Top Items:
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Sprint To Chop 8,000 Jobs By March 31 — Sprint Nextel (S) this morning said it will cut 8,000 jobs by March 31 as part of a program to internal and external labor costs by about $1.2 billion a year. The total includes 850 positions expected to be eliminated under a voluntary separation plan started late last year.
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Sprint:
Sprint Nextel Announces Actions to Reduce Labor Costs by about $1.2 Billion — Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) today announced that the company will take actions in the first quarter of 2009 to reduce internal and external labor costs by approximately $1.2 billion on an annualized basis.
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Sprint to Cut 8,000 Jobs — Today, troubled Sprint Nextel ( s S) said it would eliminate 8,000 jobs, freeze salaries and cut its 401 (k) match in an effort to save $1.2 billion. Sprint has 56,000 employees today. Only 850 of the job cuts will be voluntary, and layoffs should be completed by March 31.
Discussion:
Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
RIM CEO: Buggy smartphone software is the “new reality” — While our experience says otherwise, we really hope that the practice of launching buggy smartphones hasn't been institutionalized. The Wall Street Journal just published a report about the “bumpy launch” of the BlackBerry Storm …
Discussion:
AppScout
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Wall Street Journal:
Bumpy Start for BlackBerry Storm — Verizon Wireless and Research In Motion Ltd. have high hopes for the BlackBerry Storm, which they spent nearly two years developing as their big response to Apple Inc.'s iPhone. — But despite a marketing campaign that cost more than $100 million, the smart phone has gotten off to a bumpy start.
Discussion:
DailyTech, InformationWeek, BlackBerry Sync, Gizmodo, Electronista, IntoMobile, Local Mobile Search, GigaOM, Voices and TomsTechBlog.com
Patrick Foster / Times of London:
Music pirates will not be disconnected from the internet — Internet service providers will not be forced to disconnect users who repeatedly flout the law by illegally sharing music and video files, The Times has learnt. — Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, said last year that the Government had …
Adam Sage / Times of London:
Nintendo brain-trainer ‘no better than pencil and paper’ — A 10p pencil is just as good as a £100 Nintendo at stimulating the memory, according to a study that dismisses the DS Lite's claims to boost the brain. — The survey of ten-year-old children found no evidence to support claims …
Robin Harris / Storage Bits:
Windows kicks Linux to the curb — Gosh, that didn't take long! — Last July Linux had a huge opportunity to beat Windows in the red-hot netbook market (see Linux for housewives. XP for geeks. ). But faster than I'd expected Microsoft has kicked Linux to the curb, claiming an 80% attach rate for netbooks.
Discussion:
AppScout
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Long Tail Not Dead Yet: eMusic Says It's Alive And Well — There have been a series of criticisms to Chris Anderson's concept of “The Long Tail” lately. While most don't hold up under scrutiny, a few have made some good points that don't actually go against the long tail concept, but may adjust some of how people understand it.
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Multiple Windows 7 versions coming? Say it ain't so! — These pictures supposedly come from a new build of the Windows 7 beta, 7025. It goes without saying that while we knew this was a possibility, we've been seriously wishing against it. We hope these are fake (and they very well could be) …
Matt Cutts / Gadgets, Google, and SEO:
Four Things You Need To Know About Knol — Recently Google mentioned that 100,000 different articles have been posted to Google Knol. I've been meaning to talk about Google Knol for a while, because there's a few things you need to know. It seemed especially relevant after I saw …
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Joe Wilcox / Microsoft Watch:
Can Microsoft Blame Netbooks? — Over the last two days, a couple people have told me that Microsoft largely blames year-over-year Client revenue division declines on netbooks, which most analysts refer to as mini-notebooks. Yes, netbooks can claim much, perhaps most, of the blame.
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Obama's Broadband Snub Wasn't A Message — During his weekly radio address, President Barack Obama offered some specifics about his economic stimulus plan, but none related to the $6 billion allocated for broadband as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009.
