Microsoft

Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts

Wednesday 28 May 2014

Work For Apple, Microsoft, Or Google - Join this School


For all the talk of "cognitive ability" and "behavioral interviewing," tech firms like Microsoft and Google have a similar hiring pattern to just about any other business: proximity. 

That's according to Wired, which found that  recruitment is typically tied to how close a college campus is to the corporate campus, with a few notable exceptions. 

To find this out, Wired did a little poking around LinkedIn to find the top five "donating" schools for seven tech firms. The magazine's mission was "to see if non-Stanford grads have a chance at Silicon Valley firms (they do) and whether Ivy Leagues dominate (they don’t)." 

Take Microsoft, for instance. Bill Gates's empire is headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Correspondingly, lots of recruits come from that state. Judging by Wired's infographic, Microsoft employs approximately: 

  • 5,000 University of Washington grads
  • 1,000 Washington State grads
  • 800 Western Washington University grads
  • Then there's Apple. The house that Steve Jobs built has this employee breakdown: 
  • 900 University of California, Berkeley, grads
  • 800 San Jose State grads
  • 300 University of Texas, Austin, grads
  • Lastly, let's look at Google. The prestigious search giant has loads of California connections, with some East Coast schools thrown in. The approximate numbers are: 
  • 2,500 Stanford grads
  • 2,000 University of California, Berkeley, grads
  • 800 Carnegie Mellon grads
  • 800 University of California, Los Angeles, grads

Why would big, global companies hire from their nearby colleges? While we don't have anyone in HR at Microsoft, we do know hiring trends. Namely, people hire people they know, and it's easiest to know the folks who are nearby. 

And if you didn't go to Stanford, fret not; you can still end up at Google. Just spend a stint at Microsoft: Wired reports it's the top feeder company to Google. 

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Monday 28 April 2014

Microsoft Acquisition Of Nokia Devices Business Complete


Microsoft’s $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia’s devices and services business has been completed. Nokia confirmed the completed transaction in a press release, noting that it has “completed the sale of substantially all of its Devices & Services business to Microsoft” (using the same phrasing it has deployed throughout the process).

Nokia said it expects the final price-tag to be “slightly higher” than the original figure of €5.44 billion given when the deal was announced last September due to the transaction being “subject to potential purchase price adjustments”:

The estimate of the adjustments made for net working capital and cash earnings was slightly positive for Nokia, and we currently expect the total transaction price to be slightly higher than the earlier-announced transaction price of EUR 5.44 billion after the final adjustments are made based on the verified closing balance sheet.

Another adjustment is to the terms, with Nokia’s manufacturing facilities in Chennai in India and Masan in Korea not transferring to Microsoft. Nokia has been facing ongoing tax proceedings in India which was presumably holding up the deal — hence the workaround, with Nokia noting that it has entered into a service agreement with Microsoft to produce mobile devices for Microsoft. (Some small irony there then, that Nokia is not technically getting out of mobile-making altogether.)

The release notes that the Korean facility will be closed by Nokia, with the loss of 200 jobs. But Nokia said it plans to extend “elements” of its Bridge Program — which elsewhere gives support to employees who leave the company to set up their own businesses — to staff in Chennai and Masan.

Amid the uncertainty for our employees in Chennai and because of the planned closure of our facility in Masan, Nokia plans to offer a program of support, including financial assistance which would give our employees the chance to explore opportunities outside Nokia starting from a sound financial base. The company plans to bring to Chennai and Masan elements of its Bridge program, which we have made available for employees affected by company changes in other sites.

The transaction’s closing had been delayed slightly by regulatory hold ups (and presumably also the ongoing Indian factory-related tax affair). The two companies had originally said they expected the deal to close in Q1– but last month bumped that time-frame up to April, saying they were still pending approvals in certain markets.

The deal got the green light in China earlier this month, although the Chinese Ministry of Commerce did have some concerns about how Microsoft’s patent licensing practices might change post-acquisition. And required the company to agree to a list of patent-related commitments to grant approval.

Commenting on the completion of the transaction in a statement today Tom Gibbons, Microsoft corporate vice president who is responsible for the Nokia integration, said the advantages it will bring are greater intimacy between the two entities — which have of course been publicly working together on Windows Phones since their 2011 ‘strategic partnership’ announcement — and greater efficiency.

“Customers should see a bunch of great end-to-end experiences that really empower them to have very enjoyable, very comprehensive solutions to things that they want to get done, whether you’re talking about smartphones or feature phones,” Gibbons added. “The feature phone product family coming to Microsoft will start to have more of the Microsoft services shipped on those phones right out of the gate.”
With the deal closed, Microsoft acquires Nokia’s smartphone and mobile phone businesses, its design team, most of its manufacturing and assembly facilities and operations, and sales and marketing support…The acquisition also brings key capabilities around supply chain, distribution, operational processes and systems and skill in managing hardware margins to Microsoft. The unified company will benefit from speedier execution and best-in-class business operations.

It will be interesting to see what Microsoft does with the Nokia X family of smartphones, which are built atop the Android Open Source Project — and sit between Nokia’s feature phones and the full-fat Windows Phone Lumia devices.

Gibbons’ comments about pushing Microsoft services on “feature phones” is opaque on the question of what Microsoft does with Nokia X devices — and whether new CEO, Satya Nadella (pictured below with former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, who’s now been brought back into the Redmond fold), is willing to give Nokia’s “Lumia feeder” strategy some breathing room (or not).

Microsoft challenging US Government - Access Data Stored Abroad


crosoft lost its first challenge to the authority of the United States government’s use of search warrants to demand data stored abroad.

Microsoft challenged a U.S. search warrant for emails stored in Ireland. The cloud does have a physical footprint, after all. The company was not surprised that it lost the initial test, noting in a blog post that “the Magistrate Judge, who originally issued the warrant in question, disagreed with our view and rejected our challenge.”

The company states that it “knew the path would need to start with a magistrate judge, and that we’d eventually have the opportunity to bring the issue to a U.S. district court judge and probably to a federal court of appeals.” So, today’s setback for Microsoft is not really a dispiriting moment. Think of it more as a first step.

There is a process called the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty that countries can use to request data and the like from one another. So, even if Microsoft does in fact win in the end, it won’t close the system. Alex Wilhelm

American search warrants aren't worth a thing in China, as Chinese search warrants aren't of much use in California. Microsoft’s point that the location of data demanded matters is simple, and reasonable.

Thursday 24 April 2014

Tim Cook Answer For Why iPad Sales Appear To Be Stalling


Apple's iPad sales for last quarter fell far below expectations. It sold 16.35 million of them, but analysts were expecting about 19 million.

On the surface, 16 million sounds like a lot of iPads, but growth in Apple's iPad business has flatlined. In fact, growth was negative for last quarter.

So, what the heck happened?

On a call with analysts this afternoon, Apple CEO Tim Cook did his best to explain.

For last quarter in particular, he said the company reduced its iPad channel inventory compared to the same quarter last year, so sales were actually in line with the high end of Apple's internal expectations.

Speaking on the iPad business as a whole, Cook made some really interesting points to remain bullish. First, he said the iPad is Apple's fastest-growing product in the company's history. Apple has sold 210 million of them so far, which is almost twice as many iPhones Apple sold in the same period of time.

Cook also made a strong case for the iPad in the enterprise market. He cited one study that said 91% of tablets activated in the enterprise are iPads. Meanwhile, nearly all Fortune 500 companies use iPads. He also said it was a smart move of Microsoft to finally release Office on the iPad, which should help with enterprise adoption since many businesses rely so heavily on the software. In fact, Cook said Microsoft should've released Office for iPad earlier than it did.

In education, Cook said the iPad has a 95% market share, but the challenge now is to get more schools to buy them and gain penetration.

Finally, Cook still believes tablet computing is the future.

"I believe the tablet market will surpass the PC market," he said on the call.


Sunday 22 April 2012

Internet giants scramble for social media pie



Internet giants scramble for social media pie

In India, mobile advertising set to touch $144 crore by 2013. In March 2012, the market was pegged at $105 crore , according to the findings of the Internet and Mobile Association of India

   Last week, when news about Facebook acquiring the startup photo-sharing app Instagram for a whopping $1 billion surfaced, the digital world was abuzz with frantic activity and comments. While the investors and market watchers got busy analysing  the valuation of Instagram  in the wake of the deal, others talked about how Facebook’s appetite to gobble up players had increased over the years.

    Scratch the surface a little a bit and one can see that Facebook was not just trying to net the 30-million strong user base of Instagram, but was rather making a strategic move to  keep competitors (read Google) at bay. As Gartner’s principal research analyst (India)  Asheesh Raina puts it, “Facebook paid a premium, as it wanted to keep Instagram out of the hands of the competitors.”

    Though an eye-popping $1 billion may sound too much a price for protecting its turf from a potential threat, it is nowhere close to what Google paid ($12 billion) last year to Motorola  Mobility to protect its mobile franchise. Or, when Microsoft shelled out $8.5 billion to acquire Skype. Google acquired Motorola Mobility to protect its popular Android mobile operating system from Apple and Microsoft’s anti-competitive threats to its patent portfolio.

     Analysts however believe there’s another compelling reason why Facebook spent big on the acquisition. As research firm Forrester’s CEO George Colony wrote, Facebook is too web-centric:” App internet poses mortal danger for any player that remains too web-centric. It will enable companies to directly link with their customers.”

    The acquisition of Instagram puts Facebook in a better position in the app internet market and perhaps becomes a template for how Facebook will expand its model into the new high engagement architecture, Colony added. Without Facebook’s own app presence, “Apple, Google, Amazon, (and potentially Microsoft) ecosystems can become too powerful, blocking the Facebook’s growth and presence,” he wrote.

     Instagram, a free photo sharing programme, was launched in October 2010 by Kevin Systrom. It allows users to take photos and apply digital filters and effects, before sharing them on social networking sites.
     An article in Fortune magazine in November suggested how the mobile is going to be the next battlefront for Silicon Valley’s web giants. Facebook, Google, and Apple are all competing to attract mobile users and make money off their actions. “Google may also find ways to build many Google+ features right into Android phones and tablets, making it harder for rivals to compete. That last point is not lost on (Mark) Zuckerberg.  It prompted him to seek closer ties with Google’s biggest rival in mobile  ¬¬¬¬¬--- Apple,” the Fortune article said.

      In India, mobile advertising is all set to touch $144 crore by 2013. In March, the market was pegged at $105 crore, according to the findings of Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). Raina feels Facebook is aware that its strength lies in easy interface, photo-tagging and sharing capabilities. Instagram strengthens  its presence in the space. “More, it gives them access to mobile devices and helps users instantly edit, upload and share photos through their devices,” he says.


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