Summary: Microsoft carries on shrinking and the product that it's hinging its hopes on is a dud

THIS FATE of 2,000+ jobs of is not exactly news because we wrote about it back in June, but the news is that Publicis is most likely to absorb 2,000+ jobs, which will be deducted from Microsoft's headcount. This is part of the ongoing deflation that we find in Microsoft, which is also axing many products and borrowing money.

French advertising company Publicis Groupe is in the lead to buy Microsoft Corp.'s digital ad agency, Razorfish, according to people familiar with the matter.

Steve Ballmer, like Microsoft in general, keeps shouting about Vista 7 as though it is the Second Coming which will rescue Microsoft amid serious trouble. It won't happen.

It is very important to pay attention to Microsoft's Vista 7 hype. It is not natural hype, as we last pointed out last night because others agree. We call it "Vista 7" because it is just another Vista. Less than a year ago, Steve Ballmer said: "[W]e're not going to have products that are much more successful than Vista has been."

“Microsoft is trying to associate the next operating system with premium hardware that's not even new...”Ziff Davis has been hyping up Windows Vista in exchange for payments from Microsoft and ZDNet, which has (or had) a complex relationship with Ziff Davis, published the following article not so long ago: "Windows 7: A better Vista?"

The Ziff Davis publication known as Microsoft Watch is one that we mentioned a few days ago because of bias. In recent days, Microsoft Watch has been participating a great deal in the artificial hype behind Vista 7, with postings such as this one. As it says in the comments, "[S]ince Seven is just "a better Vista" according to Steve Ballmer, it most likely will not work on most of the older computers out there running XP now. So you can save some bucks by not running out and buying this bloatware for the old computer, unless you are already stuck with Vista. Then again one could try out and use Linux for free at distrowatch.com."

There is another brand new buzz-generating posting from Microsoft Watch. It's one of those very typical attempts to make something out of an operating system that lacks added value, so hardware is used to complement the software side. Microsoft is trying to associate the next operating system with premium hardware that's not even new -- in this case tablet PCs, which failed badly as Origami and Vistagami clearly showed. There is a funny comment there which states the obvious:

Talbet is just another form factor for touchscreen. More marketing.

MS is on the decline, as such eweek needs to rethink its approach to news.

If the operating system is worthless, then trying to make people associate it with expensive and fun hardware is all that remains for marketing. Microsoft only requires some 'carriers' in the press who will pass it as "news".

There is no compelling reason to touch Vista 7, surely not for its ability to virtualise XP just as one can virtualise GNU/Linux. It's not even pragmatic because virtual machines are resource hungry. This has "disaster" written all over it, but pricey perception management [1, 2, 3] makes it difficult to believe. ⬆