[NTLUG:Discuss] OT: Fried

[Wayne Dahl]

On Mon, 2004-02-09 at 17:03, Greg Edwards wrote:

> What people are not getting is that the hard core high tech pros that 
> built the infrastructures are out in the cold.  System Designers, 
> Software Engineers, Lead Developers, and others.  People that designed 
> the communication protocols that made the internet possible, designed 
> and built the digital switches so that SBC can offer DSL, and the 
> software that makes cell phones work.  People that applied the theories 
> and did the hard work of maturing *nix and RTOSes that are the basis of 
> these switches are now serving others for $3.00/hr.  The RDBMS engine 
> designers, graphics rendering tool designers, etc.  We've become users 
> of technology, not designers and builders of technology.
> 
I see this every day at work.  I had a tech at Pac*Bell (now SBC) tell
me one time that GTE was 10 years ahead of where the other Mama Bells
were in the area of data communications.  As a result, our CEO literally
sold us out to Bell Atlantic because Bell Atlantic needed our
technology.

Before that, I worked for a LAN/WAN vendor named Timeplex.  That company
started in the owners garage and expanded into a world-wide organization
of about 2500 people (not a large company, but definitely an
innovator)...companies all over the world bought Timeplex equipment,
including the Federal Reserve Bank.  The owner decided to sell the
company and Unisys bought it...sucked the technology out of it and sold
it to a PBX vendor in Switzerland (I think) called Ascom who thought
they needed a WAN side to complement their PBX equipment.  One good
thing about Ascom was they actually did leave us alone when it came to
allowing us to do our own R&D and develop our own equipment.  Then Ascom
decided they needed more cashflow and put Timeplex on the market, making
a big play to sell us to a company here in Dallas...can't remember the
name of it, but I don't think they exist anymore.  That company looked
at us and said we weren't profitable enough and was told by Ascom to
give them 6 months and look again.

That's when the layoffs started.  In the first round of layoffs, they
let go of all our sales people and our entire R&D department.  Needless
to say, when you see those people go, only an ostrich can't see the
writing on the wall.  When you no longer have anyone designing and
building new equipment and no one to sell what you have, it's only a
matter of time.  I was in the install and repair division and was let go
in the 2nd round of layoffs in which they laid off 12 field techs across
the country.  Shortly after that, they had another round of layoffs and
then was sold to Racal.  Racal turned what was left into a maintenance
group for several different vendors, of which Timeplex equipment was but
one type.  They basically turned an innovative communications company
into a shadetree mechanics group.  Only a few of the people I worked
with are still there and every time I talk to them, they tell me about
how bad things are and how they hate it, but really have nowhere else to
go (and make the money they're still making).

I'm still not making what I made at Timeplex and have not made that kind
of money in the last 8 years.  I don't expect to again either, at least
not doing what I'm doing now.

I could go on about what happened with my brother at Cisco (they had a
mutual parting of the ways about 6 months ago...and he's still
unemployed), but maybe another time.

Wayne