Why Skilled Immigrants Are Leaving the U.S.

Immigration, legal or illegal, has been a political hot button in recent years. Now, it seems, many immigrants are returning home -- unfortunately, these folks are the people that the US needs to keep.

There's no question but that innovation is the key to creating and sustaining competitive advantage, whether its on the level of the individual, the organization and the country (and if this doesn't compute, flip back in your notes to Michael Porter). What appears, though, to be happening, as described in this article, is that highly skilled individuals, often from India and China, are returning home and taking their skills with them. The article puts it quite simply:

The U.S. is no longer the only land of opportunity. If we don't want the immigrants who have fueled our innovation and economic growth, they now have options elsewhere.

So, where does this leave the US economy. Well, again, I think it's pretty simple. People such as:

• Vinod Khosla (one of the founders of Sun Microsystems)
• Arun Netravali (Bell Labs and Lucent)
• C.K Prahalad (Distingiushed Professor of Management at the University of Michigan)
• Roger Y. Tsien (2008 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry and professor at the University of California - San Diego)

aren't the people that we need to pack up and leave the US.

Microsoft, Google, and Sun Microsystems

News today:

Google, Sun Challenge Microsoft's Office

Note in the 4th paragraph that Office is referred to Microsoft's "cash cow". This is a perfect example; Microsoft, of course, has the vast majority of market share and most people have an office package (so not a lot of market growth).

But the really interesting question is whether or not Sun & Google can displace Microsoft. [Note here that the 2 companies are hoping that their partnership will create synergy -- remember that concept? Some feel, though, that the big winner here will be Google, that "partnership" really isn't in the picture]

Microsoft has a big competitive advantage here. Its office suite is on most everyone's computer, meaning that:

1. Support and help (college & continuing ed classes, magazine articles, etc.) assume you're using Microsoft Office -- so if you go with a different product, where's the support?
2. Most companies and schools use MS Office -- if it's on the computer at school, you might as well have the same program at home.
3. Sharing files -- passing on a document to co-worker for editing, for example, is possible because everyone is on the same platform.

Here's the big if, though. We also said that competitive advantage had to be sustained, as well as created, and that sustainable competitive advantage depens on innovation. Ok. What Google and Sun are talking about is a competing way of distributing software.

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