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.
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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.
Discussion:
dot.life blog, Microsoft Pri0, Ed Bott's Windows Expertise, TechFlash, Between the Lines, Computerworld Blogs, Search Engine Land, TechFlash, Financial Times, Byte of the Apple, InfoWorld, Ars Technica, 9 to 5 Mac, Beyond Binary, CNNMoney.com, Reuters, Greg Galitzine's VoIP …, All about Microsoft, Neowin.net, PC World, CrunchGear, VatorNews, Computerworld, Dealscape, Xconomy, Bink.nu and SlashGear
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft to cut 5,000 jobs — The official word on layoffs is out: Microsoft is going to cut 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months, 1,400 of them today, January 22. — From the company's Q2 earnings release: … I was predicting the Softies were going to get by simply by shuffling folks around and quietly closing groups.
Who da'Punk / Mini-Microsoft:
Microsoft Layoff 2009 - Now What? — 22 January 2009: here we are at Microsoft: realigning resources and reducing costs. And laying people off. The day that has been rumored for a month now has come. And the staff reductions I've been wanting since starting this blog back in 2004 are here …
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 …
RELATED:
Rafe Needleman / Webware.com:Digg to cut workforce 10%, hire new sales team
Discussion:
VentureBeat
Anne E. Kornblut / Washington Post:
Obama Staff Arrives to White House Stuck in Dark Ages of Technology — If the Obama campaign represented a sleek, new iPhone kind of future, the first day of the Obama administration looked more like the rotary-dial past. — Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign …
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:
ReadWriteWeb, Ars Technica, Webware.com, Times of London, Techmamas and the Econsultancy blog
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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.
RELATED:
Ed Bott / Ed Bott's Windows Expertise:Windows 7 earns kudos from surprising sources
Discussion:
New York Times
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.
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.
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 …
HTC:
ALL NEW HTC TOUCH CRUISE WITH HTC FOOTPRINTS™ HELPS CAPTURE AND RELIVE LIFE'S JOURNEYS — Compact and Sophisticated Design Delivers an Advanced Location-Based Experience That Changes How People View Their Locations and Memories — HTC Corporation, a global leader in mobile phone innovation …
Discussion:
mobile-review, jkOnTheRun, Gearlog, Engadget, Crave, wmpoweruser.com, Phone Scoop, techeblog.com, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, Boy Genius Report, GPS Obsessed, Mobile Roar and Unwired View
Paul Buchheit:
Communicating with code — Some people can sell their ideas with a brilliant speech or a slick powerpoint presentation. — I can't. — Maybe that's why I'm skeptical of ideas that are sold via brilliant speeches and slick powerpoints. Or maybe it's because it's too easy to overlook the messy details …
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.
Kevin Michaluk / CrackBerry.com blogs:
Best Yet: OS 4.7.0.90 Leaked for the Storm 9530 & 9500! — So long .86! Another week, another leaked OS for the BlackBerry Storm. Can I hear a w00t?! A helpful friend put OS 4.7..90 into the wild for the both the BlackBerry Storm 9530 and 9500 and the initial impressions …
Discussion:
Engadget, BerryReview.com, IntoMobile, Gizmodo, Phone Arena, MobileCrunch and Engadget Mobile
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.
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 …
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Apple proposes audio sensor to auto-adjust iPhone ringtones — Apple is exploring the possibility of adding an ambient sound sensor to the iPhone that would allow the handset to adjust its ringtone volume to its surrounding audio environment, which would ameliorate potentially-disruptive audio outputs.
Matt Burns / MobileCrunch:
Treo PRO now available from Sprint for $249 — Palm and Sprint might have a pickle on their hands. Now that the Palm Pre is the hottest upcoming phone of 2009, how are they going to sell the Treo PRO when the Pre is rumored to launch next month? Sprint thankfully has priced the PRO …
Discussion:
Gizmodo, Gearlog, Unwired View, Mobile Roar, Boy Genius Report, Engadget Mobile and IntoMobile
Karl Bode / DSLreports:
Comcast To Launch Online Backup Service - In 10, 50, or 200GB flavors...will count against new cap... Comcast insiders have informed Broadband Reports that the cable giant will soon be launching an online backup and storage service called Comcast Secure Backup and Share, for which customers can pay a monthly or yearly fee.
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
An odd choice to help government with open source strategy — In an effort to reduce rising government IT costs, the Obama administration could turn to open source software. Sun cofounder and former CEO Scott McNealy says that the Obama administration has asked him to prepare a paper …
PC World:
Sectera Edge: A BlackBerry Secure Enough For Obama? — JR Raphael, PC World — President Barack Obama may be getting a souped-up, super secure version of the BlackBerry called the Sectera Edge, recent speculation suggests. The NSA-certified device could allow Obama to fulfill his wish …
Rafe Needleman / Webware.com:
Washington Post launches database of political who's whos — The Washington Post today is launching Who Runs Gov, a site primarily made up of a database of personalities in the United States government. If you're looking for info on your state's senator or representative …
David Chartier / Infinite Loop:
Interview: iPhone dev gets existential about “crap” apps — There has been no shortage of stories lately about the success of inane, debatably offensive iPhone apps, and their developers are typically (and understandably) thrilled at making it big in the App Store.
