SOME rather disturbing news is making its way into the news just days ahead of Microsoft's announcement of layoffs (and possibly bad accompanying results). This is probably no coincidence and the company, which kept it under the wraps for quite some time, must have had this aligned to impress investors and divert attention away from next week's bad news.

In a previous post which was titled "An Open, Gentler Microsoft: The Best Illusion Only Novell Can Buy" we covered many calls for Steve Ballmer to leave the company or be fired and this new gallery from Gizmodo speaks volumes about how people feel regarding his leadership.

Now comes another post calling for Microsoft to replace Ballmer as CEO.

"I have avoided MSFT for some time as too expensive. If you do the math, owner’s earnings have been 2-4% even though revenues have grown since 1997 and the stock was very flat. However, since 2006, they have been buying back stock and Net Income has risen so that 2009 is forecasted to be ~$2.20. With the stock under $20shr I began looking about for information and found that Ray Ozzie wants to remake MSFT into a start-up mode.

Just who is Ray Ozzie and what is the deal?

Amid the massive hijack of Windows PCs (it's now up to 9 million, making it 6+ million in one day) and latest strike from the European Commission (for violations) comes yet another blow.

Seattle online advertising company Marchex is among those criticized in a 52-page complaint [PDF] today brought by the Center for Digital Democracy and U.S. Public Interest Research Group that says mobile marketers are using "unfair and deceptive practices." The complaint, filed with the Federal Trade Commission, also cites Microsoft's acquisition of mobile advertising startup Screen Tonic, noting how it attempted to target teenage girls with a mobile marketing campaign that captured their emails. And it points out how Kirkland-based HipCricket's mobile marketing techniques target Hispanics.

People whose country has just fallen a victim to EDGI (or "Unlimited Potential" [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]) ought to consider filing complaints (Quebec filed for a lawsuit) or even protesting. This is the type of high-level corruption we have been warning about [1, 2, 3, 4]. ⬆

"DRM is the future."

--Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO