tdaxp

Over the past few days, I had the great pleasure to savor a 1989 speech by Bill Gates to the Computer Science Club of the University of Waterloo. My previous exposure to Bill Gates' thought had been rather disappointing -- Business @ The Speed of Thought has to be one of the emptiest collections of cliches ever written -- so I tuned in mainly for the nostalgia.

Little did I know that I was in for 93 minutes of brilliance.

Bill Gates speech in 1989 reveals two things: he is an expert at technology and an expert at strategy, both theoretical and applied. Except for the parts of his speech which deals with the specific environment of the late 1980s, most of Gates' technological statements are timeless. Listening him to talk about his vision for programming I kept having to tell myself that .Net wouldn't be released for another 14 years. Likewise, listening him to how he structures teams at Microsoft, and how he forms goals and sets release schedules, I kept being reminded of Chet Richards' Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business.

The grand view of Gates' ability is emphasized through his repitition of a near-disasterous decision. At the time, Microsoft and IBM were collaborating on a new operating system called (with typical IBM finesse) OS/2 (short of Operating System / 2). The relationship would collapse the very next year. IBM and Microsoft have very different operating philosophies, and Microsoft assisting in building and promoting IBM's "successor" to Windows was in retrospect unimaginably dangerous. It was as if Queen Elizabeth I had supplied timber and workers to build the Spanish Armada.

Of course, like in that war, it didn't matter.

IBM's islamic, top-down, one-true-way philosophy was outclassed by Microsoft's theory of embrace and extend. Just as the British defeated the Armada, not because of luck but because of the Spanish inability to change in respond to changing events, Microsoft defeated IBM because of International Business Machine's inability to change in respond to changing event. On paper IBM had the advantages

• Man power


• Hordes of cash


• Business Contacts


• Experience (IBM had previously been outmaneuvred by Microsoft in the release of DOS)

But Microsoft had a unity of purpose, iterative design, and flexibility. IBM had none of these.

Within half a decade, the war was essentially over. IBM released the last commercial version of OS/2 in 1996. The overwhelming power & success of Microsoft Windows, by contrast, needs no elaboration.

"Microsoft Wants No Limit On Hiring Foreigners," Associated Press, 27 April 2005, http://www.thekcrachannel.com/technology/4423402/detail.html (from Democratic Underground).

"Canada is wooing Mexican immigrants," by Chris Hawley, Arizona Republic, 3 May 2005, http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0503canada03.html.

While Microsoft founder Bill Gates is asking for more open immigration rules in the United States

Bill Gates is urging an end to federal limits on foreign engineers who can be hired by U.S. companies.

In some rare personal lobbying of the Bush administration and Congress, the Microsoft mogul said it doesn't make sense to put limits on the number of "smart people" who can come into the country.

Currently, no more than 65,000 overseas engineers, scientists, architects and doctors are allowed to take such jobs in the U.S.

U.S. labor groups and out-of-work computer engineers argue otherwise, but Gates and other technology executives say they need a larger labor pool.

It's a sensitive issue with Americans watching jobs moving overseas.

Canada is already doing just that

As the United States fortifies its border with Mexico, Canadian companies are reaching out to immigrants who are frustrated by U.S. restrictions and tempted by dreams of a better life in Canada.

The Canadian government has been relaxing its immigration rules in an effort to attract students and skilled workers from all over the world. That, and the push by companies promising jobs and visas, is attracting Mexican professionals turned off by the Minuteman Project, new border walls, tougher U.S. entry requirements and laws like Proposition 200 in Arizona.

"Live in Canada!" says a Mexico City newspaper ad placed by a Canadian labor recruiter, as a photo of the Toronto skyline beckons. "Voted the No. 1 country in the world for living four years in a row," an immigration counseling company boasts on its Web site.
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"Canada has its arms open to immigrants, and the United States has its arms closed. It's as simple as that," accountant Marcos Ramírez Posadas said as he stood in line with other visa applicants outside the Canadian Embassy in Mexico City.

I like competitive liberalization. While Canada's unilateral policies often cause trouble, I hope the US and Canada compete to attract foreign workers. Gates' words are signs that similar openness may soon be coming to the United States.

My only criticism of these immigration plans such as H1-B is that they rarely provide a pathway to citizenship. My friends at USD's CompSci program have a lot of hassles to go through because of American immigration rules, and they are not guaranteed citizenship at the end of their work. This is wrong. My friends Ilknur, Preaad, Tenuun, Ramana, Shujin, Xingming, &c work hard in America. My friends should be able to become Americans.

Post Script: A DU poster notes the "coincidence" of Gates' personal lobbying and this. Hmmm...