Life on other planets? Computers on other planets?

[Spoo]

Let's say we started to interact with an ET civilization that was considerably more advanced than us. Microsoft and Apple would want to hire ET programmers to advance their software or perhaps they would want to start marketing alien hardware and software.

The only downside with said interaction is that it would be rather slow..
if the ET's were only 1 light-year away, it would take 2 years from the
time Microsoft sent a message to the time they'd get a reply.

Oh wait, that's kinda like customer service right here on our little rock.