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  • From: BigLee Haslup <biglee AT haslups.com>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] textile workers of the future?
  • Date: Sun, 06 Apr 2003 14:36:32 -0400



... Every SAP installation,
while creating jobs for people who would want to make a career out of
customizing a big German database, destroys the jobs of many more
people. On top of that, the profits from the sales all go back to
Germany.

I've never bought the increased efficiency leads to job loss argument. It
ignores the elasticity of demand as the price of production drops (on which,
more below) and, about all of that money going to Germany -- it will result in one of
two things: 1) they will spend it to buy US goods and services, or 2) they
will never spend it at all. In the first case the money will come home
eventually. In the second case, we should thank them for the database
software and hope they enjoy their bits of green paper.

Say for example, all of the companies in a
certain field all switch to SAP. How in the world can they gain a
competitive advantage over one another when they're all using the same
software for inventory, manufacturing, accounting, marketing, etc?

My point, exactly! Any money companies save by adopting a third-party
tool will immediately be spent integrating that tool to other stuff as they
try to compete. As long as IT assets give competitive advantage the
amount companies spend on IT will be set by their competition. Right now,
due to the general shittiness of the market that figure is rather low.

BigLee




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