Patrick Thibodeau, Author at NetworkingNexus.net

Patrick Thibodeau

Author Archives: Patrick Thibodeau

Spy agency, DOE, see China nearing supercomputing leadership

Advanced computing experts at the National Security Agency and the Department of Energy are warning that China is "extremely likely" to take leadership in supercomputing as early as 2020, unless the U.S. acts quickly to increase spending.China's supercomputing advances are not only putting national security at risk, but also U.S. leadership in high-tech manufacturing. If China succeeds, it may "undermine profitable parts of the U.S. economy," according to a report titled U.S. Leadership in High Performance Computing by HPC technical experts at the NSA, the DOE, the National Science Foundation and other agencies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Spy agency, DOE, see China nearing supercomputing leadership

Pennsylvania sues IBM over troubled $110M IT upgrade

Pennsylvania is suing IBM over a $110 million IT project to upgrade its unemployment compensation system that the state says was never completed.The lawsuit alleges that state residents ultimately paid $170 million "for what was supposed to be a comprehensive, integrated, and modern system that it never got," Gov. Tom Wolf said in a statement last Thursday announcing the lawsuit.Asked to comment, an IBM spokesperson said: ""The claims alleged by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are without merit. IBM will vigorously defend itself against this lawsuit."But the odds were against this project from the start, according Jim Johnson, founder and chairman of Standish Group, which studies and consults on software project management. "Successful projects of this size are very, very rare," said Johnson.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fears arise that Trump has dropped ball on H-1B reform

President Donald Trump's administration has signaled that it has no immediate plans to change the H-1B program. Critics are roiled. They wanted Trump to act before April 1, the day the U.S. accepts visa applications for the new year.But no one knows for sure. New rumors circulate that Trump will act, maybe next week, but the White House won't say.The IEEE-USA said Friday that Trump's inaction on the H-1B visa "will cost American jobs." The group now believes that action before April is unlikely, and that may be because of something Sean Spicer, the press secretary, said this week.Spicer was asked at a press briefing Wednesday if there was any plan to "revamp the H-1B program by April 1." Spicer said the president was focused on border security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IMF moving IT jobs to offshore firm

The International Monetary Fund in Washington is shifting some of its IT work overseas, and somewhere between 100 and 200 IT workers are impacted by this change.The work is being taken over by India-based IT managed services provider L&T Infotech, and the change was announced to the staff last year. The transition, which involves training L&T employees, is continuing through the end of this year. IMF IT workers are being to encourage to stay by means of an incentive package.The affected IT workers are all third-party contractors. Some of the contractors have been working at the IMF for five and 10 years or longer, and are viewed as staff for most purposes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump’s revised travel ban may still hurt tech

President Donald Trump's revised travel ban, released Monday, ensures that H-1B visa workers from banned countries won't have problems as long as they stay in the U.S. But if they take a trip abroad, they could have trouble returning.The changes unveiled today are technical, and immigration attorneys will be waiting for the U.S. State Department to clarify the rules. In the meantime, what may be a greater issue is how the move by Trump affects immigration and travel.[ Discuss this story. Join our H-1B/Outsourcing group on Facebook. ] "The real impact will be global in terms of how people perceive the U.S.," said William Stock, an immigration attorney and president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

U.S. suspends fast-track H-1B processing, blames backlog

The White House decision to suspend premium processing for H-1B visa holders is being blamed on a visa backlog. It will affect some people seeking visas who may be in need of this fast-track system.The U.S. government is hoping that its decision to suspend premium processing, announced late Friday, leads to an improvement in overall processing times.President Donald Trump has talked about moving to a "merit-based" H-1B system instead of a lottery, but the administration has been mum on details. There is concern within the tech industry about H-1B reform, but the action on premium processing may be unrelated to that. Meanwhile, there are differing views about the value of fast-track processing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Lawmakers try again to stop call center offshoring

Lawmakers in the U.S. Senate and the House reintroduced legislation Thursday intended to impede the offshore outsourcing of call centers.The bills, called the U.S. Call Center and Consumer Protection Act, if approved, would create a list of firms that shift work overseas. Firms on that list would be ineligible for federal grants and loans, and call center workers will be required to disclose their locations. U.S. customers would have the right to request that their calls are transferred to a call center agent physically based in the U.S.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sen. Durbin accuses Trump of breaking his H-1B promise

In November, President Donald Trump said on his first day in office he would order an investigation of H-1B abuses.That never happened, though critics held their tongues. After all, Trump had repeatedly campaigned for H-1B reforms, even inviting laid-off Disney IT workers to speak at his campaign rallies. Even so, patience is ending.[ Discuss this story. Join our H-1B/Outsourcing group on Facebook. ] Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), a long-time critic of the H-1B visa program and co-sponsor of a reform bill with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), accused Trump today of failing "to put American workers first by cracking down on H-1B visa abuse.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

H-1B reform bill unites political opposites

Since 2005, U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) has been introducing H-1B reform legislation in the House and getting nowhere. But with the bill he introduced today, he might have struck gold.Pascrell calls his bill bipartisan, but that doesn't quite do it justice. The co-sponsors of this bill, called the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2017, are about as far apart politically as you can get.This legislation, perhaps more than any other H-1B reform bill introduced in either chamber, illustrates the belief that visa reform is a strongly bipartisan issue that can bring together otherwise divided lawmakers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump says offshoring displaces ‘our best’ American workers

President Donald Trump promised Tuesday to crack down on offshore outsourcing, which he blamed for displacing some of the best American workers. He didn't say how he might do it, and didn't raise the H-1B visa issue, which he has previously blamed for enabling offshoring.But Trump aimed a fiery broadside at offshore outsourcing at an Oval Office ceremony concerning two bills, both aimed at encouraging more women to study and seek careers in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). His comments went well beyond the scope of the two bills.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump announces budget cuts that may give China tech leadership

The White House plans to substantially hike defense spending, but it's going to cut other agency budgets with a big axe. It is nail-biting time for people who develop supercomputers and do other scientific work that relies on federal R&D funding.The White House said today it will increase defense spending, currently at about $600 billion, by $54 billion or 9%. But most other agencies, with the exception of "security agencies," will see budget reductions, it said at a briefing for reporters on Monday.This means the cuts will fall heavily on agencies such as the Department of Energy, which funds exascale supercomputing development. Another target may be the National Science Foundation, a major funder of basic scientific research. Overall, the cuts will be focused on civilian agencies because there isn't a lot of room to cut otherwise. The Trump administration is expected to leave Medicare and Social Security alone.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump announces budget cuts that may give China tech leadership

U.S. computing leadership under threat, says House science chair

U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, the chair of the House Science, Space and Technology committee, believes the U.S. is losing its leadership position in computing. That may sound good for funding, but Smith's solution is controversial.Smith wants to shift National Science Foundation (NSF) R&D funding from efforts he believes may be "frivolous" or "low risk," to "biology, physics, computer science and engineering."What Smith is outlining is a change in research priorities, such as moving research funding from anthropology to engineering. But complex systems require insights from human behavior, and this is expertise outside of computer science. Tech firms are hiring people with skills at interpreting behavior, including anthropologists.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump expected to cut federal IT spending

President Donald Trump said this week that the federal budget is a "mess" and is promising to make it leaner. This means that federal IT spending -- now at $81.6 billion -- is likely to see cuts, analysts said.The Trump administration is still filling top technology policy positions, including replacing former federal CIO Tony Scott, who left last month. Scott, a former CIO of Microsoft and The Walt Disney Co., was appointed by President Barack Obama in February 2015.For now, all eyes are on former U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), Trump's just-confirmed budget director. Elected in 2010, Mulvaney was part of the Tea Party wave and a member of the conservative House voting block, the Freedom Caucus.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Renewed effort begins to save Calif. university’s IT jobs

At least 10 U.S. lawmakers have written University of California officials about their plan to move IT jobs offshore. It has been called it "ill-advised" and "dangerous," and some have demanded its reversal. But the letters have had no apparent impact, and employees are slated to be laid off Feb. 28.The next step in the fight is legislation.[ Join our H-1B/Outsourcing group on Facebook to discuss this story. ] California Assembly member Kevin McCarty, (D-Sacramento), introduced a bill (AB 848) Thursday in the state legislature that's backed by university unions. It would require the University of California and California State University to certify that any contracted work "will be performed solely with workers within the United States."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

6 senators say U.S. firms are hiding their offshoring

Publicly traded companies are required by law to disclose only their global headcount, and that's all the information many of them provide. That keeps certain information a secret. These companies may be shrinking their U.S. headcount as they grow their overseas workforces. Six U.S. senators want to change that.These senators -- all Democrats -- are co-sponsoring legislation, introduced Thursday, that would require publicly traded companies to disclose their numbers of employees by location, by state, and by country."It's hard to hold companies accountable for gaming the system and shipping jobs overseas when it's not even known where their employees are located," said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), in a statement. One of the key reasons this bill, called the Outsourcing Accountability Act, was introduced is because it is difficult to find information about the number of jobs that are moved offshore.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

H-1B advocate Sen. Orrin Hatch sets stage for new visa battle

The U.S. Senate's leading proponent for increasing the H-1B visa cap is Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). His previous legislative efforts have infuriated critics of the visa program. Hatch's 2015 visa cap-increasing bill, I-Squared, was so awful, said the IEEE-USA, that it would "help destroy" the U.S. tech workforce.Hatch is updating his I-Squared bill with reforms he hopes buy leeway with his critics. That doesn't seem likely.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Maryland lawmaker seeks to unveil H-1B employers

Over the years, state lawmakers and governors have tried to deter the use of foreign workers, mostly with legislation or executive orders prohibiting state work from being completed overseas. But a Maryland lawmaker has what may be a unique approach with a bill now scheduled for a what could be a contentious legislative hearing. The legislation, HB 1366, has a simple requirement that's stirring a big pot. If it becomes law, Maryland employers will have to report the number of employees they have who are working on H-1B or L-1 visas.[ Join the discussion at Computerworld's H-1B & IT Outsourcing group on Facebook. ] That's all the bill requires.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

White House H-1B plan puts U.S. workers in front

A top White House adviser Sunday outlined two key principles underlying the administration's approach to H-1B reform. It wants a system requiring employers to first consider U.S. workers for a job before hiring visa-holding workers, and it intends to distribute H-1B visas under a "merit-based" system.Stephen Miller, senior policy adviser for President Donald Trump, said the administration will seek an immigration program where "American workers are given jobs first."In a television interview Sunday on Meet the Press, Miller also said that Trump "has made clear" his interest in creating "a merit-based system where individuals coming into the country bring the kinds of benefits economically that will grow our economy and help lift up wages for everybody." (You can find the transcript here).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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