Top Items:
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Steve Ballmer's Entire Memo to the Microsoft Troops About Layoffs and Weak Results — Here is the full memo to employees from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (pictured here) about the 5,000 layoffs and other cost cuts just announced, due to economic slowdown, which also resulted in weak financial results for the second quarter.
Discussion:
AppleInsider, Electronista, Search Engine Watch, Homotron.net, TidBITS, GPS Obsessed, Tech Beat and Silicon Alley Insider
RELATED:
Microsoft:
Microsoft Reports Second-Quarter Results — Modest revenue growth despite difficult economy; announces cost management initiatives. — Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $16.63 billion for the second quarter ended Dec. 31, 2008, a 2% increase over the same period of the prior year.
InfoWorld:
Vista main culprit in Microsoft layoffs — Windows Vista has been trouble for Microsoft perhaps since the operating system's beginning. And this last quarter was certainly no exception. Despite a dip in client software revenue, however, one analyst says the workforce reduction Microsoft detailed …
Google Investor Relations:
Google Announces Fourth Quarter And Fiscal Year 2008 Results — Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced financial results for the quarter and for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2008. — “Google performed well in the fourth quarter, despite an increasingly difficult economic environment.
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Joe Weisenthal / Silicon Alley Insider:
Google Q4 Beats The Street — The earnings: — The release is out and looks solid. The stock up 4% 2% after hours. Release is here. —Net revenue: $4.2 billion vs. estimates of $4.18 billion. —Non-GAAP EPS $5.10 vs. $4.96 per share. —Google sites revenue up 22%
Jay Adelson / Digg the Blog:
Brief update on Digg — Wanted to reach out to folks with an update on Digg and our priorities for 2009 as well as address some of the recent speculation about our business. — As we've often stated over the past couple of months, given the current economic climate, we've made the decision …
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Rafe Needleman / Webware.com:
Digg to cut workforce 10%, hire new sales team — Digg CEO Jay Adelson on Thursday morning is announcing that the social media site is laying off a “very small” portion of its workforce, but will also be hiring a new direct sales force and head of sales to drive the company to profitability this year.
Discussion:
VentureBeat
Intego:
Mac Trojan Horse OSX.Trojan.iServices.A Found in Pirated Apple iWork 09 — Exploit: OSX.Trojan.iServices.A Trojan Horse — Description: Intego has discovered a new Trojan horse, OSX.Trojan.iServices.A, which is currently circulating in copies of Apple's iWork 09 found on BitTorrent trackers …
Discussion:
Download Squad, The Register, MacRumors, BetaNews, CNET News, Tech Beat, Gizmodo, Pocket-lint.co.uk, Neowin.net, Obsessable, Zero Day, Security Fix, Computerworld and OSNews
Laszlo Bock / The Official Google Blog:
Announcing Google's Employee Option Exchange Program — Today we announced our plans to do something more for the people who are responsible for Google's success — our employees. Recognizing that about 85% of our employees have at least some stock options that are underwater (i.e. …
Discussion:
The Register, Digits, L.A. Times Tech Blog, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider and TG Daily
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Advanced Micro Devices Q4 Even Worse Than Expected — Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) this afternoon posted even worse fourth quarter results that the Street had expected. — For the quarter, the company posted revenue of $1.162 billion, below the Street consensus of $1.23 billion, down 35% sequentially and off 33% from a year earlier.
Discussion:
Business Wire
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Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:AMD reports $1.4 billion loss as it follows Intel down
Discussion:
CNET News
Globe and Mail:
Securities watchdog pursues record fine for RIM execs — Regulator seeks up to $100-million in stock option controversy — The Ontario Securities Commission is seeking a record penalty — one that could be as high as $100-million — from the top two executives of Research In Motion Ltd …
Discussion:
Associated Press, Electronista, Reuters, Agence France Presse, Between the Lines and Boy Genius Report
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PC Pro:
Q&A: Microsoft defends return to DRM — Microsoft yesterday unveiled its MSN Mobile Music service - and a surprise return to digital rights management (DRM). — While companies such as Apple and Amazon have finally moved to music download services free of copy protection …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Stanford Students Release A Cool Batch Of iPhone Apps — Students from Stanford's Fall 1008 iPhone class CS193P created a nice crop of apps that are now available or will be soon for the iPhone (see our Stanford Facebook apps posts here and here). — A list of them is here, and some of them I'm going to keep on my phone.
Discussion:
Infinite Loop
Android Tapp:
Android Cupcake Update: The Official Word — According to an announcement by T-Mobile's Product Development and Public Relations departments, a message approved by Google sent via email to Will (T-Mobile Forums Administrator), the Cupcake update will not be released to the general public …
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Jim Goldman / Tech Check with Jim Goldman:
Bartz Gets Millions; Yahoo Bails on Pay Increases for Rank and File — For the first time in its history, Yahoo [YHOO Loading... () ] has suspended scheduled pay increases for the company's rank and file, even as it signs up new CEO Carol Bartz with a pay package that some say could be worth …
John C Abell / Epicenter:
Wired.com Image Viewer Hacked to Create Phony Steve Jobs Health Story — A widely-circulated URL which points to an image that purports to be a Wired.com story about Steve Jobs' health is a hack job. We won't provide the URL here, but the Twitterverse quickly surmised that the item was not correct.
Peter Ha / CrunchGear:
Fact: There is no HP Mini 1100 series — I've been exchanging e-mails with HP for the better part of the day and we have the final word on the supposed Mini 1100 series with an ExpressCard slot. It doesn't exist and it was mistake made by the Web team. This is straight from horse's mouth, people.
Wall Street Journal:
Even in Test Form, Windows 7 Leaves Vista in the Dust — This will be a big year for new operating systems. Apple plans a new version of its Macintosh operating system, to be called Snow Leopard. Palm plans an all-new smart phone operating system called Palm WebOS.
Discussion:
TechFlash, Ed Bott's Windows Expertise, New York Times, Download Squad, sarahintampa, jkOnTheRun and Liliputing
Steve O'Hear / last100:
What if Apple sued Palm, would Microsoft come to the rescue? — When the iPhone first launched at Macworld in 2007, I distinctly remember Apple CEO Steve Jobs boasting that the company had over 200 patents on this thing. At the time, that boast stuck out like a sore thumb …
Stephen Hutcheon / Sydney Morning Herald:
Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0 — Encyclopedia Britannica president Jorge Cauz. Inset: Wikipedia's cofounder Jimmy Wales. — In a move to take on Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia Britannica is inviting the hoi polloi to edit, enhance and contribute to its online version.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider, Rough Type, ReadWriteWeb, Epicenter, Ars Technica, Obsessable, GMSV, SitePoint, Pulse2, the Econsultancy blog, WebProNews and Times of London
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Nokia Cuts 2009 View After Grim Q4 Report; Stock Slides — Nokia (NOK) this morning reported a dismal Q4 - and forecast more grim days ahead. — The world's largest handset maker posted sales of 12.67 billion Euros, down 19.5% from 15.7 billion a year ago. Revenue was up 3% sequentially.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Boxee now lets you get “Lost” in ABC content — The new season of ABC's hit show Lost premiered last night. Some people (me, for example) were busy and missed it. I was all set to buy the season pass on iTunes — but it's $50 (in HD). I'd rather watch it for free, streaming at ABC.com, but that leaves me chained to my desk.
Sarah Lacy:
Google Dethroned? — by sarah lacy. — There's a truism in Silicon Valley that Peter Thiel describes in my book: No publicly-traded Internet company stays on top for more than four years. We saw it with Netscape, Yahoo, eBay, and I think we started seeing the beginnings of it with Google at the end of 2008.
Discussion:
broadstuff
Ben Lisbakken / Google Code Blog:
Playing around with Google's AJAX APIs — For me, documentation isn't always enough to learn about APIs; I need examples that I can play with. That's why I started a fun project recently—a tool for teaching developers how to use Google's JavaScript APIs: the AJAX API Playground.
Jessan Hutchison-Quillian / Gmail Blog:
Watch videos right in Gmail chat — My friends always hate it when I multi-task in other tabs while chatting with them (they can tell because of my obviously delayed reactions...). But sometimes it's not my fault: if they send me a link to a YouTube video, I have to open another tab in order to watch it.
