Microsoft hires ex-"Apprentice" star as judge
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Carolyn Kepcher, who helped Donald Trump fire corporate wannabes on "The Apprentice" television show, took a new role on Tuesday -- helping Microsoft Corp.  find the best small-business idea in America.
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Friends of friends XenSource, the server virtualization company, has added a second former Microsoft staffer to its management ranks, recruiting the exec responsible for leading a number of big Windows products.â¦
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Software giant Microsoft Corp. said on  Tuesday it was investigating how two in-house training videos  made by British comedian Ricky Gervais, creator of "The Office"  television series, appeared on two Web sites.
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Microsoft Corp. has turned to an executive at The Walt Disney Co. to fill a vacancy created when the software maker fired its chief information officer.
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(InfoWorld) - A U.S. district judge on Tuesday praised the schedule set up in a revamped technical documentation project that's part of the 4-year-old antitrust settlement between Microsoft Corp. and the U.S. government. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, hailed a new plan that would deliver 58 documents related to Microsoft's software communication protocols by Dec. 15, with more documents coming in February, April and May. Kollar-Kotelly in May approvedÂ a two-year extension to parts of her antitrust judgment against Microsoft because of ongoing problems in the technical documentation for Microsoft's software communication protocols. "I hope this approach works," Kollar-Kotelly said during Tuesday's antitrust compliance hearing. "We seem to be on the correct time table." Kollar-Kotelly, in an antitrust settlement approved in November 2002, ordered Microsoft to create the technical documentation so that competing software companies can buy licenses to Microsoft's communications protocols and make products that work with Microsoft software. The judge expressed support for the new plan after numerous delays and past complaints about the quality of technical documentation."We'll have to see if this achieves the [results] that have eluded us so far," she said after Microsoft representatives explained the technical documentation "reset," as they called it. Under the plan, Microsoft delivered 32 technical documents to the court-mandated technical committee overseeing the settlement by Oct. 25, and is on track to deliver another 26 documents by Dec. 15. The technical documentation that's most useful to protocol licensees will be delivered first, Microsoft said. The schedule has Microsoft delivering another 99 technical documents between Feb. 22 and May 29. About 90 days after the initial release of a document, Microsoft will give the technical committee and licensees an online build of the document. In addition, there were 943 identified problems with the current technical documentation as of Oct. 31, up from 835 problems identified as of Sept. 30, according to court records. Microsoft will work on fixing those problems as part of the revamped documentation project, said Robert Muglia, senior vice president of Microsoft's server and tools business. Lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice and some of the plaintiff states in the antitrust case said the documentation plan seems to be working. But Stephen Houck, a lawyer for the California group of state plaintiffs in the case, noted that hundreds of problems still exist in the current documentation. "While much as been accomplished, there's much left to do," Houck said. Muglia walked the judge through an example of the new technical documentation, and Kollar-Kotelly noted the new version had "a lot more details." "My only wish is that it had been done earlier, so we wouldn't be at this point," she said.
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(InfoWorld) - The executive in charge of leading Microsoft's battle against search giant Google is leaving the company to form his own venture, according to published reports. The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that Chris Payne, corporate vice president of Windows Live search, plans to leave his job and form a company in Seattle. According to the report, his departure is part of a set of changes in the organization since Microsoft appointed former Ask.com executive Steve Berkowitz last year as senior vice president to lead its online group. Microsoft has declined to comment on reports of Payne's leaving, and his biography remained on Microsoft's Web site Thursday. According to the bio, Payne is in charge of "delivering the best search experience for customers and helping them find the information that is important to them," as well as overseeing Windows Live Shopping. Published reports did not make it clear if Payne plans to leave Microsoft for his own reasons or if the company is letting him go. However, Microsoft's search and online business has not been faring well against Google since Microsoft unveiled a plan in November 2005 to rename its search engine Windows Live Search and develop other Web-based services under that moniker in an attempt to take more of the online advertising market. The company at the time also announced a small-business hosted package called Office Live. Just last week in a conference call, financial analysts from UBS Investment Research saidÂ Microsoft's search business is "massively underperforming"Â against Google in both the incidence of search queries and in advertising revenue. They also predicted that the gap between the two companies in this market would not be closing anytime soon unless Microsoft takes drastic measures to ramp up its search strategy by striking deals with enterprise partners and finding legal ways to link its online offerings to its popular enterprise software products. Revenue from Microsoft's online properties also remained relatively flat over the last fiscal year despite the company's increased investment to bolster this part of its business. Before taking over Microsoft's Windows Live Search team, Payne was vice president of MSN.com, where he managed MSN Search, the MSN.com home page, MSN Autos, MSN Entertainment, MSNBC, Slate, and the MSN Channels properties.
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A JUDGE IS ordering Microsoft to pay $112.5 million to attorneys who successfully sued the software maker for monopolizing a segment of California&#39;s market.
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Michelle Dewberry leaves the job she secured after winning TV show The Apprentice.
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The former CEO of NetScreen Technologies has moved on to a new upstart. Can he make the same magic work again?
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LUXEMBOURG - The judge deciding whether Microsoft Corp. must comply with the European Commission's remedies for the company's antitrust violations questioned Friday whether the steps ordered by the Commission will effectively curb Microsoft's power.
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That photo above is no longer accurate. I&#39;ve shaven my head to protest the firing of ... Kevin from The Apprentice. Dude has a bachelor&#39;s from Penn, an MBA from Emory and is working on a law degree from the
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Billingsgate The BBC has hired another Microsoft executive in a shakeup of its digital media technology teams earlier this week.â¦
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Technologist takes reins Microsoft has drafted R&amp;D chief Satya Nadella to take over from Doug Burgham as head of the company's growing Business Solutions unitâ¦
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The US president, George Bush, is expected to name a retired New York federal judge to replace the controversial Alberto Gonzales as the attorney general today.
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WASHINGTON - A U.S. district court judge on Wednesday praised Microsoft for efforts to improve technical documentation for its communications protocols, but questioned the effect in the marketplace of her final judgment in the U.S. government's antitrust case against the software giant.
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Tony Scott, who replaces the CIO fired in November, will run Microsoft's internal IT operations.
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Here's the word: Andrew Lloyd Webber will be a guest judge on the Feb. 11 edition of the reality TV-er "Grease: You're the One that I Want," NBC announced Tuesday.