2005年NPR美国国家公共电台十一月-Threat, and Promise, in China's Software
时间：2019-01-08 作者：英语课 分类：2005年NPR美国国家公共电台
英语课
Anchor: This morning we continue our focus on the business of the US and China.
We've been hearing for years that China worries American manufacturers of everything from T-shirts to auto 1 parts. Chinese factories undercut their more expensive US competition. Now China is poised 2 to do the same with intellectual work. More and more Chinese companies are starting to do advanced computer programming. NPR's Adam Davidson spent time with one man who says China will soon be a dominant 3 player in the software industry.
Adam Davidson: Eric Rongley has been carefully, steadily 4 preparing for this moment for more than 12 years. He says he saw it all clearly in the early 1990s. Companies would stop using American programmers when they can get Chinese ones for a fraction of the price. And it's only now that his big bet is paying off.
Eric Rongley: China is at about the point where India was at in 1994. The pioneers who figured out how to make things work, have figured it out and now the gates are open and people are gonna rush in.
Adam Davidson: When he first envisioned China's bright future, Rongley was working for a laptop company in Taiwan; he says he was too young and too poor to become a computer hardware titan. He promised himself he'd be ready for what he was convinced would be the next big revolution to sweep through the global economy, the outsourcing of computer programming.
Eric Rongley: I got to India right as that was getting ripe, and my plan was, I really liked China and Taiwan and their culture and what I wanted to do was learn what was going on in India, so that I could be first mover in China.
Adam Davidson: Rongley stayed in India for 5 years. He hated the place, had a terrible time. But he worked in the industry and he learned what to do and what to avoid. So in 1999, he moved to Shanghai, and two years later he opened a software company. He calls it "Bleum", a made-up name that he says sounds good. His bet is paying off now. He says Bleum has done 20 million dollars in business and has 150 employees. Most of his clients are banks and credit card companies, like Capital One.
Eric Rongley: The most important thing when you are getting 200,000 or 300,000 calls a day on an 800 number is, how long does each call take to finish. And Capital One is able to decrease the average call time one second on an average, they save 40 million dollars that year. One second.
Adam Davidson: Rongley's Chinese coders are not creating new computer programs; they are just constantly testing computer systems that already exist and tweaking them. In the US, this work might be too expensive to do, but outsource it to China, and it suddenly makes sense.
Eric Rongley: And so it is worth it for me to spend 10 million dollars to have guys just constantly tweaking the thing and trying to shave half a second here, a quarter second there.
Adam Davidson: Rongley pays his Chinese programmers about 500 dollars a month. He says China graduates more than 150,000 programmers a year. The outsourcing industry is still tiny. Rongly says he only has about 4 or 5 real competitors, mostly companies run by Chinese people who have worked in the US IT industry. Many IT experts are less optimistic about China's prospects 5. They argue that the largest companies like Microsoft and IBM will use Chinese programmers for the local market and not for outsourcing. This means there is still far more supply than demand for programmers interested in the international market, so Rongley says he can pick the very best.
Eric Rongley: The first step is an IQ test, and the minimum is 140 IQ, then after that they go into skills testing which is English and technical and then behavioral interviewing as well where we are looking for, to deselect certain characteristics and select for certain characteristics, so there what we are just hiring is bringing us with good personalities 6.
Adam Davidson: Rongley says this dream team is not only cheaper than American programmers, they are better. They come to work eager. They work hard and well as a team. The only downside is that these programmers are still doing pretty dull stuff. But he thinks that will change one day. IT experts say that few Chinese programmers speak conversational 7 English, the language of most IT clients, and that this is a huge road block. Rongley says he can solve that problem; there is a full time English teacher in the office, constantly running conversation practice sessions.
"The reasons, yeah, maybe I will do it a visit…I will do it a visit for, yeah, for, to greater company, and, yeah…"
Adam Davidson: It seems unlikely that Bleum staff will soon be offering telephone tech support, but that's OK. Rongley says his company's revenues are doubling every 10 months. He expects that growth rate to continue for a long time. Within a few years, China will likely have the second largest software industry in the world, surpassing India. Another problem in China is the legal environment. Intellectual property theft is common and then there is the corruption 8. Rongley says he faced a huge problem in his first year in business. Here is how he tells the story: one of his customers refused to pay his bill; instead, he called the police and told them Rongley was a US spy. Next thing he knows, the police have sealed the Bleum offices. Rongley snuck in one day and stole the computer that held all of his company's data.
Eric Rongley: You know, one point I grabbed a server, and there, if you can, if you can picture, this is me, fat, bald, white guy running down the street being with two Chinese guys, hanging from me and a server in my hand, yelling "这个是我的，这个是我的", you know, "this is mine" in Chinese with, you know, 300 Chinese people around standing 9 there, looking at this crazy guy running down the street.
Adam Davidson: Rongley got away that day, and managed to stay in business. He says his plan is working. He got there first and he will be one of the biggest. He started off broke and in a few years, he plans to be a billionaire. Adam Davidson, NPR News.
We've been hearing for years that China worries American manufacturers of everything from T-shirts to auto 1 parts. Chinese factories undercut their more expensive US competition. Now China is poised 2 to do the same with intellectual work. More and more Chinese companies are starting to do advanced computer programming. NPR's Adam Davidson spent time with one man who says China will soon be a dominant 3 player in the software industry.
Adam Davidson: Eric Rongley has been carefully, steadily 4 preparing for this moment for more than 12 years. He says he saw it all clearly in the early 1990s. Companies would stop using American programmers when they can get Chinese ones for a fraction of the price. And it's only now that his big bet is paying off.
Eric Rongley: China is at about the point where India was at in 1994. The pioneers who figured out how to make things work, have figured it out and now the gates are open and people are gonna rush in.
Adam Davidson: When he first envisioned China's bright future, Rongley was working for a laptop company in Taiwan; he says he was too young and too poor to become a computer hardware titan. He promised himself he'd be ready for what he was convinced would be the next big revolution to sweep through the global economy, the outsourcing of computer programming.
Eric Rongley: I got to India right as that was getting ripe, and my plan was, I really liked China and Taiwan and their culture and what I wanted to do was learn what was going on in India, so that I could be first mover in China.
Adam Davidson: Rongley stayed in India for 5 years. He hated the place, had a terrible time. But he worked in the industry and he learned what to do and what to avoid. So in 1999, he moved to Shanghai, and two years later he opened a software company. He calls it "Bleum", a made-up name that he says sounds good. His bet is paying off now. He says Bleum has done 20 million dollars in business and has 150 employees. Most of his clients are banks and credit card companies, like Capital One.
Eric Rongley: The most important thing when you are getting 200,000 or 300,000 calls a day on an 800 number is, how long does each call take to finish. And Capital One is able to decrease the average call time one second on an average, they save 40 million dollars that year. One second.
Adam Davidson: Rongley's Chinese coders are not creating new computer programs; they are just constantly testing computer systems that already exist and tweaking them. In the US, this work might be too expensive to do, but outsource it to China, and it suddenly makes sense.
Eric Rongley: And so it is worth it for me to spend 10 million dollars to have guys just constantly tweaking the thing and trying to shave half a second here, a quarter second there.
Adam Davidson: Rongley pays his Chinese programmers about 500 dollars a month. He says China graduates more than 150,000 programmers a year. The outsourcing industry is still tiny. Rongly says he only has about 4 or 5 real competitors, mostly companies run by Chinese people who have worked in the US IT industry. Many IT experts are less optimistic about China's prospects 5. They argue that the largest companies like Microsoft and IBM will use Chinese programmers for the local market and not for outsourcing. This means there is still far more supply than demand for programmers interested in the international market, so Rongley says he can pick the very best.
Eric Rongley: The first step is an IQ test, and the minimum is 140 IQ, then after that they go into skills testing which is English and technical and then behavioral interviewing as well where we are looking for, to deselect certain characteristics and select for certain characteristics, so there what we are just hiring is bringing us with good personalities 6.
Adam Davidson: Rongley says this dream team is not only cheaper than American programmers, they are better. They come to work eager. They work hard and well as a team. The only downside is that these programmers are still doing pretty dull stuff. But he thinks that will change one day. IT experts say that few Chinese programmers speak conversational 7 English, the language of most IT clients, and that this is a huge road block. Rongley says he can solve that problem; there is a full time English teacher in the office, constantly running conversation practice sessions.
"The reasons, yeah, maybe I will do it a visit…I will do it a visit for, yeah, for, to greater company, and, yeah…"
Adam Davidson: It seems unlikely that Bleum staff will soon be offering telephone tech support, but that's OK. Rongley says his company's revenues are doubling every 10 months. He expects that growth rate to continue for a long time. Within a few years, China will likely have the second largest software industry in the world, surpassing India. Another problem in China is the legal environment. Intellectual property theft is common and then there is the corruption 8. Rongley says he faced a huge problem in his first year in business. Here is how he tells the story: one of his customers refused to pay his bill; instead, he called the police and told them Rongley was a US spy. Next thing he knows, the police have sealed the Bleum offices. Rongley snuck in one day and stole the computer that held all of his company's data.
Eric Rongley: You know, one point I grabbed a server, and there, if you can, if you can picture, this is me, fat, bald, white guy running down the street being with two Chinese guys, hanging from me and a server in my hand, yelling "这个是我的，这个是我的", you know, "this is mine" in Chinese with, you know, 300 Chinese people around standing 9 there, looking at this crazy guy running down the street.
Adam Davidson: Rongley got away that day, and managed to stay in business. He says his plan is working. He got there first and he will be one of the biggest. He started off broke and in a few years, he plans to be a billionaire. Adam Davidson, NPR News.
n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车
- Don't park your auto here.别把你的汽车停在这儿。
- The auto industry has brought many people to Detroit.汽车工业把许多人吸引到了底特律。
a.摆好姿势不动的
- The hawk poised in mid-air ready to swoop. 老鹰在半空中盘旋，准备俯冲。
- Tina was tense, her hand poised over the telephone. 蒂娜心情紧张，手悬在电话机上。
adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因
- The British were formerly dominant in India.英国人从前统治印度。
- She was a dominant figure in the French film industry.她在法国电影界是个举足轻重的人物。
adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地
- The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
- Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。
n.希望，前途(恒为复数)
- There is a mood of pessimism in the company about future job prospects. 公司中有一种对工作前景悲观的情绪。
- They are less sanguine about the company's long-term prospects. 他们对公司的远景不那么乐观。
n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 )
- There seemed to be a degree of personalities in her remarks.她话里有些人身攻击的成分。
- Personalities are not in good taste in general conversation.在一般的谈话中诽谤他人是不高尚的。
adj.对话的，会话的
- The article is written in a conversational style.该文是以对话的形式写成的。
- She values herself on her conversational powers.她常夸耀自己的能言善辩。
n.腐败，堕落，贪污
- The people asked the government to hit out against corruption and theft.人民要求政府严惩贪污盗窃。
- The old man reviled against corruption.那老人痛斥了贪污舞弊。