News
Microsoft Cuts Jobs, Fights the Law
Microsoft streamlines its training and sales divisions and gets beat on by the EU and South Korea. Also, IE7 beta 3 ships and Office 2007 is delayed.
While most celebrated the Fourth of July with fireworks and BBQs in the U.S.,
162 people probably mulled over their freedom and independence with more than
a couple cold ones. They include
14
cut from Microsoft's Learning division and
148
of Redmond's sales staff. Microsoft, though, wasn't the only party pooper,
as HP announced Thursday its plans to
close
some of its offices worldwide to save on real estate costs.
Courts apparently decided to commemorate the holiday with downers of their
own: the EU
announced its plans to levy more fines against Microsoft for non-compliance
with its antitrust order for the company to share technical information with
rivals, and South
Korea rejected Microsoft's request for a stay of antitrust sanctions.
A federal court, however, did dismiss
Go's antitrust case against Microsoft, citing a four-year limitation
on filing its case.
In product news, Microsoft
released the third beta of Internet Explorer 7, which includes drag-and-drop
tabbed browsing and enhanced FTP functionality, and the general availability
of Office
2007 has been pushed back to...2007.
Technology consultancy twentysix New York, a Microsoft Gold Certified
Partner, announced Thursday the publication of Andrew Brust's Programming
Microsoft SQL Server 2005, co-authored with Stephen Forte. The book
covers how to plan, develop and manage custom applications for SQL Server 2005
with code samples. Brust is a Visual Basic MVP, a member of Microsoft's Business
Intelligence Partner Advisory Council and twentysix New York's chief of New
Technology. http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/