobs. Therefore disposable income is loosing ground and the government can't figure out why the economy hasn't come back yet? Morons! As we outsource more and more we are killing our middle class...and since 60% of our GDP is built into that equation...well, I think first year econ students could explain the rest of it...
TELL me what products are cheaper today because of outsourcing...what products tomorrow will be cheaper? Maybe these CEO's who are busy stealing everything they can (Enron, Worldcom) can explain why the products they make aren't cheaper...maybe they can give that interview from their new Porsche?
Vote incumbants out of office no matter their persuasion.
MKJ
http://news.com.com/Indian+outsourcers+follow+a+megatrend/2100-1022_3-5896290.html?tag=nefd.top
It's hard to expect any career longevity for software engineers in the US. It's like telling people to get into the TV manfacturing business 30 years ago. Why do it when it's moving to other countries? Companies aren't able to offshore all of software engineering yet, so they still have some of that here, but they can't wait to move more of it out of here. A career is 30-40 years. Does anyone really believe that anyone should embark on a software engineering career in the US at this time and expect it to last? Where are Microsoft, Oracle, HP, Intel, etc. doing most of their hiring these days? Clue: not in the US.
In 20 years, peak oil will really be hitting and things like this won't happen. It will be too expensive to outsource like this, manufacturing will have to come back to the US as transportation costs will be too high (and companies will regret the fact that they mothballed all those factories) and places like India (I ALMOST hate to gloat) will be in BIG trouble as they don't have the infrastructure or the land to be able to feed what will then be a population beyond the ability of their country to feed.
- The value of the dollar will plummet, as resource exporting countries see only equal relative value in our manufacturing exports.
And
As more countries have dollars, dump them, and drive dollar inflation.
- The cost of oil can only go higher. Pushing things back into the local markets.
- Software engineers will increasingly have to look for small companies for work. Benefits will decrease along with salaries.
- The U.S. economy will resemble that of the rather dourful 1980's, Reaganomics.
So lets recap: 2/3 of the US economy is related to GDP. Companies are outsourcing some of the best paying jobs. Therefore disposable income is loosing ground and the government can't figure out why the economy hasn't come back yet? Morons! As we outsource more and more we are killing our middle class...and since 60% of our GDP is built into that equation...well, I think first year econ students could explain the rest of it...
TELL me what products are cheaper today because of outsourcing...what products tomorrow will be cheaper? Maybe these CEO's who are busy stealing everything they can (Enron, Worldcom) can explain why the products they make aren't cheaper...maybe they can give that interview from their new Porsche?
Vote incumbants out of office no matter their persuasion.
MKJ
They get thousands of resumes from qualified candidates, but these get chucked.
Microsoft doesn't have any right to hire a single H-1b, until they open up the actual hiring practices of the company. Do some auditing, and you will improve your company from the bottom up.
If they did, they'd find out that there are more than enough engineering candidates out there willing to work for the company.
I have known dozens of people who despite being well qualified engineers, with degrees from Stanford or several years of experience who have not even been given a phone interview.
Yet at the same time, I have seen a few get hired, all of these said they knew someone on the inside. 2 of the 3 were just QA testers (and rather lame), hired into advanced development positions.
Microsoft can't find any engineers, because their first-line managers are busy rejecting any candidate who is not a friend. It's a big political mess within Microsoft.
The only thing Microsoft has is mass.
They get thousands of resumes from qualified candidates, but these get chucked.
Microsoft doesn't have any right to hire a single H-1b, until they open up the actual hiring practices of the company. Do some auditing, and you will improve your company from the bottom up.
If they did, they'd find out that there are more than enough engineering candidates out there willing to work for the company.
I have known dozens of people who despite being well qualified engineers, with degrees from Stanford or several years of experience who have not even been given a phone interview.
Yet at the same time, I have seen a few get hired, all of these said they knew someone on the inside. 2 of the 3 were just QA testers (and rather lame), hired into advanced development positions.
Microsoft can't find any engineers, because their first-line managers are busy rejecting any candidate who is not a friend. It's a big political mess within Microsoft.
The only thing Microsoft has is mass.
- "Starvation?"
- by October 17, 2005 11:31 PM PDT
- Um, actually India's the fourth biggest economy in the world by GDP. You have your head up your mass.
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