Another sad turn of events for Nokia (NOK), whose dominance of the smartphone market is being steadily eroded by competition from the likes of Apple (AAPL) and Research In Motion (RIMM). In its latest quarter, the company’s smartphone market share declined to 35 percent from 41 percent. This slide is likely to continue unless Nokia is able to inspire a major revival in its smartphone volumes with a worthy iPhone rival.

“Bob Moffat, who had been placed on a leave of absence as a result of a US federal investigation into his personal activities, is no longer an employee of IBM,” the message reads.

A terse farewell for a man who was reportedly a trusted lieutenant of Sam Palmisano, IBM’s (IBM) chief executive officer, and one of his possible successors. Moffat, after all, is a 31-year IBM veteran, a “true-blue” company guy who used to boost employee morale by wearing kilts and sumo wrestler suits. Clearly, the company wants to put as much distance between itself and anyone linked with what’s being described as one of the biggest insider-trading schemes of all time–even if he is an archetypal IBM executive.

Moffat, for his part, insists he left the company of his own accord. “[He] retired from IBM, he was not terminated or fired,” said his attorney, Kerry Lawrence, who also noted that the exec is “still asserting his innocence….[He left] so he could devote his time and energy to defending himself against the charges.”

Twitter has already had repercussions in the courtroom. Now it has had them at Microsoft’s annual company meeting as well. Employee tweets from the gathering Thursday revealed that we may see a major update to the company’s Bing search engine as early as next week.

“Saw the demo of Bing 2.0, super imressive! Watch out its release next week,” said one catalogued by All About Microsoft’s Mary Jo Foley Yes, “impressive” is not spelled correctly in the tweet–maybe someone needs to Google (GOOG) a dictionary stat!

“BING 2.0 terrific,” enthused another.

“Watch out guys ! bing + silverlight in maps = amazing !! goodbye google.”

And another: “Bing 2.0’s upcoming search visualization is pretty sexy…”

Finally, my favorite: “wondering if the Bing team really wanted everyone at the company meeting to announce on twitter when Bing 2.0 is going to be released?”

Evidently not. Reached for comment, Microsoft (MSFT) had only this to say: “We’re very excited about some of the new Bing features set to roll out over the next few months, but have nothing to announce today.”

But perhaps next week.

“We’re very excited to have Dayne Sampson join the team, reporting to Debra Chrapaty, corporate vice president, Global Foundation Services,” a Microsoft spokesperson commented about the hire. “Operations and foundation services are key to delivering the Microsoft Software plus Services vision, and Dayne’s extensive operations and industry experience will be a strong asset for GFS and the company.”

Sampson’s departure follows similar migrations by Sean Suchter, Yahoo’s VP of search technology; Qi Lu, one of its top search scientists; Larry Heck, former VP of search & advertising sciences at Yahoo Labs; and Jan Pedersen, who was once chief scientist and VP of Yahoo’s (YHOO) Search and Advertising Technology Group. As I said last week, If Yahoo employee defections to Microsoft continue apace, there may come a day when Redmond will no longer need to buy the struggling company’s search business. It will already have acquired it.

Oh, one last thing: time to update that LinkedIn profile, Dayne…

First, Sean Suchter, VP of search technology at Yahoo, left to become general manager of Microsoft’s Silicon Valley Search Technology Center. Then Yahoo search scientist Qi Lu followed him, tapped as president of Microsoft’s Online Services Group. And soon after that, Larry Heck, former VP of search & advertising sciences at Yahoo Labs, accepted a job in the R&D department of the software giant’s online services division. Now Yahoo alum Jan Pedersen has joined them as well. Admittedly Pedersen arrives at Microsoft (MSFT) by way of Amazon’s (AMZN) A9.com. But prior to that gig, he was chief scientist and VP, Search and Advertising Technology Group, at Yahoo (YHOO).

Apparently, Microsoft is going to combine its search business with Yahoo’s one way or the other.

In a regulatory filing today, the company said it has asked shareholders to approve a plan to offer employees the opportunity to swap underwater stock options for restricted stock. “Like many companies, we have experienced a significant decline in our stock price over the last year in light of the current global financial and economic crisis,” eBay explained in its argument for implementing the plan. “Because of the continued challenging economic environment and the uncertain impact of our efforts to change our business, we believe these underwater stock options are no longer effective as incentives to motivate and retain our employees.”

And this may well be the case. That said, you’d think that the widespread and fast-mounting job losses in the tech sector would be enough to keep most folks still collecting paychecks coming in to work. Nice gesture, though.

While confirming that these “resource actions” are indeed taking place, IBM (IBM) refused to discuss details. Instead, it offered up the standard staff reduction obfuscations as comment. “We are not going to discuss specific numbers or locations,” spokesperson Doug Shelton told The Poughkeepsie Journal. What I can tell you is that managing resources and skills is an ongoing component of our business model. IBM continuously evaluates its mix of skills and resources, and makes changes as needed. The nature of our business is that we must constantly assess employee skills and resources and at any given time, give IBM the flexibility to match the current and future needs of our clients (skills that the client needs). Managing talent in this way promotes the continued competitiveness of our operations and matches our skills and capabilities with the evolving needs of our clients.”

So much for IBM’s lifetime employment concept.

[Image credit: Someecards]

What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

– Michael Dell explains what he’d do were he CEO of Apple (AAPL), circa 1997

Weakening economic conditions have forced Dell (DELL) to add a new benefit to its already tenuous employee salary packages: a week of unpaid leave. In an effort to “better position the company for long-term competitiveness,” the company is asking workers to consider taking five days off without pay–the theory being that five days off without pay is better than six months off on unemployment in a lousy economy.

“[Our goal] is to address costs in creative ways, in a way that gives our employees more choices than perhaps have existed in the past,” said spokesman David Frink. “We’re looking to use voluntary cost reduction options whenever possible so fewer involuntary actions would be necessary.”

A foreboding announcement from Dell, which has already reduced headcount by about 10 percent (8,900 employees) this year. ’Course, if this initiative doesn’t work out, CEO Michael Dell could always shut down the company and return the money to the shareholders. …

For eBay, whose shares have plummeted some 43 percent in the last year, the moves are further efforts to prop itself after the declining performance of its core marketplace division.

Why, exactly, this is an issue in this age of “work-life balance” and ROWE (results-only work environment) isn’t exactly clear. As retail giant Best Buy (BBY) has proven, employee “presence” doesn’t always equate with “employee productivity.” Why shouldn’t workers be free to spend some personal time online at work if they’re meeting their goals?

Based on Nintendo’s latest earnings forecast, the Financial Times estimates each company employee will produce more than $1.6 million in profit this year. Meanwhile, the average Goldman (GS) employee is on track to generate roughly $1.24 million, the average Google (GOOG) employee upwards of $626,000.

Sadly for Nintendo’s bullet train-efficient workforce, that astonishing profit-per-employee metric doesn’t translate into profit-for-employee salaries. While the average Goldman worker banked $660,000 in compensation in 2007, the average Nintendo worker pocketed just $90,900. “We are not experiencing success,” said one Nintendo prole, “just increased overtime.”