--Bill Gates, 2004
Microsoft, Usaid team up to support ICT education>
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Under the arrangement, Usaid will provide financing worth $2 million to help in procuring ICT tools like computers and others while Microsoft will help in designing and supply of software that will help in collecting data in the ministry.
"I love the Millennium Development Goals," he said, according to remarks posted on the Gates Foundation Web site. "I think they are the best idea for focusing the world on fighting global poverty that I've ever seen...Thanks to these goals, not only UN agencies but the world at large knows the key measures of poverty, hunger, health, and education. Some of the numbers are good and some are not. But the fact that the world is focusing on the numbers is excellent."
The world is about to run out of the internet addresses that allow computers to identify each other and communicate, the man who invented the system has told The Times.
Desperate times call for desperate measures
As surely as night follows day, so Microsoft is regularly upbraided for not complying with the US government's landmark 2002 settlement for breach of antitrust laws.
Now, six years into a seven-year settlement monitoring process, presiding settlement judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has told Microsoft's she doesn't think it's going far or fast enough in meeting the terms of the deal.
Microsoft may have made a big push to settle many of the antitrust actions facing it around the globe, but those efforts have run up against a major stumbling block: the company's inability to document the protocols need to interoperate with its own software. Documentation problems got Microsoft in hot water with the EU, and they're now the only reason it continues to be under court supervision in the aftermath of its antitrust settlement. But, despite having interoperability become a corporate strategy, its documentation efforts came under fire in a court hearing earlier today.
Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) came under sharp criticism from a U.S. judge on Thursday for being slow to produce technical documents it is required to give software makers as part of a 2002 antitrust settlement.
[I]t's frustrating that it has taken so long, and so much government pressure just to get Microsoft to do what is right for its platform business. Yes, interoperability may crimp Microsoft's plans for its applications business. Even if so, it's time for Microsoft to stop talking a big interoperability game and then choosing to ride the bench.
Microsoft Live Search Maps hates Chrome and Firefox
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Once again, Microsoft is caught doing services that work better with Microsoft's own web browser, and offering a sub-par experience to anyone who dares not to run the firm's Integral Part of the Windows Operating System - stand in line to buy your boxed copy of Vista please.
Suddenly I was very motivated to read the 8-K, in a pissed-off sort of way.
From the filing:Item 5.02 Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers[...]
The Compensation Committee of the Microsoft Corporation (“Company”) Board of Directors has approved a new executive officer incentive plan (“Plan”) for the Company’s executive officers. The Plan replaces the existing annual cash bonus and equity award programs for the Company’s executive officers beginning with fiscal year 2009.
The Plan allows the Compensation Committee to establish award programs for specified performance periods (e.g., one or more fiscal years). The maximum amount payable to a participating executive officer is a percentage of an incentive pool for a performance period. For fiscal year 2009, awards will be granted from an incentive pool with maximum funding of 0.35% of Microsoft’s fiscal year 2009 corporate operating income. The awards granted to each participating executive officer will be limited to a fixed share of the incentive pool, and these awards may be further reduced or eliminated in the discretion of the Compensation Committee (or in the discretion of the Board of directors, for awards to the Company’s chief executive officer, Steven A. Ballmer). The Plan specifies a maximum amount of $20,000,000 that may be paid under the Plan to a participating executive officer for one or more performance periods that end during a fiscal year. Award amounts under the Plan may be made in either or both stock awards issued under the Microsoft Corporation 2001 Stock Plan and cash. Vesting of stock awards will be determined by the Compensation Committee. The 2001 Stock Plan generally requires that stock awards vest over at least a three-year period.
Given the feckless vote of confidence that a bunch of screw-ups like Yahoo! got at their recent shareholder's meeting, I don't have much confidence in our shareholders challenging our leadership. Stock price? Don't care, got mine. What kind of performance targets must the company reach to achieve the rewards? Not gonna tell you.
First SPSA. Now this. Microsoft is dying from the inside, and the folks sucking it dry have zero motivation to change things. It's working out pretty damn well for them.
The big winner this year appears to be Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner, who received the biggest bonus and salary award.
Not even Apple can escape the fallout from the global economic crisis, with it's shares tumbling this week. That hasn't stopped Apple's executive team reaping in more than 120 million dollars in bonuses though...
Microsoft is on the list. Today, the stock closed at $25.01 a share, down $2.39, or 8.72 percent.
Let’s go one more step though. Let’s say you want to know, specifically, what happened in the trial according to ace Microsoft reporter, and I’m pleased to say my friend, Mary Jo Foley who covered the Microsoft/DoJ case like paint. In January 2001, a search on Microsoft DOJ and Mary Jo Foley would have found 1,820 records.
None of the first twenty, the most popular links, are still active in 2008. And, as far as Google 2008 is concerned those stories don’t exist. That means, for most people, those stories never happened. It means, in short, that if you rely on the Web for “The Truth” you’re relying on something that’s constantly rotting away and falling apart.
Should European governments favor open-source software when they hold tenders for public contracts? Economists and policy makers appear to think so but industry giants including Microsoft argue that this would be discriminatory and are considering legal action to prevent this from happening.
At first, I thought this Computerworld UK story about software vendors “challenging” proposed EU guidelines was just a typical Microsoft whine about the imminent loss of its stranglehold over the government sector in Europe.
It is such a bad loser: after having abused its monopoly position for years, essentially telling the world and his or her dog to like it or lump it, it now runs screaming to teacher as soon as there is any suggestion of the playground daring to stand up to its bullying.
UK banking losses due to fraud in the first half of 2008 hit €£301.7m compared to €£263.6m in the same period last year, according to the latest figures from UK banking association APACS.
Fraud abroad made up 40 per cent of total card fraud losses reaching €£121.2m in the period, up 11 per cent of the €£108.8m lost last year. That loss was through tactics such as the use of counterfeit plastic cards with stolen PINs on machines overseas that only check magnetic strips, not chips.
Microsoft today tried to convince UK channel partners that it’s working hard to simplify its licensing terms, but many resellers have grumbled that the firm hasn’t gone far enough yet.
Companies that rely on unlicensed copies of Windows are more likely to experience system failures and lose customer data, Microsoft Corp. said today, citing a company-sponsored report.
According to the research, which was conducted by the Harrison Group Inc. but paid for by Microsoft, midsize companies -- those with more than 24 PCs and fewer than 500 -- were 43% more likely to have had a critical system failure lasting more than 24 hours if they used unlicensed Windows.
G.ho.st, a startup that offers a hosted operating system, has accused Microsoft of violating a company trademark with its prominent use of the phrase "no walls" in its recently unveiled US$300 million Windows marketing and advertising campaign.