BIKE: No more cheap oil -- local implications

[Joe Moore]

Goetz wrote;
>A Metro would not only help to stimulate and guide this development but
would
>also give us a new high efficiency corridor along which employers such
>as Dell, IBM, AMD, Samsung, and Applied Materials could build
>facilities.  Rather than have Dell move their operations to yet another
>state, we could offer them a pad site with transportation infrastructure
>that would guarantee that employees from all over town could get to work
>safely and quickly without having to sit in traffic and in a time
>guaranteed fashion.

This sounds like a pipe dream to me.

I wouldn't bet on companies like Applied Materials, Dell, and AMD buillding
new facilites in our area for many years to come.
Applied Materials is still working on reducing its RTF employee base in
Austin through additional outsourcing work to sub-contractors.
Several of its Hwy 290 buildings are leased to sub-contractors, that they
will be moved off-site again before building new facilities.
Applied Materials, Austin, is becoming a final integration, test, and ship
facility.  The last I heard is that they only plan on having up to 4000 RTF
employees over the next 5 to 10 years, (unless the semiconductor industry
really takes off).  Dell and AMD have similiar business models.
You better get up to speed on the current business models that the larger
semiconductor corporations are using.  Outsource, outsource, oursource!
Modules and sub-components are purchased from all around the world and
shipped to staged asssembly areas where it is most cost effective to do
business. (most likely NOT Austin)  These types of companies are only
retaining; Corporate functions, R&D, Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, and
Field Service functions (30-40% of the size of a traditional manufacturing
business infastructure).  The rest of the business is farmed out to approved
sub contractors!

Joe