“We are mostly but not all done” with layoffs. So said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in May at the start of a second round of cuts that claimed the livelihoods of some 3,000 employees. Now, six months later, the company is finishing the job. Sources tell TechFlash that Microsoft will make additional job reductions this week–beginning as early as today.
So much for Xbox 360’s game console exclusivity on Netflix streaming. This morning, the DVD-by-mail pioneer said that beginning sometime next month, owners of Sony’s PlayStation 3 game consoles will be able to stream movies and TV shows from Netflix.
“I’m Steve Ballmer, and I’m a Windows 7 PC.” With those words, spoken at a big company event in New York City, the Microsoft CEO launched the newest version of Windows, the one he hopes will regain the customer goodwill lost with its predecessor, Vista.
How nonexclusive is Microsoft’s deal with Twitter? So nonexclusive that just hours after Microsoft announced it, rival Google lurched forward to say that it has entered into a similar partnership with the microblogging service.
The search giant may be second to this party, but it’s not going to be late.
But make no mistake–this is very clearly a rush job. Microsoft has code running. Google does not.
Here’s official confirmation of the search partnership Microsoft has struck with Twitter, first reported by BoomTown earlier this morning. It’s being distributed as Qi Lu, president of Microsoft’s Online Services Division, presents at the annual Web 2.0 Summit.
Here’s an interesting Windows 7 stat as we near the operating system’s official release: It’s Amazon U.K.’s biggest pre-ordered product of all time. In fact, the online retailer has received more pre-orders for Windows 7 than it did for J.K. Rowling’s final “Harry Potter” book.
T-Mobile Sidekick users who lost their personal data in a humiliating server failure at Microsoft subsidiary Danger last week are today restoring their contact lists–but not much else at this point.
Good news for SideKick users bemoaning the backend server failure that wiped out their personal data–and those suing over it. Microsoft says it has recovered most of the data that it initially believed to be permanently lost.
A quick update on the Microsoft/Danger Sidekick fiasco. T-Mobile has pulled its Sidekick handsets off the market following a back-end server failure that resulted in many users losing their personal data. Surf over to the carrier’s Web site and you’ll find that it now lists the entire Sidekick line of devices as “temporarily out of stock.” Not that you’d want one anyway.
Looks like Bing’s steady upward trend of market share gains may have reversed itself. Microsoft’s new search engine saw its U.S. search share fall in September, according to figures from Hitwise. Troubling news for Microsoft. Hitwise’s latest numbers are the second set of metrics from a Web analytics firm showing Bing’s market share in decline.
Microsoft’s proposed antitrust concessions, particularly its offer to give European computer users a choice of Web browsers, appear to have gone over well with the European Commission. This morning, the EC announced a market test of the browser ballot feature Microsoft plans to include in Windows 7.
The majority of Windows Mobile users have no idea what operating system is running on their phones, a recent survey from the CFI Group found. Microsoft is hoping to change that with the release of Windows Mobile 6.5 and the opening of Windows Mobile Marketplace, its long-awaited answer to Apple’s iTunes App Store.
Approximately 12 percent of all computer-using U.S. households own an Apple machine, and nearly 85 percent of those also own a Windows-based PC. That’s the conclusion of an NPD survey that suggests that Mac households favor multiplatform environments, buy more gadgets and have the higher income needed to afford them.
Microsoft’s efforts to bolster Bing’s market share are no longer paying off as well as they have been. After months of slight but steady increases in market share, Bing’s percentage of the search market in the U.S. and abroad fell in September for the first time.
Well, what do you know? Like Apple, Microsoft is also developing a tablet computer. It’s called “Courier” and it’s remarkably different from what Apple is imagined to be cooking up.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
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