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Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft’

US tech titans mint millionaires as globalised business model pays off

When the web first boomed, the dream was to become a dotcom millionaire for running you own website. Now you can rich by working for someopne who built a website that went huge. The trick is to work for one that operates on a global scale and is based in the US. In “Tech titans pay $20bn in bonuses” The Times’ Danny Fortsun writes:

Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google’s parent Alphabet doled out a combined $20bn (£15.4bn) in share payouts last year, on top of the techies’ salaries, according to an analysis of stock market filings…

The $20bn bonanza equates to $29,850 for each of the quintet’s 670,000 employees. Last year Britain’s bankers and insurance workers took home £13.9bn in bonuses, an average of £13,400 per employee.

Well, quite. As Tim notes: “Global industry pays more in bonuses across the world than the one country sector of a global business.” If you’re tax efficient, the share price will rise leaving more money to dish out amongst friends and employees back at HQ.

What we don’t know is that bonuses the  Big Five’s UK-based workforce took home when compared to their colleagues in the USA, say, or Luxembourg?

Posted: 7th, May 2017 | In: Money, Technology | Comment


Microsoft buys out Nokia’s handset business: market freezes

The Nokia brand name is displayed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2013. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced it would pay $7.2 billion to acquire Nokia's line-up of smartphones and a portfolio of patents and services. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

SO. Microsoft has taken the plunge and bought out Nokia’s handset business. They didn’t pay that much for it, under £5 billion all in, which is a good insight into what a parlous state the business is in. This leaves Nokia still making all the kit and towers and radio equipment etc that the handsets use to connect to the network, but they’re leaving the handset business altogether.

For Microsoft the deal looks rather different. They’ve been finding it very hard to get handset makers to start using Windows Phone (surprisingly, a rather good little operating system) and their market share is sputtering. Nokia were the only people who had committed to it in a large way. But there were still problems in integrating the software and the hardware. Buying the manufacturing operation now means that Microsoft can design the OS for the hardware and the hardware for the OS: essentially, starting to do what Apple has been doing all along.

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Posted: 3rd, September 2013 | In: Money, Technology | Comment


Competition from Sony forces Microsoft U-Turns on the Xbox One ‘authorisation’ rip off

IMAGE DISTRIBUTED FOR MICROSOFT - E3 2013 attendees interact with newly announced games and experiences for Xbox One at Microsoft’s booth at E3 2013 in Los Angeles on Tuesday, June 11, 2013. (Photo by Casey Rodgers/Invision for Microsoft/AP Images)

MICROSOFT has just done a complete u-turn on the terms and conditions under which their new Xbox One will operate. They had been proposing that used games would require “authorisation” to move from one box to another. Obviously, so that hands could be held out for a fee to facilitate this authorisation.

The machine had to dial in over the internet every day for any games at all to keep working. And finally there would be region blocking on games: no buying your stuff cheap off Amazon US and then playing it in more expensive Europe for example.

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Posted: 20th, June 2013 | In: Money, Technology | Comment


Is Microsoft’s Excel the most dangerous software in the world?

IS Microsoft’s Excel the most dangerous software in thewWorld? It could be actually. That is, that the very existence of Excel itself makes it the most dangerous software in the world.

There’s two parts to this. One is that we’ve got the regulators trying to warn banks on the dangers of using it badly.

Both the Switzerland-based Basel Committee on Banking Supervision1 (BCBS) and the Financial Services Authority2 (FSA) in the UK have recently made it clear that when relying on manual processes, desktop applications or key internal data flow systems such as spreadsheets, banks and insurers should have effective controls in place that are consistently applied to manage risks around incorrect, false or even fraudulent data. The citation by the BCBS is the first time that spreadsheet management has ever been specifically referenced at such a high level, a watermark in the approach to spreadsheet risk.

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Posted: 13th, February 2013 | In: Money, Technology | Comment


China shows why Microsoft is screwed

THERE been some recent whining from Microsoft about how they get to sell bugger all in China. As opposed to Apple who can’t make things fast enough. Some of this is of course because Microsoft sells software, something often ripped off in that lovely country. But there’s something else as well: and it’s a neat illustration of why Microsoft is, essentially, screwed.

China’s Internet population surges to 564 million, 75 percent on mobile

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Posted: 25th, January 2013 | In: Money, Technology | Comments (3)


Comic Sans to become Comic Cerns on Microsoft OS 8

WHEN Dr Fabiola Gianotti used Comic Sans to tell the world about Cern’s ATLAS collaboration, we chortled.

Now Alby Reid has launched a petition calling on Microsoft to rename Comic Sans “Comic Cerns” in the Windows 8 OS:

Greetings,

I’ve just signed the following petition addressed to: Microsoft Corporation.

—————-
Rename the font ‘Comic Sans’ to ‘Comic Cerns’ in the Windows 8 OS.

We were all moved by Fabiola Gianotti’s incredibly strange choice of font in announcing the recent results of Cern’s ATLAS collaboration and feel that her use of Comic Sans has gone a long way to rehabilitate this awful, awful font.

In recognition of the work of Professors Peter Higgs, François Englert and Robert Brout and others in the description of the Higgs mechanism by which vector bosons gain mass by interacting with the Higgs field; and in recognition of the work of the scientists and engineers at Cern’s Large Hadron Collider, in particular the members of the ATLAS and CMS collaborations in their search for the Higgs boson, the quantum of the Higgs field; we believe that Microsoft should rename ‘Comic Sans’ to ‘Comic Cerns’ in Windows 8 and in future releases of the Windows operating system. Renaming Comic Sans to ‘Comic Cerns’ would be a unique way of recognising the groundbreaking achievements of these scientists and engineers.
—————-

Sincerely,

[Your name]

Posted: 5th, July 2012 | In: Technology | Comment


BBC says Microsoft Halo is in charge of the United Nations – Google fail

FURTHER signs of the Googleisation of mainstream media as the BBC News airs a segment about the United Nations Security Council using the logo of the less real United Nations Space Command, as seen on Microsoft’s Halo game.

Still, to secure world peace, anything’s worth a try…

Posted: 30th, May 2012 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)


Microsoft’s Tellme Versus Apple’s Siri: The Teen Anal Meeting

IN this challenge, the tech tester will see if Microsoft’s Tellme is better than Apple’s Siri.

The Teen Anal Meeting is at 10am:

Spotter: Daring Fireball and Boing Boing

Posted: 26th, November 2011 | In: Technology | Comment


Awkward Family Photos Banished With Windows 7 Family Photo (Pictures)

FOLLOWING our news that the taking of photos is banned from a school in Hertfordshire, we spot the TV advert for the Windows 7 Family Photo – to the Cloud – feature.

Here’s the blurb:

Mom wants the perfect family portrait. But some kid (or husband) always messes it up. So… to the Cloud! Where Windows 7 and Windows Live lets her mix and match her family’s best faces until she’s able to piece together a photo she’s proud to share.

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Posted: 28th, November 2010 | In: Key Posts, Technology | Comment


Is Miscrosoft’s Virtual Boy Milo The Ultimate Paedophile Training Tool?

MILO, the Microsoft boy, is the answer to wannabe paedophiles’ dreams. Now the perverts can practice being a paedophile without having to go to the expense of a puppy of a trail of Smarties.

Milo has been devised for – get this – Miscrosoft’s hands-free Xbox 360 motion controller called Kinect.

The brains behind this creepy boy, who apes you movements and emotions, is the UK’s Peter Molyneux:

“I want to introduce a new revolution in storytelling. Films, TV, even hallowed books, are just rubbish because they don’t involve me. It’s a sea of blandness.”

Anything can be improved with a virtual boy. Take this article. How much better it would be if a boy was sat in the corner picking his nose or torturing a grasshopper with a magnifying glass? Can you resist kicking Tiny Tim’s wood-wormed legs away or getting the young Jesus to attract Disciples with a cheeky wink and a Twitter advert to “Follow Me Now With Twitter And Audi”.

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Posted: 14th, July 2010 | In: Technology | Comments (22)


Microsoft Showcases New Black Employee Eradication Software

SENSITIVE to race issues, Microsoft has showcased its new black employee widget. Now you can work with black people without actually having to work with black people.

On the US Microsoft website, you can see this picture:

photoshop-microsoft

On the company’s Polish site, you get this picture:

15368988

Can you spot the difference?

That’s right. In the second picture the woman is not being raped. And she is not pregnant.

The Asian man remains proud of his superiors’ clean shirts…

Posted: 26th, August 2009 | In: Money | Comment