Thomas Barnett, who led the investigation of Google's scrapped deal with Yahoo when he headed the Justice Department's antitrust division, said tying the lucrative search divisions of Yahoo with Microsoft could be a tough call for regulators.
"Any 'three to two merger' to my mind would require a significant investigation," said Barnett, who stepped down in November after three years as head of the division.
Carol Bartz has been CEO of Yahoo for only few weeks. But she’s already working through a to-do list of changes to push. (Nothing yet about Microsoft deals or asset sales or cost-cutting, we’re afraid.)
In the most recent of what’s shaping up to be a weekly email to Yahoo employees, the blunt Ms. Bartz laid down some mandates in a memo last Friday.
First, cease the tardiness. “Let’s all work hard to start meetings on time,” she wrote, according to people familiar with the email.
She also implored the company to stop talking about “silos.” If she hears the word “one more time I am going to think I am back on the farm in Wisconsin,” she wrote.
Lastly, plug the leaks. Referring to the fact that someone forwarded her first company-wide email to some blogs, she wrote: “I hope whoever did it, feels bad enough to come forward and resign.”
--Brad Silverberg, Microsoft
A memo by Microsoft's Jim Durkin recalled a meeting by Gates and other executives in which Gates said of RealNetworks: "This is a strategic area, and we need to win it."
The same memo dated June 5, 1997, quotes another senior Microsoft executive, Robert Muglia, as saying that RealNetworks is "like Netscape, the only difference is we have a chance to start this battle earlier in the game".
The European Commission has accused Microsoft of harming competition by bundling its Explorer web browser with its Windows operating system.
The commission said it had reached the preliminary view that the US software giant had undermined consumer choice and infringed EU rules.
Microsoft and the European Union have engaged in legal battles over competition issues for years.
Last year, the EU fined Microsoft 899m euros ($1.4bn; €£680.9m).
Microsoft today announced settlements with 15 traders caught selling illegal software in regions throughout the UK. One reseller agreed a €£75,000 settlement after customer complaints revealed he was illegally reselling Microsoft Windows recovery discs, many of which didn’t work. A further 14 traders faced court action in respect of hard disk loading1 and selling improperly licensed software to unsuspecting customers over the last six months.
Bill ‘Super Villain’ Gates does a Steve ‘Monkey Dancing’ Ballmer
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The media has grabbed this as evidence that Gates has gone insane. However, I have another theory: he is just fed up with Steve Ballmer getting all the headlines and so decided to take a leaf out of the Monkey Dancer Marketing Manual. Either that of his money really has made him mental and Gates will next be seen wearing a spandex bodysuit, cape, mask and insisting on being known from now on as Mosquito Man the least scary super villain in history.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), introduced an amendment to the $900 billion stimulus package that would bar companies that received bailout funds from hiring foreign skilled workers with H1-B work visas, AFP is reporting. The amendment was co-sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont).
This move comes after Grassley last week asked Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) to lay off H1-B workers before Americans after the company announced it was going to cut 5,000 employees.
It’s generally a good rule of thumb to avoid tattoos of your company’s logo.
For Microsoft solutions adviser Dan Woodman, that advice, unfortunately, came a little too late.