From: mkcman@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu (Marcus Man)
Subject: More words: Re: Electronics/videogame stores in Hong Kong. (SUMMARY) 
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 16:04:20 GMT

In article <1992Jul25.002241.41114@enlil.premenos.sf.ca.us>, cho@enlil.premenos.sf.ca.us (Cho-Ming Tai) writes:
> 	I went to Hong Kong last Christmas and found the computers/machines
> 	sold at Golden Plaza (in Kowloon) disappointing.
> 	They were all PC stuff.  It's hard even to find any high-end Macs,
> 	not mentioning Sun, Next, DEC stuff.  Most CS magazines in Hong Kong
> 	copy/translate articles/ideas from foreign ones. 
> 	That's why only a handful prestiged U student can access UNIX
> 	usenet.  And the general Hong Kong (probably including CS) students
> 	are only at a barely-above user level.
                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
.....{Deleted}
 
>       A brother of my old classmate got a MSCS (specializing
> 	in AI) from U.K. can only find a mainframe banking programming job
> 	in Hong Kong.  I wonder if there is ANY SOFTWARE COMPANY in
                                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 	Hong Kong, besides financial institutions, that employs programmers.
> 
> 	I think Hong Kong is slow and reluctant to catch up with others in
> 	Hi-Tech areas.  The government does not put enough money in
> 	encouraging industrial R&D, post-graduate research, etc.
> 
------{deleted}
> 
> 	With that perspective,
> 
> 	Cho.
> 
> -- 
> 
> 	Cho-ming Tai (cho@premenos.sf.ca.us),
> 	Premenos Corp.
> 

I agree some of your points. Since the economy structure of HK is still in 
transformation period, which is between mess production and automatic production,
so you will feel that there is not enough R & D in HK. This problem is already 
existed for a long time. The government is trying to encourage the R and D but 
due to the limited resources, we cannot say if they will make it or not.

Most of the computer jobs in HK is programmer in bank and dbase development. Since
Hk is a business oriented place, so the usage of the computers is highly con-
centrated in business related field. I can say YES that there is software
company in HK, but not big comparitively with North America. 

The future of computer industry in HK is DYNAMIC which means they are growing. 
Many companies will upgrade their dbase and computer system, so this business has a very good future. 

You say "BARELY-ABOVE USER LEVEL", I don't want to make any big comment on this
sentence. It is reasonable that U students can access UNIX system since the system
is only exist in U and big firms. A general person have no chance to use or even 
practise the UNIX system. 

The most dynamic CS jobs in HK now should be CS with INFO SYSTEMS or BA. It is 
because most of the companies need a good Dbase and management person. So if grad
with CS INFO, I think there is no problem to find a job there. As you have mention
in the posting that an accountant earn more than an engineer, this is the basic 
economic structure of HK since business is dominant. But consider Canada, both 
professions have no jobs to do, I know an engineer that grad with CIVIL engin.,
but find no job and he is now working in a hambuger store, pity....

So as long as someone have accept the wages, we don't care how they treat equally
or not.

Marcus Man
U of Waterloo
Canada
Newsgroups: soc.culture.hongkong