07.27.14
Posted in Apple, Deception, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 6:45 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: New examples where proprietary software giants are characterised as FOSS-embracing and FOSS-friendly by gullible or dishonest ‘journalists’
Apple has made many headlines recently because of its back doors and Microsoft has made many headlines recently because of its massive round of layoffs (almost 20% of the staff). Both companies are proprietary software companies and they have a lot in common.
Techrights is disturbed to have found continued distortion of the facts. “Microsoft might finally be committing to open source” is a new article (reprinted here) which says: “Microsoft is known for keeping its programming secrets to itself. But under CEO Satya Nadella, the maker of proprietary behemoths like Windows and Microsoft Office is starting to show up in the world of open-source software, whose code is public for anyone to see, borrow from and tinker with.”
No, this is fiction. This is the fairly recent PR strategy that tries to associate the new CEO with FOSS, even though he continues using patents to attack FOSS and is running blatantly dishonest attack ads against FOSS products, especially Google’s. If Microsoft brings proprietary software to Android, for instance, this has nothing to do with FOSS. Quite the contrary in fact; it is about contaminating FOSS with proprietary spyware. The puff piece continues: “Late last year Microsoft finally made itself an account on Github, now the de-facto platform that software writers use for sharing and working on open-source code. “Microsoft has changed as a company and is becoming more open in the way that we collaborate with others,” the account’s description reads.”
Wow! Microsoft “made itself an account on Github”! Imagine the heroic act! I already have two accounts on Github, one for my job and one for my personal projects. The article goes on and makes all sorts of softball claims, pretending to be giving Microsoft the sceptical treatment.
Here is another silly new article, pretending that a proprietary NSA-accessible platform called Azure has “Open Source Partnerships”. It then cites the Microsoft proxy/mole “Microsoft Open Tech” by saying: “Microsoft Open Tech (MS Open Tech), a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, has added two new partnerships under its belt. Announced during the ongoing O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) in Oregon, they have teamed up with Packer.io and OpenNebula.”
This proxy has done nothing FOSS-like. It just wants to devour FOSS by putting it under a proprietary platform with surveillance. OSCON and O’Reilly have once again shown themselves to be soft on Microsoft. Based on the amount of press coverage this has received [1, 2], one might say that Tim O’Reilly keeps giving Microsoft an effective propaganda platform. Microsoft has paid him for this, ensuring that a proprietary surveillance platform gets coverage in a supposedly FOSS-centric conference.
But let’s not focus only on Microsoft. Misreporting is often seen when it comes to Apple, the most hyped-up company in the world. It’s all about perception and branding. One author’s bias (he is a “Mac”-branded PC user) can be found in this supposedly FOSS-centric site. He says that “Apple is a beloved company in the open source community,” but based on our experiences, this is patently false. There is other promotional language there, including: “Despite being one of the most well run technology companies ever, Apple has a surprisingly complicated relationship with open source. Ironically, Apple is a beloved company in the open source community, but, now more than ever, it needs to hear the call to become more open. I’ve also always noted here on OStatic that many open source enthusiasts favor the Mac over Windows systems. That’s no surprise. Apple’s culture closely aligns with many open source principles, though its culture certainly isn’t totally open.”
What?!
“Apple’s culture closely aligns with many open source principles”?
In what universe?
There are other large companies that try to openwash themselves these days. We recently covered HP’s publicity stunts and here we have another, pretending that defanging one’s software patents is somehow an act of becoming “Open Source” (Tesla uses this type of propaganda).
A man from HP, speaking about OpenStack, says that “just as we indemnified Linux 15 years ago, we are doing exactly the same thing now.” Well, indemnification does not achieve much. Why acquire software patents in the first place? Why has HP been so hostile towards GNU/Linux, including in Munich? Why is HP hiring so many executives from Microsoft? Why is HP lobbying for software patents?
The bottom line is that many companies (if not all) want to be seen as “open”, but most of them are faking it. For the press to play along with their marketing/PR ambitious is worse than irresponsible; it is reckless. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Security at 5:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The vulnerabilities which Microsoft tells the NSA about (before these are patched) are significantly growing in terms of their numbers
NOT ONLY Apple should be in the headlines for its back doors, which Apple is hardly denying. Apple admits putting them in there, but is being evasive about the motives. What about Microsoft? Why is the press not covering Microsoft back doors, as confirmed last year?
The other day we found this report [via] about “Internet Explorer vulnerabilities increas[ing] 100%” (year-to-year):
Bromium Labs analyzed public vulnerabilities and exploits from the first six months of 2014. The research determined that Internet Explorer vulnerabilities have increased more than 100 percent since 2013, surpassing Java and Flash vulnerabilities.
Here is more on the subject:
The report summarises public vulnerabilities and exploit trends that the firm observed in the first six months of 2014 and found that Microsoft’s web browser set a record high for reported vulnerabilities in the first half of 2014 while also “leading in publicly reported exploits”.
Remember that Microsoft tells the NSA about these vulnerabilities before they are patched. Perhaps the media should stop focusing only on Apple’s back doors. █
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07.24.14
Posted in Bill Gates, Microsoft at 3:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Continued criticism of the Gates Foundation’s lobbying and masquerading, with more journalists brave enough to highlight the corruption
THE Gates Foundation is pretty clever scam which is not used for much other than tax evasion and lobbying, as well as tax-exempted investment in companies which it lobbies for, under the guise of ‘charity’. Gates is not unique in that regard; other plutocrats, including the Koch Brothers, use similar loopholes that are accommodated by a government they habitually bribe (the Republic is plutocrats-led). There is a new article titled “The Koch Brothers vs. Bill Gates” and it says: “The Gates Foundation is the world’s largest, at $37 billion in assets, according to its tax filings. That number alone makes it far, far larger than any single or cumulative Koch gift. Some may argue Gates spends money on philanthropy, not politics; but Gates has actually perfected the practice of using nonprofits to influence politics. Leftists claim to hate this tactic—witness the manufactured rage and proposed Internal Revenue Service regulations aiming to curb politics-minded conservative nonprofits—but it seems they actually just hate when it’s used against them.”
What has been quite evident is that Gates bribed lots of nonprofits in order for them to help him lobby for a profitable (to him) agenda, not only in education but in many other areas. Dealing with education for the time being, Salon has published the article “Bill Gates needs to drop his Common Core obsession”. It says: “The billionaire’s latest little fixation is catching hell on all sides. Here’s why he’s better off simply moving on”
Well, it’s all about profit, using (exploiting) “the children”. We have written about this for years and now it has become acceptable to speak about it in corporate media. Valerie Strauss from the Washington Post (where Gates’ close friend and wife used to be on the broad of directors) explains “How Microsoft will make money from Common Core (despite what Bill Gates said)” and other sites cover that also. To quote: “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has used up over $200 million in an effort to push the Common Core Standards Initiative in the last couple years.
“On the Microsoft Web site, a webpage dated April 22, 2014 entitled “Tech Essentials for Testing Success” describes in considerable detail how schools using computer-based, Common Core-aligned tests will now need to spend a bunch of money — on Microsoft products.”
Here is an article which names American Federation of Teachers (AFT), one among very many groups that Bill Gates bribed in exchange for lobbying. To quote: “Though the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) received millions of dollars in funding from the private Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support the development of the Common Core standards, the union will begin its annual convention in Los Angeles Friday with the announcement that it will award grants to assess the standards and write others to replace them.”
This is what the Gates Foundation is for. It’s for lobbying, with profit at the bottom line.
The plutocrats’ rag, Forbes, almost properly explains that ‘charity’ by plutocrats is tax evasion with PR (aside from ‘charity’ for PAC). Read this between the lines:
The Berkshire Hathaway CEO’s latest gift of more than 21.7 million shares of Berkshire Hathaway class B stock — valued at $128.98 per share at Monday’s close — decreases his personal fortune from $65.9 billion down to $63.1 billion. He slips one spot on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people, moving into 4th behind clothing and real estate magnate Amancio Ortega.
So it’s the virtual giveaway, it is a game of stocks/shares. To people like these, it it important to be perceived as generous whilst actually hoarding ad infinitum. With publications like Forbes (glorifying the super-rich) they actually succeed at fooling a lot of people. Let’s hope this will change in the coming year. Their perception management Jihad sure faces obstacles in the age of the Internet. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML at 1:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Only “Microsoft as the standard” is the ‘standard’ Microsoft is willing to accept, as its response to the Cabinet Office’s judgment reveals
AT THE BEGINNING of this week we learned that the British (UK) Cabinet Office, a highly influential department with technology imperatives, did the correct thing by no longer requiring British citizens to become clients of Microsoft (and users of expensive spyware) to merely communicate with their government. The Cabinet Office “goes open source” is how one news site put it, but ODF, the OpenDocument Format, is not necessarily about Free/Open Source software. ODF is about many applications working together, not via formats that are designed around a single application and its various versions (that’s what OOXML is).
Techrights did not break this news. It was Andy Updegrove who did, along with Cabinet Office. Quoting Updegrove:
The U.K. Cabinet Office accomplished today what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts set out (unsuccessfully) to achieve ten years ago: it formally required compliance with the Open Document Format (ODF) by software to be purchased in the future across all government bodies. Compliance with any of the existing versions of OOXML, the competing document format championed by Microsoft, is neither required nor relevant. The announcement was made today by The Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude.
The Cabinet Office stated:
The open standards selected for sharing and viewing government documents have been announced by the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude.
Not too shockingly, as one ought to expect, the following day Microsoft attacked this decision. despite claiming to have ‘embraced’ ODF. “Microsoft attacks UK government decision to adopt ODF for document formats” said one headline, stating: “Microsoft has attacked the UK government’s decision to adopt ODF as its standard document format, saying it is “unclear” how UK citizens will benefit.
“The Cabinet Office announced its new policy yesterday, whereby Open Document Format (ODF) is immediately established as the standard for sharing documents across the public sector, with PDF and HTML also acceptable when viewing documents.”
“Turning its back on Microsoft Office’s native formats, the UK government has adopted the Open Document Format for all its sharable documents,”
writes Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, but if Microsoft is really all about openness, then Microsoft should welcome this decision, not attack it. It is quite revealing that Microsoft is not really interested in fair competition, interoperability, and openness.
“UK government makes “big step forward” on open document standards,” said the headline from Opensource.com (Red Hat).
We already wrote so much about it and warmed the Cabinet Office about Microsoft’s abusive responses, which include trying to get people fired, bribing some other people, using (or exploiting) disabled people to attack people’s rational decisions, and so on.
Dr. Glyn Moody wrote about “Massachusetts ODF fiasco a decade ago” and said about this important milestone: “Let’s Not Mess it up””
While celebrating this great news, I really want to emphasise Bracken’s point about managing the switch properly. We can be absolutely certain that Microsoft will fight this decision in every way possible. It will certainly seize on any problems that arise during the implementation as “proof” that it was the wrong choice. That makes it crucial that the open source community do everything in its power to aid the Cabinet Office here.
One particular area that concerns me is cross-compatibility. I’m hearing stories about difficulty in transferring ODF files from LibreOffice to Apache OpenOffice, with formatting of things like tables being messed up in the process. This is completely unacceptable: one of the benefits of adopting an open standard is the ability to swap in and out different applications. If that theory proves impossible in reality, we have a huge problem.
I would therefore like to entreat all the open source projects and communities that work on ODF to get together and sort this out. In the wake of the fantastic – and brave – move by the Cabinet Office, providing full interoperability among open source implementations must be a priority.
Yesterday’s news is truly a unique opportunity to show the power of open standards, to promote the benefits of open source, and to bring about its wider dissemination both in government, and among home users. The price of failure here would be extremely high: yet more years in the wilderness, as happened after the Massachusetts ODF fiasco a decade ago. So let’s not mess it up.
The Mukt, which covered this important development. delivered yet another call for Google to adopt ODF as the default document format, ending Google’s cowardly approach towards document formats.
We feel as though we played some role in the above (being among hundreds of people who wrote to the Cabinet Office). We not only wrote a lot about it and also wrote to the Office itself almost a dozen times, engaging in a discussion with members of staff. █
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07.23.14
Posted in Microsoft at 3:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Another quick look at Microsoft’s horrible state of affairs and why it has virtually nothing to do with Nokia
The pure fiction that Nokia and Microsoft are the only aspect to be debated in amid the layoffs discussion was covered here before. It is coverup, it is ‘damage control’, and it is successful PR. There is no lack of analyses, e.g. [1,2,3]. Here is Ahonen saying that “Elop authors another moronic memo”. Based on him, a third of those to be laid off have nothing to do with Nokia. “First,” he said, “my deepest sympathies to the 12,500 former Nokia staff who now carry Microsoft business cards, who will be fired. Its nearly half of what was left of ‘The Division Formerly Known as Nokia Mobile Phones” after all the layoffs that Elop’s mismanagement at Nokia caused in the previous four years. I did warn that the layoffs would not end, when the Microsoft purchase of Nokia was announced and as we’ve seen, the division has been producing ever more losses and ever shrinking market share. The solution by the new CEO Nadella at Microsoft is predictable as its harsh: more layoffs. I had hoped that Microsoft would have endured these highly skilled specialized labor for longer, letting them try to find some remedy to the handset business or assist other Microsoft hardware (or mobile) evolutions but no. The new CEO has spoken. And as new CEO, now is the right time to make the big cuts. Microsoft has never seen this kind of mass layoffs before, and as the whole corporation, the cuts are about one in ten employees. But they are almost exclusively inside the Nokia handset part. And unfortunately for Microsoft’s mobile unit, Elop still gets to keep his job (for now).”
Microsoft has already used Nokia to make antitrust complaints against Google and Android in Europe. Andrew Orlowski has this update on it:
Industry sources have confirmed to The Reg that the European Commission is once again prodding Google’s Android contracts with phone makers. Preliminary letters, sent out a month ago, merely ask the phone makers if they find anything in Google’s contracts restrictive.
Windows revenue is decreasing despite squeezing of customers who are locked in. This does not look good for Microsoft and some sources speak of new work limits. “After announcing a big round of job cuts,” says this article, “Microsoft issued new policies concerning contract workers and how long they can work for the software giant.” These are the hallmarks of a company in collapse.
The layoffs at Nokia are actually Microsoft layoffs but there are also purely Microsoft layoffs. Microsoft has been trying to paint it as a Nokia issue using an ugly memo which gets slammed as follows: “Well, congratulations to Satya Nadella and the Microsoft HR and communications teams, because you’re stealing from the best—or maybe you all took the same course in corporate doubletalk and truthiness as part of your MBA programs. Microsoft this morning announced far and away the largest round of layoffs in its history, and Nadella’s e-mail drips with that familiar mixture of faux sympathy and non-information that is so typical of carefully managed corporate communication.”
As there are many dead products at Microsoft, so it should not be surprising that Microsoft also kills Android endeavours from Nokia. “Citing lack of interest,” says this new article, “Lenovo pulls 8-inch Windows tablets from the US,” so Windows is not a viable alternative, that is for sure.
“Detractors further derided Windows 8 as a misguided attempt to be all things to all people that actually ended up pleasing nobody,” said this other new article, so there is consensus on this. “In China, Windows Phone saw a collapse from 3% to o.6%,” says this report and even a Microsoft booster, Preston Gralla, calls BS on claims of the Bill Gates- and Microsoft-funded Gartner Group. Meanwhile, reveal the words of Bill Gates, there may be an attempt to import cheaper labour. As Sen. Jeff Sessions put it, “Super billionaires aren’t happy apparently… They declare we need to import more foreign workers. Mr. Gates says we need to let more and more people into our country to take those kinds of jobs.” See more here or here. Apparently, Bill Gates is now a writer for the New York Times, a paper for the plutocrats, by the plutocrats, cheapening the 99%.
It is fine for everyone around the world to share jobs. What’s not fine is using globalisation for a race to the bottom, as Microsoft did with criminal lobbyists such as Abramoff in the past, amid Gates’ immigration policy hijack (we covered it years ago).
Microsoft announced layoffs but said nothing about the temps it had been hiring to hide shrinkage of the company for years. There was a puff piece/PR from CNN [1, 2], to which there was a response in Pogson’s blog.
For those who want what Nokia would have offered if it weren’t for Microsoft, there’s Jolla, which has just reached another 1.0 milestone [4,5]. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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Now look at Nokia. That ‘struggling’ Nokia which in 2010 still sold its smartphones running on the ‘obsolete’ Symbian system. Nokia in 2009 sold 67.8 million smartphones. Did Nokia lose sales to Apple in 2010? Did that number go down while Apple’s iPhone grew so much? No. Nokia grew. Really? Yes reallly. Nokia’s smartphone sales grew to 103.6 million units (the final, corrected number by Nokia financial reports). Nokia’s smartphone sales during calendar year 2010 grew 35.8 million units !!! The gap between Apple and Nokia smartphones was not narrowing during 2010. Apple was not catching up to Nokia. Nokia smartphone unit was the global juggernaut totally crushing its competition – and yes – the numbers are indisuputable, the gap between Apple iPhone and Nokia smartphones was GROWING during 2010, not shrinking. Apple was not ‘catching up’ to Nokia, Nokia was indeed ‘pulling away’ from Apple (and from Blackberry and from Samsung etc). And Nokia did this profitably, and its smartphone unit produced a Nokia-record profit by Q4 of 2010. Nokia was not losing, The numbers are crysta-clear if you can do basic math. Nokia was clearly winning the war.
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When Microsoft swallowed half of Europe’s biggest tech company, it was only a matter of time before it spat something out. And so it has, ending Nokia’s thirty-year roller-coaster ride.
However, the decision will make tens of million of its customers take a look at Android – surely the last thing Microsoft wanted to happen.
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“I told you so” is a refrain that’s oft-heard here in the Linux blogosphere, and more often than not it refers to some fleeting Microsoft tie with FOSS that subsequently goes wrong.
The latest example? It’s a doozy. Redmond not only is laying off many, many thousands — most of them in its ill-fated Nokia unit — but also abandoning its short-lived support of Android through the Nokia X line of phones.
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Months back, we had Sailfish OS released on Nexus 4, in very alpha stage while many things didn’t work and after any update they got better and better and more stuff started working.
Now though, Jolla is asking YOU to port the OS to your Android device (Running Cyanogen Mod 10.1.x) while it’s hot.
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This week Jolla has finally released their Hardware Adaptation Dev Kit (HADK) publicly to make it easier for enthusiasts/developers to port the Sailfish OS platform to new Android smart-phones.
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07.20.14
Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Patents at 4:44 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The Linux Foundation’s AllSeen Alliance welcomes as a member a company that uses software patents to sue Free/Open Source software
THE improperly-named AllSeen Alliance recently let Microsoft in, immediately discrediting itself. But it’s not just FOSS foes, proprietary software giants, patent trolls and software patent lobbyists that are among the AllSeen Alliance’s members. It’s even a company that sued Chrome using software patents. It seems like growth for the sake of quantity — not quality — is what the AllSeen Alliance is after. Since the AllSeen Alliance is tied to the Linux Foundation, this bodes poorly for Linux as a whole. Here is the AllSeen Alliance’s latest mistake: “Red Bend Software is a community member of the AllSeen Alliance and a leader in mobile software management. More than 2 billion Red Bend-enabled devices use the company’s software and services for firmware over-the-air (FOTA) updating, application management, device management, device analytics and mobile virtualization. Customers include more than 100 leading manufacturers, mobile operators, semiconductor vendors and automotive companies worldwide.”
Did the AllSeen Alliance bother to check Red Bend’s history? Maybe, but probably not. Having said that, since the AllSeen Alliance even opened the door to Microsoft, it does not seem to bother at all with quality control. Its name seems to insinuate in-house (universal) surveillance and judging by its members, that is the route it is quite likely to take. █
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07.18.14
Posted in Deception, Microsoft at 3:49 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Microsoft’s layoffs are not about Nokia but about Microsoft
Summary: Microsoft’s rapid demise and permanent exit from Nokia’s last remaining Linux platform (after Microsoft had killed two more)
NOKIA is dead because Microsoft killed it under the guise of “acquisition” (after a so-called “partnership”). Nokia committed the ‘sin’ of exploring about 4 Linux-based platforms over the years. This could not be tolerated by Microsoft, especially considering Nokia’s size (Nokia’s had the lion’s share of the mobile market). Microsoft had to put a stop to it. When Microsoft took over Nokia (with a mole and a bribe) Nokia had just become one of the top contributors to Linux (the kernel) and was actively developing one of the most promising platforms for mobile devices. It is still being adopted by Jolla (former Nokia staff) as Sailfish OS and to a lesser degree explored by Samsung (Tizen). Let this remind us how anticompetitive Microsoft remains. It’s a force of destruction, not creation. Microsoft has done this for decades.
Some days ago we wrote about news that Microsoft would announce massive layoffs. This turns out to have been true, but the earliest coverage was Microsoft ‘damage control’ (or PR). A longtime critic of Microsoft (after the company stabbed him in the back), a man widely known as Jean-Louis Gassée, says that “Satya Nadella’s latest message to the troops – and to the world – is disquieting. It lacks focus, specifics, and, if not soon sharpened, his words will worry employees, developers, customers, and even shareholders.”
The company is in bad shape because the cash cows are in rapid decline and money is derived from aggressively milking those who are still locked in (we covered this before). The company also uses crimes like bribery in an attempt to keep people locked in. Microsoft is not a real company but more of a corrupt political movement, so if you work for a criminal, by choice, then expect to be treated like one. Here is the Microsoft mouthpiece covering (up?) the layoffs and anonymous staff saying: “that concerns me because now you have a level of stress and anxiety at Microsoft. First, the selfish stress about whether my job is affected. Then personal circle stress. Then partner collaboration stress. Then way out there general concerns about the company. And guess what: when folks are stressed and gossiping, they are not effectively – er, excuse me, productively (?) – implementing the latest strategy. Physiologically, they have increased cortisol and this time will turn into a fog.”
Only about 6% of those laid off are based in Finland. Don’t let Microsoft pretend that it is all about Nokia.
One headline says the layoffs will be complete next year and Microsoft has meanwhile axed the Android phones from Nokia. This expected decision seems to have Elop the mole at the centre of it (he works for Microsoft again, not just as a mole). In Microsoft-tied networks we again witness Sam Dean playing soft. “You have to hand it to incoming Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’” he said. “He is not afraid to stir the pot, and seems well aware that it needs stirring. In a company-wide email, Nadella announced that it will cut its employee base by up to 18,000 jobs, or 14 percent in the next year, and one of the big reasons is to accommodate the acquisition of Nokia.”
No, it is not about Nokia, that is part of the coverup. Dean is still sucking up to Nadella and helping Microsoft’s PR campaign. Here is a better article about how Microsoft killed everything in Nokia which deals with Linux, but there is a lot more to it. “Only 1100 culled from Finland,” tells me a reader, so the lie that Microsoft merely cuts down Nokia is just diversion and deception. About 17,000 are fired outside of Finland and claims that Microsoft goes back to Windows wrongly assume that Windows (mobile) has something going for it. It has been a massive failure. Perhaps it is all about pulling the plug on people who have no blind faith in the Windows ‘religion’:
MICROSOFT HAS ANNOUNCED that Nokia’s Android-powered X handset lineup is no more, with the firm instead planning to deliver the devices with its own Windows Phone mobile operating system.
The layoffs are not effective immediately, so any staff that challenges the status quo should beware.
A reader wrote to us: “What to you want to bet that the severance packages contain non-disparagement/non-compete clauses of some kind? They will spread like a cloud of toxins to new employers. And how many temps/permatemps are going, too?”
The reader showed us this new article which he labeled “voice of a ‘softer” (Microsoft staff). The headline is “Sipilä: Government should hire ex-Microsoft staff to build IT systems” and it suggests that the Finnish government should put an army of Microsoft moles in charge of government IT. What a horrible idea.
These layoffs are not what the early puff pieces claimed them to be. These puff pieces came also from CNET, which has helped openwash Microsoft (the chief editor systematically does this) and is now deleting articles that Microsoft does not like. Yes, CNET has removed (censored we assume) a classic article about a company that ditched Microsoft. Follow the links here (last year) or here. “CNET has taken down the article,” our reader told us, “Link was active in 2013 as it was used then by Pogson” as he indeed demonstrated. █
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07.16.14
Posted in Microsoft at 11:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft boosters are preparing ‘damage control’ pieces ahead of massive layoffs at Microsoft
Murdoch’s press took note of Microsoft’s shrinkage amid death of products. There are more layoffs coming which mostly affect Nokia staff. CNET/CBS, which has been openwashing Microsoft (at the very highest level), spreads misinformation about it. As a reads of ours explained: “It was not $7.2 billion USD as mentioned in this article. That sum is misleading as it includes patent licensing and not just the sale.”
Here is the misinformation which says:
Microsoft is planning its largest round of layoffs in five years as the software giant looks to integrate Nokia Oyj’s handset unit, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing people with knowledge of the company’s plans.
The job cuts, expected to be announced as soon as this week, will likely affect positions in the Nokia unit that serve the same function in other parts of Microsoft, as well as in marketing and engineering, Bloomberg reported. Microsoft added roughly 25,000 employees when it completed its $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia’s devices and services division in April.
Sources told the news agency that the round of job cuts could be the largest in Microsoft’s history, exceeding the 5,800 positions it eliminated in 2009.
The original was a puff piece from Bloomberg, written by Microsoft's friend Dina Bass to cushion the blow ahead the announcement. She is Nadella-washing the company (the ‘new’ Microsoft) and trying to make it sound like everything is just fine. It is PR and damage control, as one can see here. To quote:
The reductions — which may be unveiled as soon as this week — will probably be in areas such as Nokia and divisions of Microsoft that overlap with that business, as well as marketing and engineering, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. The restructuring may end up being the biggest in Microsoft history, topping the 5,800 jobs cut in 2009, two of the people said. Some details are still being worked out, two of the people said.
[...]
The company had 127,104 employees as of June 5, after adding about 30,000 in its acquisition of Nokia’s handset unit.
Nothing is said about Microsoft’s thuggish entyryism and Elop the mole, as well as prior layoffs at Nokia (by now, one oughtn’t expect yet more layoffs, alas Microsoft totally destroyed the company). There is an attempt to shift blame here.
The bottom line is, Microsoft continues to fail very badly in mobile and not even subversive tactics are helping. Microsoft destroyed Nokia, passed its patents to patent trolls, and took its extensive user data trove to the US, where this data can be more easily mined by the Five Eyes. █
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