Written on December 31, 2008 – 8:18 pm Mircea Goia, Next Web US Webtipr
We heard that Microsoft is preparing for a mass layoff of its employees/contractors in January.
Well, I guess they are doing a rehearsal today by “firing” their Zune users.
Zune is the Microsoft answer to Apple’s iPod and today many of its users reported en-masse failures of this music player (specifically, the 30 Gb version of it). The player began freezing at the loading point and become unresponsive (and thus useless).
Customers with 30gb Zune devices may experience issues when booting their Zune hardware. We’re aware of the problem and are working to correct it. The Zune Social might be slow or inaccessible. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience!
Which, basically, means they don’t have a clue yet of what causes these “blue screen of death - Zune version”.
Some people came up with an un-official fix though (try it at your own risk!).
Many users are disgruntled by this failure and plan on being done with the device. Zune wasn’t anyway a real contestant for iPod with all Microsoft’s efforts.
But look at the bright side of the story: those people can go to a New Year party to listen music (and dance). Which is what I’m just doing tonight ;)! (even if I am an iPod user)
I hope you like that post!
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Written on December 31, 2008 – 7:44 pm Mircea Goia, Next Web US Webtipr
Rumor has it (here and here) that Microsoft is preparing for a worldwide mass layoff sometime in January.
The software giant has about 91,000 workers around the world and many of them are contractors, if Microsoft follows the typical pattern for corporate layoffs, it’s likely that the contractors will be hit first. The plan would be to layoff between 10% and 17% of the entire workforce in its worldwide army. For Microsoft, a layoff of this size would not be a small cut: as many as 10,000 to 15,000 workers would get the pink slip.
Microsoft’s layoff numbers will make a sizeable addition to the Techcrunch layoff tracker, and that will send a good signal to Wall Street. Since currently MSFT stock is in a free-fall along with other tech stocks, the company probably would want to make its cuts before the Q2 earning report is released on Jan 22.
Which MSFT division will be the hardest hit? We don’t know yet, MSN could be one, since it is not exactly the shining star in the Microsoft constellation. But Microsoft Europe, Middle East, and Africa might not be spared either.
If the rumor becomes reality, then Microsoft will find itself in the same league as Google and Yahoo, both of whom had to layoff large numbers of employees in the past year.
If the worldwide economic mess continues into 2009, then we might even see the entire MSFT empire collapsing and vanishing from the face of the Earth. Then Linux will declare “game over!” at last!
Ok, I was joking in the last sentences. I hope you all will have a Happy New Year and best of luck to MSFT employees who will be axed if the rumor is true!
Written on December 23, 2008 – 12:48 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Looking for some humor during the work day? Try following MACvPC, a Twitter account based on the famous Mac ads in which a typical cool dude (representing an Apple) makes fun of a sloppy corporate guy (a PC). Those chats are now continuing on Twitter.
Here’s the Twitter account bio:
Hi, I’m Mac. I’m cool, fun, easy, and I voted for Obama. Hello, I am PC. I am hard working, always on the job, and I voted for McPalin.
According to their Twitter location, Mac and PC are currently enrolled in a “12 Step Dueling Personality Issues Program”. They have enough time to chat though, considering the large amounts of funny updates. Like this one:
MACvPC only has 329 followers now - but believe me, it will be a HIT! Especially since the people behind the account makes the effort of replying to almost everybody. Who doesn’t want to hear a joke based on your own remark?
Dan’l Lewin is the Corporate Vice President for Strategic and Emerging Business Development at Microsoft and he talks about Microsoft’s Web Strategy today at Le Web 3 which just kicked off about 2 hours ago which a sponsored lunch that offered just enough delicious food to cure our modest hangovers.
Lewin is being interviewed by Steve Gillmor (Founder, The Gillmor Gang) and the two seem to get along just fine. With Ray Ozzie taking the lead at Microsoft and pushing for a clearer and more ambitious web strategy we were anxious to find out what Lewin had to say.
Listening to Lewin makes it clear that Microsoft is working hard on it’s public image. Words like “open standards”, “openID” and a sentence like “choosing your operating system is a personal choice and you should choose what you are comfortable with” sound very, well, un-Microsoft. In fact Gillmor at one point asked Lewin if Microsoft was getting al “warm and cuddly”. Lewin smiled, looked at his feet and almost whispered “Maybe a little”.
Wow.
The conversation went from innovation at Microsoft to Mesh services to Data. That last subject was kind of surprising to me. When I think about Microsoft I think about software, not data. But there were several mentions of data. Dan’l made it clear that Microsoft’s focus is shifting from Software to Data and how to store it, work with and and own it. He mentioned that one of the things they are looking at and are worried about is data online. Lewin said: “Who stores it, who owns it and who has access to it”. Right now the answer to that seems to be ‘Google’ and it is clear that this is something that Lewin, and Ozzie, plan to change in the future.
If you want to see the man speak check out this earlier video at the Plug and Play Acceleration & Collaboration Track (PACT) 2008
Microsoft spends a lot of money on innovation but we rarely see those innovations implemented in the real world. So I was pleased to hear that BMW was announcing to be the first car manufacturer worldwide using Microsoft Surface. I expected the new BMW to have a Microsoft Surface dashboard. Or even more exciting, a Microsoft Surface windshield!
But no. They only use the Microsoft Surface thing to let people choose the color, options and interior of their new BMWs in their stores. Yawn.
Or maybe I’m wrong and this is really exciting for BMW buyers. Instead of trying to talk a few thousand of the price of that new car they will be so transfixed on that screen that they will simply order the most expensive edition of their new BWM. Cool.
Maybe I’m just paranoid but could this whole video be fake? You tell me: at the 0:17 mark you see the guy from BMW clearly pinching a photo. The photo doesn’t shrink but looks like it is picked up. He pinches again and suddenly the image grows enormously. Very different behavior from what you’d expect from a regular old pinch. Right? Could it be they sorta faked this orgasm video? Including the happy ‘normal’ people at the end? You tell me!
Have you ever wondered what the hell Microsoft is up to? Well, if you work in our industry you should have. Although still the predominant power in the PC industry the public image of Microsoft has been lousy.
Written on November 7, 2008 – 4:06 pm Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
Written by Patrick Cushing (who included our blog as the first one up, thanks ;-) EJP)
A few weeks back, I wanted to realize the global interconnectivity of the web startup industry. As the global financial system crumbled for its lack of transparency, I wanted a better picture of the global web startup system and where it was going. So far, I’ve covered the Middle Eastern and Asian startup sites on Enter Venture. Now, let’s visit the top startup sites coming out of Europe.
1. The Next Web
First up is The Next Web — of course! The Next Web covers anything and everything related to the future of the web, no matter where it comes from. That said, the team is largely European (largely Dutch) so their coverage gives generous play to European startups. Posts run the gamut from startup reviews, reactions, and general industry news including a recent reaction to Jason Calacanis, a Romanian music site review, the Pope on Twitter, and some great advice for entrepreneurs in this economy.
2. Arctic Startups
Arctic Startup reviews internet and mobile startups from Nordic and Baltic countries, and they’re one of my favorites on this list. The site has a great, cool blue design that is unique but still evocative of TechCrunch. I appreciate the honest way they present new startups, with a description of both the strengths AND the weaknesses of the company / application.
3. alarm:clock euro
alarm:clock euro, like it’s American counterpart alarm:clock, reports on the comings and goings of VC money in Europe with a focus on funding rounds and buy outs. Each post comes with a description of the startup, the amount they’ve been funded for, and (the interesting part) a few thoughts about why they think the investment is a good or bad one.
4. TechCrunch UK
TechCrunch UK is TechCrunch for startups in the UK . (I’m assuming people know what TechCrunch is.) Amazingly, it appears as if its entirely written by one guy, Mike Butcher. Here’s hoping he gets that star intern he’s looking for.
5. TechCrunch France
TechCrunch France covers the French startups scene as well as translates and re-posts a portion of TechCrunch’s original posts.
6. Startup 2.0
Startup 2.0 is a pan-European startup contest that took place last May (and presumably, will be held again). Voting takes place online for a chance to win ad space in TechCrunch, a Microsoft software pack, and Sun hardware. Personally, I would have expected a better prize than with something closer to what VenCorps offers.
7. Altaide Valley
Altaide Valley is another blog focusing on the connections between France and Silicon Valley. The blog is owned and operated by Altaide, a French strategic technology firm.
And yeah, like their tagline “Birding France and Silicon Valley” suggests, all the articles are written in English.
8. Tigerprises
Toivo Tanavsuu’s TigerPrises covers Estonian startups and general technology trends in the Baltics, particularly mobile. Toivo also writes for Arctic Startup and the blog you’re looking at right now.
9. Startupbin
Startupbin covers web startups in Finland. Timo Paloheimo is another blogger from Arctic Startup, and he’s also created Google minus Google — a Google search site without Google sites in the results.
And here are two more
Other European startup sites worth noting are SwissStartups.com and SomBiz (a Finnish, invitation-only Web 2.0 entrepreneur network). If you know of any other startup sites that I’m missing (especially non-English sites), please let me know in the comments!
Yes, you heard it right. Windows 7 is available as a free download from this url. Of course we wouldn’t advise you to download it as it is illegal to do so. The only thing you will need, if you feel ballsy, is a BitTorrent client and some patience. Oh, and it might be smart to install this on a separate PC and not your main PC as this is just a pre-release version of Windows 7 which was distributed at a Professional Developers Conference last week. Still, it would be cool to have it before 99.99% of the rest of the world. So don’t go and get it but do let us know how it works out for you if you do…
If you are not planning on downloading Windows 7 but are interested how it looks check out this video:
Cloud computing is Internet-based development and use of computer technology. The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals It is a style of computing in which IT-related capabilities are provided “as a service”, allowing users to access technology-enabled services from the Internet (”in the cloud”) without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them.
Today Microsoft’s top software executive, Ray Ozzie, announced in a speech at the company’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles their new cloud computing product. Only sparsely available during its preview stage, Windows Azure will be available to developers, for free. Yes, really.
By making it free it will surely wake up some people, and their lawyers, at Amazon Web Services, Google App Engine, and Salesforce.com’s force.com.
Once Windows Azure launches commercially pricing will be based on use of CPU time (hourly), bandwidth (gigabyte), storage (gigabyte) and number of transactions. Fee structure will be “competitive with the marketplace” which sounds to me like “Cheaper than those other services that we have to compete with”.
This is what Microsoft has to say:
Windows Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft data centers.
To build these applications and services, developers can use their existing Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 expertise. In addition, Windows Azure supports popular standards and protocols including SOAP, REST, and XML. Windows Azure is an open platform that will support both Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages and environments … Windows Azure welcomes third party tools and languages such as Eclipse, Ruby, PHP, and Python.
The support for anything “Not invented here” by Microsoft is kind of surprising. Or maybe it isn’t. There is more information at Microsoft’s Azure site and in this technical white paper.
So, now it is time for a little Poll. Let us know what You think!
Written on December 31, 2008 – 8:18 pm
Written on December 23, 2008 – 12:48 pm
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Written on November 7, 2008 – 4:06 pm
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