Made in Vietnam
Maybe somebody ought to check the working conditions in that one. For humanitarian reasons.
More Microsoft staffers will lose their jobs next month when the software giant closes two smartphone factories in China, according to reports. Japanese business daily Nikkei was first to report that the software giant plans to shutter its manufacturing facilities in Beijing and Dongguan by the end of March. A Microsoft …
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I live in VietNam and employ a handful, 35 to be precise, too.
It might surprise readers to know that the Labour Code of VietNam is more stringent in regulation and more generous to employees than the labour statutes in the USA as well as other countries.
The rules limit work to 48 hours/6 days per week - the seventh is a mandatory no work day. There are also mandatory leave periods for births, marriages and deaths. Health coverage has to be provided - there is a national health plan, and a national pension plan.
There are factory inspectors to ensure work areas are physically and chemically safe for workers. Workers can have unions, and they can strike - even have 'information meetings' outside the gates of the plants.
The advantage of Vietnamese workers over Chinese is that the Vietnamese language uses Roman characters, albeit modified by diacritical symbols, whereas the Chinese use characters.
Assuming that VietNam has the same working conditions as China simply reflects the commenters ignorance. We have a minimum wage that is adjusted annually - one year the MANDATED PAY INCREASE WAS THIRTEEN PER CENT. Try that in the USA where many jurisdictions don't review minimum pay for years and years. Furthermore, there are different minimum pay levels for city and rural folk.
As a Canadian my company complies with the Vietnamese Labour Law but we also voluntarily add Canadian work law to our governance. We use the 13-month Chinese calendar (four weeks per month) with the pay for the 13th month being paid before our people go on the annual Tet celebrations. We provide free infant/junior child care and we also have as-you-work massage therapy to ease the stresses of being seated all day.
Nokia had started to make Android products, and wanted to sell its phone division. Microsoft really didn't have any choice.
The biggest problem with Microsoft's phone strategy is that they were far too late to market. That's a constant with Microsoft. When Microsoft do finally enter a market they get obsessed with a 'strategy' (to the exclusion of, you know, what the customer actually wants). The irony is that they're clearly a company with no forward-looking strategy or sense of direction at all.
Come on, get real. It might work as a basic phone, but try and do anything else with it, and its still the bug ridden mess its always been. Its. Bluetooth stack it a buggy mess that can't stream audio for any reasonable amount of time without stutter, it still reboots several times a week, gets laggy as hell on occasion, and the tiles are a truly horrible ui concept that stink of trying anything to be different.
I don't know that may people that were stupid enough to end up with one (they walked into a phone shop and asked the salesman to sell them whatever paid him the best commission), however all but one of them have sold them and bought proper phones (moto g typically)
Even if Ballmer had an idea why he's buying Nokia factories, Nadella definitely doesn't seem to share this idea. He will shut them all down and sooner or later he will quit making phones at all. I would do it sooner if I were him, Ballmer's step into hardware making was plain stupid.
And for Nokia now it looks like it was extremely good deal: they got rid of idiot CEO and his management board, and got rid of factories that made huge costs to maintain. Next year, if they would decide that they wish to get some income from their still well known consumer brand and make some android phones, they will do them the same way as majority of competitors - using Foxconn. Pure profit for them, all loses on MS site
When will smart publications learn to spell the capital city of VietNam correctly?
It is HA NOI - the United Nations also uses the correct spelling.
Maybe some readers live in Desmoines or Newyork or Berwickontweed?
VietNam (my version) is actually Viet Nam, when spelt correctly.