Gates calls for 'infinite' H-1Bs, better schools
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Microsoft chairman urges fixes to immigration law, better math and science education, and more research spending.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft will open a software development office in Vancouver, Canada, later this year, in part as a way to retain talented workers who can't stay in the U.S. because of immigration laws. Software developers from around the world will staff the center, which will allow Microsoft to keep skilled workers who are affected by U.S. immigration issues, the company said in a statement Thursday. Microsoft, along with other high-tech companies, has been a vocal supporter of legislation that would increase the number of foreign workers allowed to stay in the U.S. Proposed amendments to the current foreign worker regulations were part of a larger controversial immigration bill that stalled in the U.S. Congress last week. Without new regulations, companies across the country are competing for 65,000 H-1B visas issued each year. "This is especially a problem for Microsoft because it's so big and doing so much hiring," said Susannah Malarkey, executive director of the Washington Technology Alliance, an association of companies promoting education and an entrepreneurial environment in the state. "If you can't use visas to bring people in, you have to take the jobs to where the people are," she noted. Companies like Microsoft can "either create a worksite in the country of origin of these people or lose out on them altogether," she said. In addition to its Redmond headquarters, Microsoft already has development centers in Ireland, Denmark, Israel, and North Carolina. The Vancouver location is in part attractive because of its proximity to Redmond, Microsoft said. Microsoft did not reveal the Vancouver facility's size or precise location.
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BERKELEY, Calif.--Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates kicked off a whirlwind day in the Bay Area on Friday, talking to college students about a range of topics, from open-source software to malaria to the next Xbox.
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(InfoWorld) - As Democrats take over leadership of both houses of the U.S. Congress from Republicans, technology industry lobbyists will try again to push for worker visa reform. Legislation to allow more highly skilled foreign workers to come to the U.S. and stay longer failed in the last session of Congress, but it will be reintroduced in the next session, said Andrea Hoffman, vice president of TechNet, a lobbying group for technology companies. TechNet is pushing for three reforms, Hoffman said: Increasing the number of H1B visas granted annually to foreign workers employed temporarily at U.S. companies; granting employment-based visas to workers whose H1B visas are about to expire but whose application for lawful permanent residency (commonly known as a "green card") is backlogged; and allowing foreign workers who earn advanced degrees at U.S. colleges and universities to stay and work in the U.S. once they graduate. Legislation on those reforms became part of a controversial immigration reform bill that tied Congress up in debates about illegal immigrants, deportation, and border security and ultimately failed. With Democrats winning control of the Congress in the November elections, TechNet is going to push its reform agenda anew, Hoffman said. "We are very optimistic," she said. "The change in leadership will be a very good opportunity for the tech industry." One way to keep highly skilled and well-paying jobs in the U.S. is to reform the student visa policy, said Gary Fazzino, vice president of governmental affairs for Hewlett-PackardÂ and a member of TechNet. "We're interested in making it easier for foreign-born students who come here and receive technical degrees to remain in the U.S. more easily than has been the case in the last few years," Fazzino said. HP hosted a public forum Monday on legislative issues in the new Congress featuring U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, a Silicon Valley Democrat. "I'll be very sensitive to the needs of the valley," Lantos told IDG News Service after the event, when asked about the proposed immigration reforms. He declined to discuss specifics. Under current law, 65,000 H1B visas are granted each year to foreign workers, each of whom needs to be sponsored by a U.S. company that couldn't find an American worker who has the needed skills. But that quota for federal fiscal year 2007 was filled before the year even began, according to Hoffman. TechNet wants the ceiling raised to 115,000. Labor interest oppose raising the ceiling. Among the critics is the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, in Seattle, which argues that there are more high-tech workers available in the U.S. than jobs to fill. TechNet also advocates a new "employment-based visa" category for those who have an H1B that is about to expire but are still on a waiting list for a green card. There is a backlog of more than 500,000 green card applications in the U.S., according to ImmigrationVoice.org. "The system is archaic," Hoffman said. "It is not consistent or structured in such a way that it fits business practices and models ... and we need change."
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Bill Gates and Steven A. Ballmer of Microsoft, along with other high-tech executives, are lobbying for more visas for temporary foreign workers and permanent immigrants.
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WASHINGTON -- Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates said the United States should end limits on visas for skilled foreign workers as part of plan to boost US economic competitiveness.
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(InfoWorld) - Mountain View, Calif. - Speaking at Microsoft's Silicon Valley offices, U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings on Tuesday suggested allowing willing specialists to teach math and science part-time to stem the skills gap in these fields. But roadblocks, such as state regulations and teachers unions, have prevented this, Spellings said during a Churchill Club event. "It's not by accident that there are all these barriers," Spellings said. Asked by an audience member what was being done attract new teachers to the profession, Spellings presented a dire prognosis. "The short answer is we're not doing enough to attract our best and brightest to the profession," she said. "I believe that we make it so difficult. There are so many barriers to entry into this profession, itâs absurd," Spellings said. An approach such as having experts teach math or science just from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday is not allowable under regulations that require teachers to be in school 185 days a year, she said. Instead, math and science are being taught by teachers who do not specialize in those fields, Spellings said. She touted the federal No Child Left Behind law as bringing up test scores but emphasized that much more needs to be done to improve education for students, particularly minority students. The needs of high school and middle school students also must be addressed, Spelling said. One audience member cited the issue of disruptive students that prevent education of the entire class. But Spellings said issues of discipline are reserved for the state and local governments rather than being a federal issue. "We have to figure all this out in ways that make sense," Spellings said.Â  Surprisingly, Spellings agreed with the statement, "It takes a village," to meet the educational needs of children, which was noted by an audience member identifying herself as a math teacher at a low-income charter school in downtown San Jose, Calif. This statement was coined by Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton in a speech addressing the needs of children when she was first lady. Clinton's full statement was, "It takes a village to raise a child." "It does take a village," Spellings said.
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Immigration officials have a message for employers hoping to hire foreign workers through the H1-B visa program for the fiscal year that began Friday: It's too late.
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BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA - "You can't go wrong in computer science," Microsoft Corp. Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates told University of California, Berkeley students on Friday. Some students, however, were unhappy with the way Gates responded to questions about increasing competition for jobs from China and India.ADVERTISEMENTSBC Case Study: Crate & BarrelWhat sold them on improving their network? A system that could cut management costs from the get-go. Find out more.
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Congress is letting employers hire 20,000 more foreign high-tech workers under a special visa program after businesses reached the annual ceiling on the first day of the government&#39;s fiscal year.
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(InfoWorld) - An advocacy group representing several tech vendor CEOs has been meeting with U.S. presidential candidates and getting a positive reception to the policies it's pushing, the group's executive director said. The Technology CEO Council, whose members include the chief executives of Intel, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Dell, has met with several presidential candidates in recent months, said Bruce Mehlman, executive director of the group. Mehlman declined to name the candidates the CEOs have met with, saying the group is better served at the moment by not naming names. "The meetings have been productive," Mehlman said. "There's been a lot of ... mutual recognition of the importance of innovation, the importance of remaining globally connected." The group wants to reach out early in an "intense political season," Mehlman said Thursday. The group is trying to present a "vision on how some of the big, broad, important trends should be thought about and talked about," he said. The U.S. presidential election is in November 2008. This week, the council released a report, called "A Great Nation," calling for U.S. lawmakers to focus on free trade and innovation. "A great nation does not fear overseas competition," the report says. "A great nation prepares its workers and companies to successfully compete in a global market." The report is an effort to get the council's views out about high-skilled immigration and free trade, Mehlman said. While the group has called for more H-1B skilled worker visas to be made available for U.S. companies to use, other groups, including some tech worker groups, have opposed raising the H-1B cap from the current 65,000, plus another 20,000 for students, each year. Commentators like CNN's Lou Dobbs have also opposed an immigration reform bill that would include a higher H-1B cap. "A lot of this is in the spirit of our recognition that a lot more Americans watch Lou Dobbs than read [classic free-market economist] Adam Smith," Mehlman said. "It takes real political courage to stand up for open markets these days." While Mehlman is upbeat about the group's meetings with candidates, he said he's still frustrated by the lack of action on the group's agenda. In April, the group releasedÂ its list of "seven for '07" legislative priorities, including immigration reform and a patent system overhaul, and the U.S. Congress has not passed any of the seven items. Even relatively uncontroversial measures like more funding for research at U.S. government agencies and a health IT bill have so far gone nowhere this year. "It is encouraging to see politicians from both parties ... saying so many of the right things and pushing for many of the right things," Mehlman said. "America doesn't get more competitive policies from speeches -- we get them from legislation. The proof is in the passage."
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Ephraim Schwartz, InfoWorldâs fearless editor at large, has waded into roiling waters once again. Iâm talking about his ongoing coverage of the SKIL (Securing Knowledge, Innovation and Leadership) Bill, which would raise the yearly cap on H-1B visas, allowing qualified foreign workers â many in IT â to work in the States.ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.
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(InfoWorld) - It appears that the STRIVE (Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy) Act of 2007 isn't quite dead after all. On Thursday, the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees Border Security, and International Law convened and on its first day took written statements from witnesses on the bill. The comprehensive immigration bill that caused such a furor earlier this year, mainly over the issue of whether it was offering amnesty to illegal immigrants, also addressed the H-1B visa cap. The cap, now set at 65,000, with an additional 20,000 reserved for foreign workers who have a graduate degree from a U.S. institution, would be raised to 115,000 for 2008 with a stipulation that it would go up an additional 20 percent each year that the quota was met, with a final cap of 180,000 visas issued. At the hearing, STRIVE Act cosponsor Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona did not specifically bring up the issue of H-1B, but he did say that the STRIVE Act "addresses the failures and problems with past worker programs." Countering Flake's premise, Julie Kirchner, the government relations director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform said, "These provisions are a serious threat to high-tech workers in the U.S., including legal immigrants who have patiently waited their turn to take part in the American dream." In total, there were a dozen witnesses submitting written statements, but the others did not address the issue of the H-1B visa cap.
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BERKELEY, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- The computing problems to be solved in the next two decades will be more exciting than those that already have been solved, according to Microsoft&#39;s Bill Gates.
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Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates plans to testify before Congress Wednesday on the issue of U.S. competitiveness, a topic that could spill over into contentious questions about what to do with the H-1B visa program.
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Microsoft CEO Bill Gates gave a glimpse of his future as a philanthropist in a speech in Switzerland on Thursday, calling for a new kind of &quot;creative capitalism&quot; from businesses to help improve the lives of the world&#39;s poorest people.Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Gates challenged companies worldwide to work with governments and nonprofits to find ways to be charitable and solve the problems of the poorest people without sacrificing their own business needs.&quot;We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve the wealthier people serve poorer people as well,&quot; he said, speaking via a webcast from Switzerland.The idea of creative capitalism combines the &quot;two great focuses of human nature -- self-interest and caring for others,&quot; Gates said. By keeping in mind business acumen, corporations can find new and innovative ways to solve major problems for 1 billion of the world&#39;s poorest people, who don&#39;t get enough food or don&#39;t have drinking water or reliable access to medication, which the rest of us take for granted, he said.&quot;This system driven by self-interest is responsible for incredible innovations that improve lives,&quot; Gates said. &quot;But to harness this power to benefit everyone, we need to refine the system.&quot;Gates plans to retire from full-time duties at Microsoft in July and devote most of his time to The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic organization he runs with his wife.Gates acknowledged Thursday that profits may not always be possible when companies try to serve the poor, so corporate leaders should change their thinking and not expect that they must make money from new business models around philanthropy. Rather, recognition for the good it does in the world should be enough for a company to take an interest in serving others, because that recognition also has business value.&quot;Recognition enhances a company&#39;s reputation, appeals to customers and attracts good people to an organization,&quot; he said. &quot;In a market where profits aren&#39;t possible, recognition becomes a proxy for profit.&quot;In a question-and-answer period following his speech, Gates said that rather than having goals that are too lofty, companies should focus on the businesses they know -- whether food, drugs, media, or technology -- to work with governments in developing countries to bring resources to the poor.He cited an example of an unnamed Dutch company, sharing its rights to a cholera vaccine to provide the medication to Vietnam for less than $1 a dose, as an example of a company leveraging its core business to bring much-needed resources to the developing world.Gates also mentioned the Red campaign as an example of creative capitalism. The campaign, supported by companies such as the Gap, Motorola, and Armani, was born out of a late-night bar conversation he had with Bono of the rock band U2, according to Gates.The Red campaign gives portions of profits from products sold to raise money for disease treatment programs in Africa. Earlier this week, Dell and Microsoft said they will sell special crimson-red versions of the XPS line of computers as part of the program. To date, Red has provided $50 million to a global fund for treating AIDS and malaria, and nearly 2 million people in Africa are receiving &quot;life-saving&quot; drugs today, Gates said.Prior to the Dell announcement, Microsoft already had been putting Gates&#39; idea of creative capitalism in practice through programs such as &quot;Unlimited Potential,&quot; which aims to promote technology skills and bring computers to emerging markets.Business leaders are not the only ones who will have to change the way they think to put creative capitalism into practice, Gates said. NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) also must be more open-minded about working with businesses to come up with new ways to serve the poor.&quot;Once upon a time the NGOs had a bad attitude&quot; about working with businesses, because they would expect too much from companies and, as a result, companies that worked with NGOs often ended up with their reputations tarnished, he said. While &quot;there is still some of that, the attitudes of both NGOs and the private sector have improved quite a bit,&quot; Gates said.
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Microsoft preached its "new world of work" mantra at the company?s Global High Tech Summit 2007 conference in San Jose, Calif. on Thursday.Noting synergy between the disciplines of business and IT, the event is intended for professionals from both realms, said Tyler Bryson, Microsoft's newly announced general manager of the U.S. Manufacturing Industry portion of the company?s Industry Solutions Organization."At Microsoft, we believe that alignment [of business and IT] is critical to innovation," Bryson said. Also featured at the event were speakers from chipmakers Intel and Freescale Semiconductor, who talked about modernizations to their systems and processes.Trends are accelerating, such as globalization and market growth that are creating a new world of work, Bryson said. Other relevant trends include the pressure to improve operation performance, quality-driven regulatory compliance, and rapid cycles of product innovation.Globalization and technology create entirely new ways that people think about work, and everyone must adjust and respond, said Bryson. "The world is transforming what it means to be at work," he said.The morning's presentations had a bent toward high-tech manufacturing. Bryson said the National Association of Manufacturers expects a 40 percent turnover in the manufacturing work base; companies must cope with transferring knowledge to employees."Most manufacturers are reporting a shortage of skilled workers," he said. A culture of innovation must be created that can attract the best talent, said Bryson.New tenets of work, according to Bryson, include creating a culture of innovation, empowering the workforce, driving operational excellence, running a customer-centric business, using compliance as a tool of transparency, and operating in a global environment.At Freescale, the company is undertaking several upgrades, including moving to a single global instance of SAP for supply chain operations. Freescale is what Janelle Monney, senior vice president of business operations at the company, described as "a 50-year-old startup" that was part of Motorola until 2004.The company also has initiatives in manufacturing and business intelligence, she noted. Freescale's business intelligence platform is intended to bring multiple data streams altogether into a single data warehouse."One of the key objectives of IT is to turn data into information for decision-making," said Monney.Also, employees can access e-mail on cell phones equipped with Windows OSes, she said.With Intel, the company is extending itself to accommodate three market opportunities: mobile Internet devices, consumer electronics, and development of low-cost PCs, said Stuart Pann, an Intel vice president and co-general manager of customer fulfillment, planning and logistics."One of our goals is how do we configure the supply chain to take advantage of these new opportunities," Pann said.Intel is running a new manufacturing process on Intel systems and Microsoft operating systems at its high-volume plant in Arizona, Pann said. "That is virtually run on Intel architecture and on Microsoft operating systems, so we've made the transition over the years, and we've found that the combination of these two products is more than robust enough to run $3.5 billion factories," said Pann.Among other improvements, the company is developing a new workspace that is a fundamental change to the company's cubicle culture, he said. Phone booths will be created, more privacy options will be offered, and the company will get rid of underutilized office space, said Pann.Also, author and consultant Geoffrey Moore, managing director of TCG Advisors, lectured on the challenges of finding a competitive advantage and innovation in a marketplace that faces frequent commoditization."You must innovate in order to continue to sustain advantage," Moore said.Differentiation also is important, he said. Apple with its iPod has customers acknowledging it is different, he said. But past differentiation can erode so that a company?s core competency is no longer core, he said."Our friends at Dell are dealing with that right now," with the industry catching up and Dell having to reinvent itself, said Moore.Microsoft officials briefly noted the company's new unified communications platform, which features Office Communications Server and provides such capabilities as IM, voice, and videoconferencing.