back to article US tops the class in IT competitiveness

The United States may be messed up in a lot of ways, but it is still the most competitive country in the IT sector, according to an index put together by the Business Software Alliance and The Economist's Intelligence Unit. The IT Industry Competitive Index ranks countries in a number of different metrics on a scale from 1 to …

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  1. Billl
    FAIL

    re: The United States may be messed up in a lot of ways

    Wow, a little autophobia anyone? The world is in disarray right now, the US not the worst of it. Let's just let the US have one good thing said about it without throwing in the hate.

    It's like saying "I'm not racist, but..." Everything after it is colored by the first part.

    There's no reason to be apologetic about saying something nice about the US. It may not be in vogue to say so, but the US actually has some good things about it. The same could be said about the UK, Germany, and dare I say it... France.

    1. Arctic fox
      Coat

      Ahem. You kind of blew your own point with.............

      ..............that last remark about France.

    2. Efros

      I agree

      The US does have some good things about it, mainly its people, if we could just do something about the corrupt morons that seem to get into government here (USA) then we would be all set.

  2. ratfox
    WTF?

    "...and its well-developed legal system..."

    And how exactly is that a positive thing for IT?

    H6242 – Kill all the lawyers.

  3. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    FAIL

    Oh, it's the BSA...

    The probability of a disgorgment of "Intellectual Property" moanings and jeremiads is pretty high. About as high as Panetta finding that decreasing the increase in military spending will cause doom for the US.

    "China's advance has been slowed because of a lack of intellectual property protection"

    Ok here we go.

    "It is also clear that no country holds a monopoly in information technology"

    But you are working on it, Cartellmeisters.

  4. Armando 123
    Devil

    Are you serious?

    "the high quality of its education"

    But the US education bureaucracy are always bemoaning the state of the US education system whenever they ask for money. As bureaucrats never lie or mislead, you must be a lia-- ....... er, wait, nevermind.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      On a global scale, the US educations system is good. It's just that compared to other countries with similar GDP or other measures of affluence, the US education system doesn't hold up so well. There are a lot of areas that could use improving upon even though the system does produce highly effective individuals. Also, the US colleges are generally rated much higher than the mandatory K-12 system.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Our K-12 system is a mess thanks in large part to No Child Left Behind. It was an admirable goal, but punishing schools for meeting the impossible goal of perfection is a pretty stupid way to go about it. Before Obama's executive order granting waivers our teachers had no time to teach such trivolities as science. They were to busy trying to teach that kid who refuses to learn how to read at the same level as his peers and holding the rest of the class back in the process. I suspect you'll see much improvement from our K-12 system in the next year or two now that NCLB is effectively neutered.

  5. raving angry loony

    methodology

    Are they counting the money involved in prosecuting software patents and misinterpretations of copyright law? In which case yes, the USA spends the most money on IT - but is it really getting all that much actual innovation?

    I question the basic premise, in addition to the measurement methodology.

  6. sisk

    "The US scored relatively poorly on the state of its own IT infrastructure"

    That's no joke. When I read about the bandwidth available in a lot of parts of the world it blows my mind that I'm paying out the nose for 9mb.

    "its strong encouragement of innovation and entrepreneurialism"

    Eh? What are they smoking? For every startup that makes a profit there are hundreds that get smacked down by the likes of Apple, MS, and Google. And innovation? It's suffocating under software patents and corporate lawyers here. And speaking of lawyers...

    "its well-developed legal system"

    In other words, the US is a sue-happy society. No suprise there.

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