By Tim Conneally, Betanews

At the end of January, the Federal Communications Commission's Consumer Task Force launched an inquiry into the Early Termination Fees (ETFs) of the major wireless providers with a special focus on the Google Nexus One handset.

The Nexus One is unlike other smartphones in that it is sold only by Google and available on multiple carriers. As such, if a customer terminated his contract, he faced early termination fees from both Google and his wireless provider.

The Consumer Task Force's Inquiry said: "Consumers have been surprised by this policy and by its financial impact. Please let us know your rationale(s) for these combined fees, and whether you have coordinated or will coordinate on these fees and on the disclosure of their combined effect."

Google's response appeared quite plainly yesterday evening: it has lowered its early termination penalty from $350 to $150.

Responses from the FCC and Google this morning are pending.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

We have seen a couple of mobile broadband hotspots come to market in the last year, the Novatel MiFi on Sprint and Verizon, and the recent Sprint Overdrive from Sierra Wireless. They're pocket-sized, battery-powered devices with a 3G connection that can connect a handful of devices to the Internet wherever they're plopped down.

Today, Netgear and Ericsson announced that they have created a 3G mobile broadband-connected router like these devices, except that it's not pocketable and battery powered.

Instead, the new mobile broadband router, called the MBRN3300, is designed for fixed or semi-nomadic use. For example, it can provide a broadband connection to rural homes that don't have the appropriate infrastructure for a DSL, Cable or Fiber; or it can be set up in mobile homes, boats, automobiles and trains.

It provides an HSPA connection to the Internet and both 802.11n and Ethernet LAN for home networking. The broadband speeds depend, of course, upon the service providers' capabilities, but the current peak in U.S. speeds is 7.2Mbps and the average is around 4Mbps.

Though a number of companies have been pushing WiMAX as the solution to rural connectivity in North America, Southeast Asia and Africa (with 519 deployments in 146 countries), HSPA is showing strong growth across the world as well. According to the GSA's latest survey (February 4, 2010) 315 network operators in 133 countries have upgraded to HSPA.

The companies will be showing off the new wireless hotspot at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week, but carrier partnerships haven't been mentioned yet.

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Like many nighthawks across the continent, I found myself glued to more than one screen...all right, three. Plus my BlackBerry...as I watched this morning's launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. I observed the spectacle with a curious mixture of excitement and sadness because after the current STS-130 mission, the shuttle program has only four more scheduled flights before it's grounded for good.

It's not the retirement that gets me. Every technology has its day, and it's fair to conclude that a system largely designed in the early 1970s has now served its purpose and should logically be replaced. It's also fair to conclude that this same system was and is too complex to ever be fiscally feasible. Despite the orbiters' reusability, which was supposed to drive down the cost of spaceflight, extensive maintenance in-between missions made the program even more expensive to fly than conventional expendable rockets. The shuttle's inherent design flaws (you'll never see humans riding below any other part of a space vehicle again) pretty much sealed its fate.

The absent successor

What irks me about the whole thing is the fact that when the shuttle program is over and done, there won't be another program waiting in the wings to take over. President Obama's 2010 budget announcement last week virtually killed funding for the Constellation program, which would have resulted in new hardware to take humans more safely into orbit, to the moon and beyond.

We've been down this road before. After the Apollo program ended with the Apollo/Soyuz Test Project in 1975, nearly six years passed before the US once again launched its own astronauts into space. Then as now, NASA lacked the funds because the US lacked the national will to prioritize spending on sending humans into space. Then as now, NASA found itself going up against a wartime government dealing with frightfully uncertain economic conditions. Then as now, NASA lost the battle and spent years twiddling its thumbs waiting for its new ride to be ready.

With Constellation now virtually dead, NASA doesn't even have that comfort anymore. Had the key components for the regularly scheduled program already in progress -- the Ares I rocket and Orion capsule -- survived the axe, NASA would have had at least a five-year gap before its next launch. Now, it could be buying seats on Russian Soyuz rockets indefinitely while it waits for commercial space interests to fill the giant void. While thousands of NASA employees wonder what tomorrow might bring (hint: it won't be pretty) I can't resist the urge to draw a personal connection.

Liftoff of Space Shuttle STS-130, perhaps the final nighttime liftoff in the shuttle program's history. [Courtesy: NASA]

Of cars and spaceships

My wife and I cart our kids around in a vehicle we affectionately call the "wondervan." Despite our guilt over contributing to global warming, our car is an essential pillar of life for us and our kids. Like all vehicles, it has a finite lifespan, and we're already planning for its replacement over the next couple of years. The plan will be relatively simple: Save up a lot of money, do a lot of research and preparation, drive to the dealer in the old car, and return home (somewhat poorer) in the new one.

The same process applies in the real world. Planning for any technology platform's end-of-life is a fundamental requirement of any business in any sector. The laptops that your employees use and the servers they connect to can only last for so long. When they reach the inevitable point of no return -- where the costs and risks of keeping them in service outweigh an investment in followon technology -- it's time to take the plunge. Your business can't afford to be without laptops and servers until you decide you've got enough money saved up. The time to get off your duff and do something about it is not just before the thing dies an inglorious death or the vendor pulls its support. If you fail to bake lifecycle planning into your operations, your fate may be even more bleak than NASA's. The agency, despite countless layoffs, will exist in some form by the time this is all over. Your business? Don't hold your breath.

For a variety of self-inflicted and externally influenced reasons, NASA's new business model will see it walking the proverbial five miles to school for a whole lot of years before a new vehicle, likely developed by commercial partners, is ready. The agency failed to anticipate upcoming change, and now thousands of its employees will pay the ultimate price. I'm going to guess the former Can-Do organization will have a tough time convincing us to stay engaged while its human spaceflight capability remains grounded.

Who do you trust?

Despite their obvious differences, businesses and government agencies are equally dependent on trust. Once stakeholders lose trust, it's over. Would you willingly do business with an organization that failed to anticipate end-of-life for its core competency?

As you scope out potential partners, supply chain members and, yes, even customers, you're making one judgment call after another, typically revolving around whether you think this outfit has the brains and the moxie to stick with you for mutual benefit. If its leadership is so blind that it can't anticipate normal technology turnover, do you really want to be aligning yourself with it in the first place? Would you have any trust in its ability to balance near-term and long-term goals? I'm going to guess letting something like this happen would erode your confidence a bit.

In a year or two, my wife and I will take that infrequent trip to the dealer and return home with something newer, nicer, and safer than the vehicle it replaces. By then, NASA will be well into its human spaceflight stand down, waiting for the figurative bus while nations with bigger budgets and different priorities pass them by. I do hope businesses are studying this monumental gaffe and revisiting their technology investment roadmaps to ensure they, too, don't get caught without the basic ability to keep themselves relevant.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In a world where Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski's six principles for net neutrality are enforced, everyone who makes a living on the Internet could conceivably be "unburdened by the unnecessary intervention of network operators or government regulators." The exception would be when a pipeline provider such as Comcast merges with a content provider such as NBC Universal, to make certain classes of content viewable online only when it designates. That's the opinion of attorneys for video rental service Netflix, in a filing last month with the FCC and recently made public.

"Netflix believes that the codification of the existing network neutrality principles, together with the addition of nondiscrimination and transparency, create an effective framework for preserving an open Internet," begins Netflix' filing, written last January 14 (PDF available here). "These rules will allow all parts of the industry -- network operators, consumer electronics manufacturers, and edge providers of content, applications, and services -- to continue to innovate at a rapid pace, unburdened by the unnecessary intervention of network operators or government regulators."

The exception is when a dominant network operator like Comcast puts together a service like TV Everywhere, its lucrative on-demand platform for Internet streaming of content to subscribers. In a strangely familiar sounding refrain, Netflix warns that a bundling of the operating system, so to speak, with content makes it difficult for other distributors of content to compete at the same level.

"By bundling the traditional cable TV offering with Internet delivery of content, vertically integrated MVPDs and network operators are potentially extending and expanding their dominant market position at the expense of competitive online offerings," Netflix' attorneys write. "Moreover, the recent announcement of the proposed merger of Comcast and NBC Universal serves to exacerbate the growing concern that MVPDs will use their control over programming networks to stifle competition, including the growing competition from online video providers like Netflix."

The company's attorneys particularly point to a clause in the FCC's notice of proposed rulemaking last October. There, the commission acknowledged that certain classes of service that use the Internet as their backbone, probably shouldn't be managed the same way as the Web (based on HTTP, just one of the Internet's many applications). So the FCC proposed the creation of a service class called either managed services or specialized services, that it describes as industries unto themselves, and as such, deserving of special recognition and treatment. VoIP service such as what Vonage provides, and multi-channel video offered by AT&T U-verse and Verizon FiOS, are obvious examples.

As the Commission wrote at the time (PDF available here), it was interested in public comment regarding how such services could remain managed while the Internet stays open: "We recognize that these managed or specialized services may differ from broadband Internet access services in ways that recommend a different policy approach, and it may be inappropriate to apply the rules proposed here to managed or specialized services. However, we are sensitive to any risk that the growth of managed or specialized services might supplant or otherwise negatively affect the open Internet. In this section, we seek comment on whether and, if so, how the Commission should address managed or specialized IP-based services in order to allow providers to develop new and innovative technologies and business models and to otherwise further the goals of innovation, investment, competition, and consumer choice, while safeguarding the open Internet."

That's precisely the section to which Netflix' attorneys responded: "Netflix is concerned that network operators will use so-called managed services in a way that harms unaffiliated content or service providers that compete directly with services provided by the network operator, owing either to their vertical integration...or resulting from competitive threats to their legacy 'managed services' business. This concern is heightened in light of the fact that such 'managed services' are offered over the same physical network as broadband Internet access."

The danger, Netflix believes, is that by even creating the exception class in the first place, the FCC could inadvertently create the very "fast lane" for the Internet that lawmakers in 2005, coining the phrase "net neutrality" for the first time, sought to avoid.

As legislative momentum for passing Pres. Obama's ambitious public agenda has slowed, public support for the President's policies as a whole, has waned. As a result, even net neutrality -- something seemingly unrelated to health care, jobs, and the fiscal deficit -- appears to have become yet another can to be kicked down the avenue, as yet another topic tied to Mr. Obama. Last week, as House members discussed the Comcast + NBCU consolidation proposal, even net neutrality's principal backers appeared unwilling to take their own side, enabling Republican opponents to resume their counterattack.

House Telecommunications and the Internet ranking member Cliff Stearns (R - Florida) began last Thursday's hearings by suggesting the entire net neutrality issue was being raised in the context of Comcast and NBCU just to be anti-competitive. Rep. Stearns cited the DC Court of Appeals, which last month indicated the FCC may not have enforcement rights with respect to how Comcast may deploy its Internet services.

"The Court, in fact, seemed skeptical that the FCC even had legal authority to impose these mandates. One of the judges asked the FCC counsel 'whether he wanted to lose on process or jurisdiction.' Unless a condition is narrowly tailored to a transaction's specific harm to competition, it does not belong in this negotiation," stated Stearns. "Since this deal will not materially increase concentration in either the distribution or programming markets, demonstrating such harm would be difficult, especially in light of the robust competition in the video sector...If Comcast and NBCU are right that this deal creates a stronger entity that can better serve viewers, I think it can succeed. If they're wrong, it will fail."

The ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Joe Barton (R - Texas, a former chair of the Committee), didn't have much to add besides a smile and a wink: "It's good to see NBC and Comcast sitting side by side. That doesn't break my heart."

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

A new study from subscriber management company Allot Communications today says that worldwide mobile broadband consumption increased approximately 72% in just the second half of 2009.

Though the Federal Communications Commission is worried that there won't be enough bandwidth in the United States to support the growth in mobile broadband use, the Americas are actually being outpaced by both the Asia Pacific region (APAC) and the Europe/Middle East/Africa region (EMEA) in terms of growth rate. APAC experienced an 86% growth in mobile broadband consumption, and EMEA experienced 70% growth, while use in the Americas grew by 59%.

Allot's study says that streaming video is "the single most influential factor driving the need for increased mobile network capacity," and that consumption of streaming video grew by 99% in the second half of '09. YouTube alone accounted for 10% of the world's mobile bandwidth consumption in the third and fourth quarters of last year.

"Mobile broadband networks are still facing the same challenges as fixed networks -- growing bandwidth demands, congestion, as well as finding ways to enhance the user experience and to lessen the negative impact of a few [P2P users] on the network," a statement from the company said today.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

For the most part, last week's over-the-air software update to Google Nexus One phones, which was intended to address the 3G connectivity issues with certain versions of the phone's firmware (with a gift of added multitouch), appears unsuccessful for many commenters to Google's support forums. Very few customers reported improvement, and some who did in the early going are now saying their flip-flop problems between 3G and EDGE have returned.

Meanwhile, although Nexus One manufacturer HTC has typically referred phone issues to Google -- the self-proclaimed "vendor of record" when the device premiered -- as of now, it has declared the issue resolved, suggesting that customers still experiencing problems "restart their Nexus One device to restore their T-Mobile data connection."

The entry of new customers into the Google support forum who report having purchased their phones in the last week, only to be confronted with the issues some others have faced since last month, suggests that Google may continue to be selling phones containing the firmware suspected of having the connectivity defect.

"I just recently purchased the Nexus One and discovered that I am unable to make calls and access the internet at the same time," reports new entrant Mayo1 on Saturday. "Once I make a voice call, I am unable to browse the Internet or use any apps that require Internet connectivity. I am mostly in a 3G area. Initially, I'm browsing or using my apps just fine then I decide to make a voice call and all of a sudden Internet connectivity is gone. The minute I hang up the voice call, I can go right back to browsing."

Besides this and the flip-flop problem, the other prominent symptom users are reporting is that connectivity seems high until someone touches the phone, then it drops to zero -- which suggests a problem with the phone's antenna. Although the common thread among customers with these symptoms appears to be the same firmware version, customers are beginning to suspect that these issues are actually unrelated -- that they are separate problems that afflicted a certain strain of the phone, but may not be caused by the firmware in that strain.

Last Sunday afternoon before the Super Bowl, Google employee Ry Guy posted a perplexing message. Citing the fact that "there's still a lot of interest here," he began by reminding customers of the existence of the OTA software fix "that will improve 3G connectivity for many Nexus One users." No one continuing to report negative symptoms had claimed to have refrained from installing the fix.

"However," Ry Guy continued, "there are a variety of factors which feed into the quality of 3G connectivity on mobile phones, a number of which are dependent on the environment rather than the phone itself. For instance, a software update can't address the experience of users on the edge or outside of 3G coverage areas. We're going to continue to track 3G performance closely with HTC and T-Mobile and will post any updates we've got."

Customers responded as though Google had just fumbled in the fourth quarter. "Just face facts: There is something significantly wrong with the software or hardware," wrote andrewrchick. "If you just tell us you will fix it but you need time, most of us will hang on in there. But don't insult us and blame it on T-Mobile as too many people here have enough experience to say otherwise."

And customer olypdd noted the trend of some technology news services following the forums lately: "Please remember...many, many entities, some who research and report on these technologies, are following these blogs. I would be careful to not blow smoke. It doesn't do anything to save Google (and HTC) from what is already an embarrassing Superphone release, and anything that looks patronizing will be reported as such elsewhere."

Over on the T-Mobile forums, customers who had not reported 3G connectivity problems appreciated the "pinch-to-zoom" multitouch addition in the latest OTA fix. For them, it certainly didn't hurt. For others who did report troubles, not only were their connectivity symptoms unchanged, but multitouch seemed to be crashing their browsers.

Writes T-Mobile customer polobear this morning, "Overall, I'm happy with the phone. Specifically however, I'm not happy with the 3G. As luck would have it, I live in an area with fantastic T-Mobile coverage. I get 5 bars (EDGE) in my basement no matter what phone is used. But on the N1, I can't pick up 3G anywhere around here (not in the house, not outside). I've never actually seen a 3G connection on the phone, ever."

Judging from T-Mobile's support forum, there did not appear to be any similar 3G connectivity issues affecting its other Android brands, including the MyTouch 3G, which is co-branded with Google.

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Do middling, middle managers run Microsoft? That's the consensus among the former Microsofties who shared their work stories with me over the last couple months. The new work week starts with another Microsoft Confessional -- the fourth in four days -- from 13-year company veteran Boris, which isn't his real name, of course. Boris was smart enough to see the end coming, and he made preparations in the days before his May 2009 layoff. He learned to read middle managers the way a genuine fortune teller might read tea leaves.

People being asked to leave are one view of Microsoft. But those leaving voluntarily are another perspective. In looking at Microsoft, I'm hugely concerned about the departures of two important and long-time Microsoft executives: Mike Nash and Bill Veghte, revealed on February 4 and January 14, respectively. Both men are 19-plus years veterans working for the Windows and Windows Live groups. Nash is headed to Amazon, and Veghte departs following last year's executive shuffle that put Steven Sinfosky in charge of the group (as one of five Microsoft presidents).

Historically, successful shipment of a new Windows version ends with big promotions. Windows Vista was the exception, leading to demotions, sideways transfers and departures (Microsoft wouldn't call them firings). But Windows 7 is a huge success, so what gives with Nash and Veghte  leaving Microsoft?

The departures of Nash, Veghte and also Chris Liddell, Microsoft's former chief financial officer, are canaries in the coal mine. They signal something  fundamentally wrong. Boris' story and the three before it -- "Killed over politics," "Deeply dysfunctional family" and "Poor worker bees" -- offer some insight into what is part of the problem.

Boris' story is the longest of the quartet of confessionals; as such, I've added subheads to make it easier reading. With that introduction, Boris' story:

My career out of college started with working as a technical writer for a few now-defunct engineering software firms. I recall my first day on the job, being assigned a massive Compaq 'portable' as my workstation, and teaching myself MS-DOS and batch file programming via the Compaq's user manual. We had a cool array of hardware around the office for porting: IBM AS/400, Silicon Graphics Iris and Indigo, some of the early Sun SPARCstations, and my favorite, a NeXT Cube.

During the next five years I moved up from a junior writing position to managing an entire department of writers and illustrators. I was largely self-taught as a manager. We made some good hires, got the work done on time, wrote what I still think were some actually helpful manuals, and introduced a bit of publishing innovation with on-demand printing, electronic distribution of documentation on the Web (in 1995!) and CDs, highly modular content, and so on.

In the mid-90's, on a goof, I applied for a job with Microsoft. I was convinced a friend was pulling a fast one when they called for an interview. A month later I was a full-time, blue-badge Microsoft employee.

Through most of my career at Microsoft I worked as an editor of one sort or another, working on both developer and end-user content. In the early years, I was aligned with the Developer Evangelism team and got to work with a really amazing cross-section of smart, influential people in the software industry. Jeff Richter, Don Box, Aaron Skonnard, Charles Petzold, Mark Russinovich -- the list goes on and on.

For a few years I was part of the user assistance team for one of the big orgs, working on UI, help, SDKs, articles, books -- whatever they threw at us. We shipped some very good products and got a lot of recognition in the form of industry awards. I worked on launching a few companywide internal tools and standards projects that made important contributions to the way we build products and communicate with customers. One is still in active use today, almost 7 years after we started. That's a long time in MSFT years. I'm very proud of that since I was a key contributor from the very beginning.

Hamstrung by Ineffective Management

My career trajectory slowed a bit at Microsoft, in part because I mostly worked on small teams and there simply wasn't room for advancement. Also in part because, during the first few years, I didn't understand how the MSFT review and promotion system worked. The reality is quite a bit different from many people's expectations.

It was clear to me at a certain point that Microsoft had turned the corner. There were still a lot of smart people beavering away on various projects, but they were largely hamstrung by multiple levels of largely ineffective management. Who you knew, or how well you could influence those above you, counted more than results.

There were a ton of bozos. Arrogant bozos. Not to suggest that I'm some sort of genius. Far from it. But the intellectual rigor demonstrated by much of the management -- and strategy -- was sadly lacking. In some ways it was funny, but mostly depressing.

The end of the road came in early 2009. Half of my team was let go in the January layoffs. We scrambled forward with vendors for a few months until the remaining editors were canned in May (me included). Out of a starting staff of nearly 20, four remained, all managers. I'm not sure what they manage.

The End -- a Relief

Some of us saw the end coming. I was working on a post-Microsoft business plan, but had envisioned another 12 months of employment for planning and scraping together a bankroll. In the event, on a Thursday afternoon, a friend and I intuited -- partly from sudden, unnanounced travel status of certain managers -- that the end was much closer. Friday we brought in suitcases and took home our personal items. I used my StayFit allowance to buy a gym membership. Monday we printed out any important personal papers. Tuesday we sat down with our GM and got the news.

In my case it was a relief. I wanted to leave many times over the years -- and in fact did once -- but the salary, the benefits and to be honest the good people, too, kept me there. Devil you know. But I walked out the door that day knowing it was for the best and, though it might take a while, I'd come out of the experience OK.

I spent the summer with my family, relaxing, and taking a wider look around the industry. It was much needed, much appreciated time away from the Microsoft hot house. Thanks to the severance package, unemployment and some careful budgeting, we haven't yet needed to dip into our savings. In the longer term we may need to move somewhere less expensive to reduce our housing costs.

Of my former colleagues, only two of us are now employed fulltime in the industry, though at significantly lower compensation. Another seems to have steady consulting work. Clearly the tech publishing industry (including tech writing/editing) has changed significantly, and probably permanently. I don't think the need for communication experts has vanished, but it remains to be seen how we fit into the changing landscape of the industry.

From six to 13 Management Layers

It's a bit hard to equate the different [Microsoft compensation] level systems over the years, but I basically started at what today would be a level 59 and finished a level 61. That's not much of a bump in a dozen or so years. Assume what you will. I know what went down. I know the value of what my team accomplished (we measured it, with business-relevant, industry-relevant metrics). I know what my contribution was to the team. I am more than satisfied that I pulled my weight and more.

When I started at MSFT in 1996, there were six people between me and Bill Gates. In 2009, there were 13 people between me and Steve Ballmer. My inability to climb the corporate ladder cannot alone explain that away. When layoffs hit my team, only the bottom two layers of the org were affected -- the entire bottom layer of individual contributors (ICs) and two first-level managers. Who's working here?

Ironically, I once wanted to climb up that ladder. But I'm glad it never happened. Through friends, I saw the costs: Huge amounts of additional hassle, not a lot of additional pay, effectively no training or support, unbelievable politics, etc.

On the other hand, MSFT philosophy is up or out. Review depends more on managing perception up the chain of command than actual results. (I tested this theory and it's true. I managed a single set of metrics up the management chain, just spinning the results differently depending on who I talked to and what they cared about. The metrics were useless as the tools they came from were broken. Result = promotion.)

There's little or no interest in sustainability. No recognition for doing a job consistently well over time. No incentive for effective cross-team work (unless you can get another team to do work you can take credit for).

Swimming Against Reward-Driven Culture

Interestingly, [internal] MS Poll results show that the ability to work effectively across teams has been consistently one of the lowest-scoring poll items for over a decade. (Yes, I looked it up.) I've seen managers bend over backward to bring a poll score from 75 percent to 80 percent. I've never seen anyone try to address the cross-team problem.

There are good managers at MSFT. I've seen them. There just aren't very many, and they're swimming against an internally focused, reward-driven culture that puts the highest value on visibility.

It can also be very, very difficult to work in a non-engineering role or organization within an engineering-dominated company. Management focus was just on completely different things than what my teams were doing. Successful or not, it was seen as a distraction. Arguably, good management should be able to multitask, look at the world through different lenses, make situation-specific decisions, strategize in a diverse and complicated world. Realistically, that's a rare set of skills.

Long story short, there were many good and bad experiences over the years. The bad stuff made me stronger and more confident in my abilities. The good stuff is work, friendships, and experience I'm still proud of. I know, for a fact, that we helped people. So that's my story. I remain proud of what I did and [I am] hopeful for the future.

I'm still collecting stories. Please e-mail joewilcox at live dot com. Stories can be anonymous, but I will need to verify identities.

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Today's Microsoft Confession comes from a woman let go during the first round of layoffs, in January 2009. I'll call her Amanda, which, of course, isn't her real name. Amanda shared key elements of her story on deep background, but she also provided a reflective portion that she hopes will give deeper insight to anyone looking to work for Microsoft or to HR departments looking to hire former employees.

By telling this story, Amanda wants to give some meaning to her layoff, or so I detected from what she shared for private and public consumption. Amanda's story is consistent with every other I received. She sharply criticizes Microsoft's culture of reorganization, but also emphasizes the heavy workload. I detect deep frustration in her story about Microsoft management problems that won't easily be fixed.

Amanda's story follows two other confessionals -- "Killed over politics" and "Deeply dysfunctional family." As explained on Friday, after the last round of Microsoft layoffs, I asked former employees to tell their stories, which are presented anonymously to diminish risk of repercussions -- either to work elsewhere in the tech industry or to any Microsoft severance arrangement.

I challenge current or former Microsoft employees to either confirm or contradict two key points from Amanda's story: That some Microsoft divisions demand overlong work weeks and that employees who can't keep pace are penalized. From my experience, long hours are standard among many software companies. Does Microsoft demand too much? Current or former employees, please answer the question in comments.  With that introduction, Amanda's story:

A lesson and caution to the masses is found in how quickly I went from rising star with a bright future to yesterday's dishwater that couldn't be tossed out quickly enough, without changing how I approached my work! In summary, it was all due to the arrival on the scene -- all praise the holy reorg, which is an approximately annual religious festival in certain sects, I mean divisions, of Microsoft -- of a particular manager...The organizational culture in many parts of MS is such that one manager, even one with a history of their own performance problems, can spell doom for even the most diligent, accomplished, well-intentioned and politically-savvy employee.

The opportunities? [They] can be among the most amazing for your career that you'll ever encounter. This is balanced, however, by the reality that merit isn't always the primary criteria by which opportunities are given out, and that opportunities that are given in the blink of an eye can be -- and sometimes are -- taken away in the blink of an eye for no apparent reason at all.

The culture of the work environment? Let's talk about that, because while people need to know that the culture of working like a dog for 5 years to retire a millionaire is long gone, they also need to know that the culture of working like a dog for 5 years for your regular wages isn't, in some departments.

My former team required 60-90+ hours a week of its employees for several years straight. The average across many weeks was 80-90 [hours], for months on end. If you were unwilling to do the hours any more, you became persona non grata. This meant the least desirable assignments, poor reviews and so on. While the conventional answer to a bad team situation in a big company is to transfer teams, it didn't work for people on that team.

Multiple people on the team wanted to transfer off the team and away from its overtime commitment but management exercised their prerogative to retain them on the team out of urgent business need so that they could not leave. This justification was used to delay their departures 3-6 months, with the effect of causing them to miss the opportunity they'd wanted to pursue [elsewhere in Microsoft] and requring them to continue to do the excessive hours.

Meanwhile, the rest of us poor worker bees had to listen to them complain about the situation until they were allowed to leave. It's not good for morale to be reminded every day that when you get tired of the excessive commitment required by the team, you're likely to be just as trapped, and just as unhappy about it, as your peers are.

In some cases, overassignment of work was used to cause competent employees to appear to be failing at completing their required responsibiltiies. In other cases, people who had not been with the company long enough to be eligible to transfer to another team had to just quit to get out of the unpaid overtime without a permanent black mark in the form of a bad review on their Microsoft record.

Pregnant women ended up on early bedrest from the stress. People slept at the office in order to use the commute time for more work. For some, there were weekly all-nighters in the schedule. A capable contributor on my former team, whose name I know, experienced the indignity of a second-level manager suggesting that they go out on disability if they couldn't handle the stress of the workload, as the manager insisted they should be able to get that workload done in a 40-hour week. Given my background as the longest-term member of the team, including management, I'd call the assertion that that was a 40-hour load shamefully ludicrous to the point of professional negligence.

Anyone in the industry knows about crunch times right before ship. But this was three years of crunch times. After a year had elapsed, the "we don't have the luxury of time to train additional staff to help us get this done" justification for it started to smell kind of bad.

Few teams are like this, but it only takes ending up on one to end your career as a blue badge. It's good for people who are considering Microsoft employment to know. It's also good for people who are considering ex-Microsoft employees for roles in other organizations to know, because among those cut loose are some smart, dedicated, hard workers who were simply asked to do too much, for too long to be able to succeed at it forever in the eyes of the organization -- and who'd be an asset to just about any company in the industry. I know that if I ever, in the future, receive a résumé from someone who left Microsoft during one of the layoff timeframes in 2009, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

I'm still collecting stories. Please e-mail joewilcox at live dot com. Stories can be anonymous, but I will need to verify identities.

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

The next former Microsoft employee story comes from someone I'll call Fred, which, of course, is not his real name. Fred took a job right out of college and might still work at Microsoft today, if not for the elimination of his group during layoffs last year. Like the former Microsoftie from the first post in this former employee "confession" series, Fred helplessly watched as the exciting and flexible workplace he joined bogged down in increasing layers of middle management.

When Microsoft hired Fred nine years ago, the company employed a little more than 47,000 people. When he was laid off in May 2009, the number was around 93,000. That number is for full-time employees and doesn't include contractors. According to Microsoft's fiscal 2010 10-K, the breakdown on June 30, 2009: "56,000 in the United States and 37,000 internationally. Of the total, 36,000 were in product research and development, 26,000 in sales and marketing, 17,000 in product support and consulting services, 5,000 in manufacturing and distribution, and 9,000 in general and administration."

How many more layers of middle management did Microsoft add when more than doubling headcount during the last decade -- before more than 5,000 layoffs? Fred has an answer for that.

As I explained yesterday, following the last round of Microsoft layoffs, I asked former employees to tell their stories. Responses came from recent departures and others long ago. No identities will be intentionally revealed, although I have verified each one. Fred understands that there is enough detail in his story for Microsoft to possibly identify him. But he is willing to take the risk (and hopefully not risk work elsewhere).

Fred's story is the second posted in this short series running for the next couple days. His account is first-hand, but I will string some other stories together as narrative for better readability and to protect identities.

Something is missing from Fred's story that I would like to encourage some commenters to fill in. Microsoft hiring and compensation follows a scale of levels. While I have some information about the levels and associated salaries, I would prefer some existing or former Microsoft employees pipe in with current salary information for level 63. I ask in hopes of generating discussion. If no one does, I'll later add the information to this introduction or in comments. Four years ago, WashTech News offered an excellent review of Microsoft's complicated compensation system.

Now for Fred's story:

I started with Microsoft in June 2001, right out of college (I received a BS in information technology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute). I was hired as a level 59. My first role was with Microsoft Consulting Services as an IT Infrastructure Consultant based in the Mid-Atlantic region of the US. I stayed in that role for four years, traveling around the country (mostly on the East Coast, but with a few exceptions) to help large organizations design/plan/implement Microsoft technology -- mostly Windows desktops, Active Directory and Exchange. My clients included Fortune 100 companies in the retail, financial services, higher education and government sectors. Even a branch of the US military.

In 2005, rather tired of the Monday-Friday travel schedule, I started searching for a new role. That June, I accepted a role in the MSDN & TechNet organization -- the part of the company responsible for communicating with developers and IT professionals. I was a level 61 at that point. Over the following four years, our business grew -- we were reaching millions of IT pros with high levels of customer satisfaction -- the team grew and my role grew as well. The role of the group was really one of audience marketing -- to take a post-sales approach to the dissemination of technical information, with the intent of making the job of IT professionals easier, and hopefully as a result making them more satisfied with Microsoft.

Unfortunately, over the course of reorg after reorg, our group got buried in an IT infrastructure group. We were 15 people doing audience marketing, as part of a larger group of 450 responsible for the Microsoft.com web infrastructure. Our group had proposed a number of times to be moved into a more appropriate organization, like global marketing, that was better aligned with our mission. But our management chain, which grew deeper with every reorg, resisted the idea of giving up headcount or budget.

At the time I was laid off in May 2009, I was a level 63. I had never received anything other than exemplary reviews (I received an "Exceeded" rating in the three consecutive review cycles leading up to the time I left.) The size of the company more than [doubled] in my eight years there. The number of managers between me and the CEO went from six to 10.

Processes became more bureaucratic and individuals were less empowered to take action. In fact, oftentimes the incentive structure encouraged individual contributors not to do the right thing, but just to do what they committed to in their review the year prior. In other words, if you committed to include Feature A in Windows, and half-way through the year you realized that was a bad thing for Windows and Microsoft customers, the incentive structure actively discouraged you from trying to kill the feature, because then you wouldn't have achieved your commitments. That sort of behavior just got easier and more engrained as the organizations grew.

Our entire group was laid off in two rounds. The first half were let go in January [2009]. Their roles were taken up by an outsourcing company based in India. The rest of us were let go four months later, and the remaining operation was outsourced. Four months after that, the majority of our work was dismantled. At the time I was laid off, I was given a choice of accepting a different role within the company, but it would have required my relocation, so I refused. My understanding is that I was the only member of the staff offered that chance (because of my technical background; the rest of the staff was purely marketing).

There's a part of me that can actually understand our group being laid off. An argument could reasonably be made that non-Microsoft employees can be just as effective at fulfilling our mission and could do so at a lower cost (though that's proving to not be true in the aftermath; it was a disaster). Some of the other people I knew around the company who were let go, though, made my jaw drop to the floor. While areas like Search and Zune continued to received astounding resources, areas focused on customer satisfaction and connection, evangelism, and program management were decimated.

One of the better examples where fat ended up cutting muscle, was someone like Steve Riley, who was a noted security expert and one of the best public faces Microsoft had to the IT Pro audience. He was the only person from his group let go. He never had anything other than stellar reviews, and [he] was one of the few people Microsoft had who could pack a ballroom and hold their attention for as long as he wanted. That one really shocked me.

To be honest, as much as I miss many of the individuals I worked with -- and the steady paycheck and benefits, which were always great -- I'm glad to not be a part of Microsoft any more. It bares very little resemblance in my mind to the company I joined 8 years ago. It's hard to describe the atmosphere of excitement and innovation that existed when I first started. But over time, that certainly diminished, seemingly in an inverse relationship to the size of the company.

The company as a whole seemed more and more focused on chasing competitors into any business where they might someday present a threat -- which to me always felt like ego on the part of SteveB [CEO Steve Ballmer]--  and seemed to completely lose sight of its core strengths and where it could deliver the most value to its customers (see the investment in Zune and Live Search as it correlates to Windows Vista).

If I had to sum up my feelings about the whole experience though, it really boils down to sadness and disappointment -- not over the loss of my job, which, for the most part I enjoyed, but am happy to move past, but rather over the failed efforts, missed opportunities and wasted potential of Microsoft as a whole. I've never met so many talented, passionate individuals. But it felt like everyone was part of a deeply dysfunctional family, and in the end, that dynamic trumped what could have been astounding achievements.

I'm still collecting stories. Please e-mail joewilcox at live dot com. Stories can be anonymous, but I will need to verify identity.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

I don't keep my personal preference for mobile devices with physical keyboards a secret; the sensation of hitting real keys is an indivisible part of the text entry experience for me, and it's not likely to change any time soon.

But there is one area where physical keyboards are woefully inferior to virtual ones: adaptability. A virtual keyboard can represent any alphabet or be arranged in any configuration the user or software needs, and a physical keyboard simply can't keep up with that.

There is no better example than Wolfram|Alpha's iPhone/iPod Touch app, which now has four full-screen keyboards to accommodate all the various mathematical symbols that it includes in its searches and computations.

Today, Wolfram Research pushed out the 1.1 update to its $49.99 application in the iTunes App Store, which has been redesigned to provide a more useful interface with the "answer engine."

"To determine the optimal keyboard layout, we scoured Wolfram|Alpha's server logs for the most commonly entered phrases that have characters with meaning in Wolfram|Alpha," the team's blog says today. "Given that Wolfram|Alpha is built on Mathematica, one of its core strengths is advanced mathematics. True to form most of the commonly typed characters are related to math."

In addition to the standard keyboard, Wolfram|Alpha includes specialized ones labeled "Math," "Greek," and "Symbol" to simplify the act of querying the app.

"Whether people are converting currency, locating positions of planets, or performing advanced mathematical computations far beyond the capabilities of scientific and graphing calculators, this new functionality provides a natural mobile computation experience," the team said this evening.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Last September, the US Justice Dept. objected to the proposed terms of a settlement between Google and the Authors' Guild, which would have enabled Google to publish out-of-print titles in its Google Books catalog. The theory of the settlement at the time was, if authors or rights holders are given enough time to respond to a request to stand up for their rights -- say, at least several months -- and they don't do so, then that's as good as acquiescence.

Since that time, on orders of US District Judge Denny Chin, the two disputing groups have worked on a revised settlement. But yesterday, the Justice Dept. -- representing the United States' interests in the matter -- filed a second objection to the settlement. Although Google and the Authors' Guild made progress, US attorneys say, Google still appears to take the position not only that it can strike bargains on behalf of copyright holders, but that only Google can do so -- a position which they say the law does not allow them to take.

"The ASA [amended settlement agreement] suffers from the same core problem as the original agreement: It is an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute before the Court in this litigation," write the attorneys, on behalf of Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust William Cavanaugh. "As a consequence, the ASA purports to grant legal rights that are difficult to square with the core principle of the Copyright Act that copyright owners generally control whether and how to exploit their works during the term of copyright. Those rights, in turn, confer significant and possibly anticompetitive advantages on a single entity -- Google. Under the ASA as proposed, Google would remain the only competitor in the digital marketplace with the rights to distribute and otherwise exploit a vast array of works in multiple formats. Google also would have the exclusive ability to exploit unclaimed works (including so-called 'orphan works') without risk of liability."

Orphan works were one of the principal problems with the settlement agreement as originally proposed, which attorneys concede was slightly improved upon in the amended form. Originally, Google intended to claim the right to act on behalf of the authors or rights holders of orphan works, unless they spoke up for themselves.

But a kind of Catch-22 managed to unravel the rest of the amended agreement, from the attorneys' perspective: Because Google has never expressed any intent to sell the books it intends to publish -- only make them available for free reading electronically -- it avoided taking any position on the matter of claiming any rights to sell that material. Such a claim, the attorneys concede, "would have been legally indefensible, and thus would have been at odds with Google's entire pre-settlement book search strategy, which was premised upon staying within colorable 'fair use' grounds."

Apparently in an attempt to be thorough, the amended settlement deals explicitly with the same rights Google tried to avoid -- the rights to sell orphan works, among others. And because it does so even though Google didn't intend to, the settlement may fail one of the critical legal tests of any such settlement: specifically, by attempting to settle in the future a claim that Google is not making at present.

But later, the attorneys return to their original claim: that Google is claiming rights it might not have exclusively:

"A core issue that arises out of the parties' effort to resolve this matter is the ability of Google, and no other entity, to compete in a marketplace that the parties seek to create. Nothing in the ASA addresses this concern...There is no serious contention that Google's competitors are likely to obtain comparable rights independently. For example, Amazon -- Google's likely chief rival digital book distributor were the ASA to be approved -- began scanning copyright-protected books in 2002, after first securing permission of the works' rightsholder(s). To date, Amazon has amassed a library of approximately three million digital titles...This impressive number pales in comparison to the tens of millions of books Google has scanned or is poised to scan if the ASA is approved. The suggestion that a competitor should follow Google's lead by copying books en masse without permission in the hope of prompting a class action suit to be settled on terms comparable to the ASA is poor public policy and not something the antitrust laws require a competitor to do."

Another tenet of Google's claim of exclusive rights was the focus of an objection to the amended settlement filed last week by the Free Software Foundation. It's a unique objection, in that the FSF would prefer to not have its due royalties negotiated on its behalf, even if the amount is tallied at zero. Doing so, it claims, would go against the spirit of the free licenses which cover open source documentation and manuals.

"When a copyright holder's license allows Google to distribute and display a work such that it may be included in Google Book Search, Google should be obligated to follow those terms," writes FSF license compliance engineer Brett Smith. "If those terms are unacceptable to Google, the company should simply refrain from including the work in the Google Book Search database. The proposed settlement agreement generally allows Google to include works in Google Book Search unless a specific reason exists to disallow it. The FSF has no objection to this approach for works that have been published under terms that never contemplated inclusion in a large digital database, as is the case with most works in the agreement's scope. However, copyright holders using Free licenses have demonstrably considered such a possibility, and set forth terms for such inclusion. Google should respect the freedoms that these licenses offer to the public and comply with their terms."

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

The Droid has gotten pinch-to-zoom in Google Maps.

Immediately after Google introduced the multitouch gesture on the HTC Nexus One browser, photo gallery, and maps applications, owners of the popular Motorola Droid began to ask if their devices would receive the same update, since it is widely known to support multi-touch input.

It looks like Google has delivered...partially, at least.

The update to Google Maps (v.3.4.0) which rolled out this week adds pinch to zoom to the Droid, but is the sole app to do so. Interestingly, it was not advertised with the update.

Devices without multi-touch capability received the same update, but naturally, it did not include the added gesture recognition.

For these devices it is a somewhat mundane update, adding deeper synchronization with the user's Google account. For example, a user's Google searches on the desktop can now affect the location-based suggestions in his mobile queries. Similarly, when a user "stars" a location as a favorite, it is now synchronized with his Google account.

Arguably the most important place to add the feature is in the Browser, but there are currently no updates available to the Droid's browser (or photo gallery, for that matter.)

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Microsoft today confirmed the long-running rumor that support for the original Xbox will be terminated on the Xbox Live online game servers. The company announced that April 15, 2010 will be the last day legacy Xboxes will be able to play on Xbox Live.

"This isn't a decision we made lightly, but after careful consideration, it is clear this will provide the greatest benefit to the Xbox Live ommunity," Marc Whitten, General Manager of Xbox Live announced today. Whitten noted that Halo 2, a version of the popular first person shooter for the original Xbox still retains a dedicated community of players.

The creators of the Halo franchise, Bungie, have forums dedicated to each version of the game, and users are already begun waxing nostalgic about the "classic" Xbox Live.

One user wrote, "Words don't describe the memories I've had on this title over the past roughly half decade... not just this game, but loads of others as well. I'll tip my hat to just that said fact any day. I'm sad to see the service go, I don't want to see it go, but so be it if it's in the best interest of future engagements for the Xbox Live community."

But there are still alternatives for the most devoted Halo 2 players. Users can connect to online games outside of Xbox Live with XbConnect or Xlink Kai, online game servers which support the legacy consoles, but require them to be connected to a PC.

While neither offer the same level of playability as the Xbox Live version, they will be the only options diehards will have after the April retirement of legacy Xbox Live.

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Everyone's got an opinion surrounding Engadget's decision to temporarily deactivate user comments because of its editors said things had gotten "mean, ugly, pointless, and frankly threatening in some situations." While I find the reaction to Engadget's decision engaging and often amusing (Betanews reader comments, in particular, often make for fun late night reading) I'm a little surprised at the near-universal lack of understanding of how the Internet works in 2010.

I have three fundamental thoughts on Internet publishing that may help put the Engadget brouhaha in perspective:

• Web sites need comments, period. Engagement between publishers and readers is a prime creative lifeblood of the publishing industry. Writers and editors can't do what they do unless they directly understand who's reading them and what they're thinking. Comments are a critical element of this feedback loop, and a site without them rather misses the point.
• Trolls happen. It's a given that not everyone likes to play by the rules. Large groups of people, whether they're taking in a baseball game or reading a tech site, cover a wide range of capabilities and motivations. Happily, the most readers choose to be positive contributors to the process, while only a small minority either lack the ability or the will to play nice. The comments section reflects the reality of the human condition, and it won't ever change. Readers can choose to not read, while publishers can choose to ban the trolls. Or, as Engadget decided to do this week, take their ball and go home.
• This Internet thing costs money. The rise of the Web over the last 15 years or so has conditioned us into believing that all of this is and should forever be free. The current argument over Engadget's decision to suspend commenting has shed light on the realities of publishing on the Web. As much as we all like to get something for nothing, it takes resources -- money, people, and time -- to launch and run a server, populate it with content, and find ways to convert it into a self-sustaining business. Since readers don't pay the shot, advertisers do. But they'll only pay if there's an audience. Bigger audiences are, of course, better, but numbers are only part of the equation. Quality counts, too, and a site overrun with trolls doesn't just consume the resources of whoever's publishing it. Advertisers balk at paying money to connect with readers who are too focused on flinging the online equivalent of bat guano at each other to ever consider going out and buying what these companies are offering.

With these basic truths in mind, it's clear that Engadget's publishers felt the need to stop the flow of nastiness for a bit while they figured out their next move. We can slice them a new one if we wish, but Engadget's goal is not to make friends with the largest number of commenters. Rather, its entire reason for existence is to sell a particular audience to a particular set of advertisers. And if those advertisers don't feel that either the numbers or the demographic criteria fit their respective business needs, they'll pull their support.

Which brings us to the iPad launch, which delighted the folks who pay the bills because it meant they were delivering their message to a larger-than-usual audience. Apple's announcement gave online publishers a unique opportunity to enjoy higher-than-usual advertising revenues as a direct result of this audience. When big stuff happens in the tech world, people go online to learn about it and decide whether or not it makes sense for their needs. Traffic spikes as newbies and old-timers alike hit the Web looking for information, insight, and guidance. Everything else -- like run-of-the-mill news stories in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti -- gets shunted off to the side as sites do their best to meet demand. And drive it even further.

Is it fair that a touchscreen device trumps the very real drama unfolding in a certain Caribbean nation? No. But no one ever said publishing had to be fair.

Write what's hot, or don't get paid

Which largely explains the all-iPad-all-the-time philosophy that Engadget had followed in the days leading up to Apple's much anticipated announcement. Criticism in the comments notwithstanding, the site was merely reflecting what its readers were asking for -- if not directly, then certainly through their online readership patterns. The site capitalized on a golden opportunity to increase readership and the closely-linked, all-important advertising revenues. Likewise writers, some of whom are paid on a traffic-based formula, focused their efforts on the topic that would return the greatest number of page views.

Speaking for myself, the simple truth is, I typically get lots more page views when I write about Apple than when I write about, say, how social media is helping Haiti's recovery. To wit: My column last week about the iPad prompted 82 comments, as of the time of this writing. My Haiti piece? One. Based on this outcome, where do you think I'm going to focus my efforts in future to maximize reader response and, consequently, advertising value and revenue for my employer? Do you think I'm interested in writing stuff that no one reads? Do you think we'll be able to support a business that doesn't optimize its output for the largest, most desirable audience possible?

As I go through the ongoing process of coming up with topics that I think readers want to read, and that I think advertisers will appreciate, I focus on stuff that's hot and, yes, conversation-generating. If techies are discussing it around the water cooler, I want to write about it. I suppose if I wrote for a site whose readers paid for the privilege, I'd be able to back off the max-the-audience-please-the-advertiser mantra. But until the Web shifts to that model -- and the announcement by The New York Times that it will return to charging for access in 2011 signals a possible change in direction for the industry -- we'll continue to see wall-to-wall coverage of the most in-demand topics.

Because for now, advertisers call the shots. Not readers. And Engadget's decision to kill commenting for now is solid proof that Engadget listened to those who pay the bills before it pulled the plug.

Engadget restored users' commenting ability Thursday afternoon. In a blog post, its editor-in-chief, Joshua Topolsky, wrote, "Making personal attacks against other commenters, publications, or our own editors seriously degrades the community and quality of the discussion, and it won't be tolerated."

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Apple has asked one mobile app developer to refrain from mentioning Google's Android mobile operating system in its iTunes App store descriptions, or face rejection.

The description of the 99¢ "Flash of Genius" flash card app included the text: "Finalist in Google's Android Developer's Challenge!"

Apple contacted Flash of Genius, LLC and asked it to change the description.

"During our review of your application, we found that your application contains inappropriate or irrelevant platform information in the Application Description and/or Release Notes sections," the message from Apple said.

"Providing future platform compatibility plans or other general platform references are not relevant in the context of the iPhone App Store. While your application has not been rejected, it would be appropriate to remove 'Finalist in Google's Android Developer's Challenge!' from the Application Description," Apple's review team said. (The entire message can be found in Flash of Genius blog.)

Flash of Genius' Tim Novikoff willingly changed the description and said, "I suppose it's logical, and I'm not complaining; Apple is a wonderful company to work with."

Silicon Alley Insider's Jay Yarow agreed with the sentiment today, "It sounds harsh, but makes sense. It doesn't matter if it's a great Android application, this is a different platform."

But is it logical?

Yes, the Android Developer Challenge concerns a different platform, but the nomination still carries weight as an honorific. When an actor is nominated for an Oscar, don't we frequently hear that the actor is an "X-time nominee?" Those nominations were for different roles, so it has no impact on the current nomination, but it speaks to the overall quality of the performer. This is a similar case. The Android platform is different, but when a product excels somewhere, it is worthwhile to let potential buyers know.

For example, on the back of the box of the PlayStation 3 version of Bethesda Softworks' Fallout 3, it says "Best of E3 2008 Winner" for Best RPG. When it got this award, the game did not even exist on PlayStation 3 yet...it was shown on an Xbox 360. Now, it would have been closer to the Flash of Genius situation if "Best Xbox 360 RPG," was printed on the game box, but ultimately, an award is an award and helps the customer actualize the quality of a product.

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Yesterday's Dick Brass commentary, "Microsoft's Creative Destruction," the company's response to the op-ed and Tuesday's Don Dodge pro-Mac post have put Microsoft in the hot seat. The blogosphere is abuzz about the extent of Microsoft innovations. More former Microsofties are ready to speak out, and they will get their chance here at Betanews.

After the last round of Microsoft layoffs, I asked former employees to tell their stories. I got plenty of responses and not just from people recently leaving the company. No identities will be revealed, although I have verified each one. Two main reasons: Either the former employees still work in the technology industry and don't want to risk their current jobs; or they're receiving severance from Microsoft and don't want to risk losing it. Some of these people have returned to working for Microsoft as contractors, which is another reason to remain anonymous.

Over the next three days, I will present some of the stories in different ways. We start with a first-hand account, and it's more stream-of-conscious than the others I received. Please expect more first-hand accounts and some others strung together as narratives.

What's most surprising about the stories received: Whether they left by will or layoff, most of the former Microsofties worked for the company for a long time, typically no less than eight years. This first account comes from a senior manager who willingly left Microsoft during the last decade after nearly 20 years:

When I left, I told Steve [Ballmer] my reasons. Microsoft [had] lost its competitive edge. Too much politics, too much BS, too much 'what can I do to you today, to make myself look better tomorrow.'

The strength of Microsoft has always been small, heavily empowered teams. Teams that could move fast, make lighting quick decisions and trust the people that made them -- and actually create real schedules, not what management wants you to tell them.

In early 2000, and towards the end of Y2K, the corporate landscape was changing. All the small teams were being eaten up by these uber teams -- complete with politics, backstabbing and posturing. I wanted no part of it. Even today MS is mostly Windows, mobile and Office. Decisions I used to make in 10 minutes, took weeks in Office.

I watched a revolutionary product killed over politics. The moment someone mentioned in a high level-meeting we were better than one of MS's cash cows, I told my  [general manager] we were screwed. He didn't believe until the team was disbanded and moved where? Into that cash cow. Where 90 percent of the functionality was cut.

I've watched over the years, [as] poor managers work their way up the ladder, merely because they could play the game. They didn't want the truth, they wanted the answer they wanted to hear.

When Bill Gates first started the 'aggressive schedule' mantra to get people to work harder, [it was] tell folks we only had 2 months left, when we knew it was six. How could I as a manager look my people in the face and seriously tell them we're two months from shipping -- work your ass off -- knowing the bug count was high, the find rate was high and undercover dev work was still being completed?

I finally had enough when my last reorg had me put under a brand new manager, with less weeks experience than I had years doing his job, telling me I wasn't doing my job properly. I asked him how many products he shipped. A couple was the answer. Meanwhile, I had three full Lucite blocks packed with ship-it awards on my desk. At that point, I gave my notice.

How many [Microsoft] reorgs have ever benefited anyone except the folks on top? In all my reorgs, I only ever had one that actually benefited the troops; and that was a super good manager that said if you take me, you take my team. He was one of the best I'd ever worked for -- and, of course, he is no longer at MS either. To me, that speaks volumes.

The people that need to be cut at MS are the managers that don't support their teams and only support their own careers. I've watched countless super visionary managers get bogged in politics and leave.

While I love Steve [Ballmer] to no end, he's too removed from what's really happening, and only gets info from the politically motivated ass kissers that just want to keep their jobs, not do the right thing.

I'm still collecting stories. Please e-mail joewilcox at live dot com. Stories can be anonymous, but I will need to verify identities.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

During the few comments he was asked to make during his testimony before the House Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee earlier today, NBC Universal President and CEO Jeff Zucker was asked by Committee Chairman Rep. Rick Boucher (D - Va.) whether Hulu -- a video Web service co-owned by NBC -- intentionally blocked the ability of Boxee's media center application for PCs to replay Hulu videos. Rep. Boucher's question was by way of ascertaining whether a combined Comcast + NBCU entity would routinely block competitors' access to programming it generated.

Zucker responded: "What Boxee was doing was illegally taking the content that was on Hulu without any business deal. We have several distributors...of the Hulu content that we have legal distribution deals with, so we don't preclude distribution deals. What we preclude are those that illegally take that content."

That accusation before Congress that Boxee violated the law triggered a lengthy response late this afternoon from Boxee Founder and CEO Avner Ronen, on his company's blog: "Boxee uses a web browser to access Hulu's content -- just like Firefox or Internet Explorer. Boxee users click on a link to Hulu's Web site and the video within that page plays. We don't 'take' the video. We don't copy it. We don't put ads on top of it. The video and the ads play like they do on other browsers or on Hulu Desktop. And it certainly is legal to do so."

The question of whether enabling access to another Web site's video through one's software is effectively "redistribution," cuts to the heart of the major issue of contention surrounding the Comcast + NBCU proposal -- since Comcast is essentially in the redistribution business. Opponents of the deal (one of whom spoke out forcefully before Congress today) allege that Comcast's motive is to extend the legal notion of redistribution to the Internet realm, in such a way that the reuse of content always carries with it some type of license...and probably some type of fee.

Boxee's Ronen went on to say that while he did receive requests to disable Hulu access from Hulu's management, those requests were said by Hulu CEO Jason Kilar to be on behalf of NBC.

Indeed, in a blog post last year to Hulu's own company blog, that's how Kilar explained the situation to Hulu users: "Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes. While we stubbornly believe in this brave new world of media convergence -- bumps and all -- we are also steadfast in our belief that the best way to achieve our ambitious, never-ending mission of making media easier for users is to work hand in hand with content owners. Without their content, none of what Hulu does would be possible, including providing you content via Hulu.com and our many distribution partner Web sites."

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

While Google, Vimeo, and others continue to experiment with H.264 as the codec of choice for HTML5 Web browser-embedded video, there's still considerable debate over whether W3C -- the caretakers of HTML and other Web standards -- should allow Web proprietors to embrace standards that are not essentially free. MPEG LA, the rights holder for H.264 technology and its licensing agent for the Internet Broadcast AVC Video portfolio, recently said it will not charge royalties for the use of H.264 encoding in video that's delivered free -- specifically, for any video for which the creators or servers are not compensated -- at least until the end of 2015 (a date corrected from the end of 2016, which the licensing agency originally announced).

Does that mean H.264 is free for streamers? In a clarification for Betanews this afternoon, MPEG LA spokesperson Tom O'Reilly said it may very well be free...for those who use the codec for that purpose. But not for those who sell the encoding software that utilizes the codec.

"While MPEG LA does collect a royalty on the codec, that royalty relates to the making and selling of the product itself," O'Reilly told Betanews. "The right to use codecs for applications like Title-by-Title [where a fee is paid for the video's replication], Subscription, Free Television, and Internet video is not covered by that royalty, however. Rather, it is the subject of separate sublicense rights and royalties."

The Internet video subcategory is the tier that includes free streaming, where users will be exempt from paying royalties. But not from obtaining licenses, and that would appear to be the sticky part. In order for streaming video viewers to effectively be licensees, do they have to enter into an agreement with MPEG LA -- something on the order of a EULA?

Apparently not, responded O'Reilly: "Our AVC License is beneficial to all sites using H.264 because it provides coverage for use of H.264 in these free Internet applications." That would appear to indicate that a licensed streaming video provider effectively extends licensed use of the technology for decoding the streamed video, to its user, making the user effectively licensed.

O'Reilly added that the cost of the royalty effectively also pays for the license, so anyone who's purchased a licensed H.264 codec (which may be included with video production software, or sold separately as add-ons) has thus paid the royalty. If that party produces free Internet video, then the coverage purchased at that time extends to the viewer.

That goes to the concerns of Mozilla contributor Robert O'Callahan, who last week argued in a blog post that MPEG LA effectively reserves the right to sue the user or viewer of a streamed video whose producer was not licensed to use the H.264 codec to encode it. That may be somewhat of a stretch, however, and O'Reilly did not get into that level of hypothetical detail with us.

The latest official word on Mozilla's reaction to MPEG LA's news comes from a pair of tweets from Mozilla CEO John Lilly: "Regarding that MPEG-LA announce: It's good they did it, but they sort of had to. But it's like 5 more years of free to lock you in 4ever," Lilly wrote. "And my tweet last night about restrictions on the use of AVC to create videos still holds and is a major problem."

The tweet to which Lilly referred was not listed in his Twitter archive as of today. However, Mozilla contributors are on record as voicing their opposition to the possibility that by not being free for distribution (just free for use), the browser maker might not be able to include it within the Firefox browser under its current MPL licensing policy.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In the end, it was one lone congressman who raised the subject of net neutrality, with respect to access to content over the Internet, as more than a passing reference, or by way of suggesting that certain topics be ignored altogether: Rep. Ed Markey (D - Mass., who also chairs the Energy and Environment Subcommittee), author of the Internet Freedom Preservation Act still being deliberated in Congress, voiced his skepticism over the viability of the proposed acquisition of NBC Universal by a new unit of Comcast, saying he didn't see any guarantees that the current class of over-the-air programming offered by NBC would not be transferred to Comcast pay-TV services such as TV Everywhere.

But with NBC being the butt end of jokes on TV everywhere, and elsewhere, with respect to its dismal standing in audience ratings and its poor handling of the recent "Tonight Show" reprogramming kerfuffle, the objections raised by Rep. Markey might not have mattered much. In some folks' mind, why would anyone want to pay for NBC shows anyway?

"Clearly the concern here is that when a company that has the wire going into the home merges with a company that has all of NBC Universal's content, there could be a temptation to discriminate against others," stated Rep. Markey, during his Q&A period to a House Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee hearing Thursday morning. The subject of the hearing this morning was the Comcast + NBCU deal, among the witnesses were Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, and NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker -- the executive who signed the dotted line on the Jay Leno / Conan O'Brien time change, and subsequently unsigned it.

For his metaphor, Markey chose to imagine the fate of an everyday sci-fi fan who wants to launch some kind of service or blog based on Avatar, but finds himself hampered because the title is owned by 20th Century-Fox. "Going out in the future, we are concerned about the proverbial kid-in-the-garage that's got that great idea. We've got a concern about the kid who thinks up the idea of 'Avatar.com TV.' It could be a big concept, right? And it's not owned by Comcast or NBC. So we have to make sure that it doesn't get discriminated against because it's not an NBC idea, it's not a Comcast idea. So how can we enshrine these principles of non-discrimination against those great new ideas, from having access to the pipes that go into people's homes, that are controlled by Comcast?"

It was perhaps the weakest argument made to date in favor of net neutrality principles in any public hearing to date. But it was the strongest argument in that category today.

Comcast's Brian Roberts appeared perfectly prepared to face much stronger opposition, oftentimes pleading innocence or even no knowledge of the situation where the US #12 cable provider, WOW (formerly WideOpenWest), was denied access to Comcast's existing cable channels (which include E!, the Style Channel, gaming network G4, and sports channel Versus). WOW CEO Colleen Abdoulah was one of only two witnesses who found themselves mounting their own assertive defense, amid the lack of probing from House members. Although Abdoulah admitted not being against the concept of an acquisition or merger on its face, she warned Committee members that a deal could encourage the combined entity to withhold more programming from competitors, including from NBC-owned cable channels CNBC, MSNBC, and Bravo.

And so it was that the net neutrality issue in Congress successfully metamorphosed into a debate over TV viewers' right to see Keith Olbermann, Maria Bartiromo, and Tom Colicchio.

"I would first want to point out that, whatever you do, if you're really trying to make that protection or achieve that goal, it's going to have to apply across the board," responded Comcast's Roberts to Rep. Markey, "whether that's to all providers, what levels of the Internet, what about wireless? The world is changing and converging and evolving very, very quickly. So again, I believe that this particular transaction doesn't really have the potential, in my opinion, to change that kid in the garage or that 'AvatarTV.com,' or whatever example one wants to pick. Let's just say, Google today is over 50% of all the video views, of the 30 billion views that took place last month."

By comparison, Roberts pointed out earlier, Hulu (co-owned by NBC) had 4% of video views for the same period, NBC itself commanded 1%, and Comcast was responsible for less than one-half of one percent. Although Comcast, by one estimate heard today, is responsible for providing more than 51% of cable service to Americans, its argument is that the combined Internet interests of NBC Universal and Comcast would fail to squeak by 5% of the world's video views, even with the TV Everywhere program going at full steam. Roberts used those figures to illustrate how the proposed combination would constitute the type of horizontal integration that legislators and regulators encourage, as opposed to the type of vertical assimilation of businesses that provide much the same services as each other -- assimilation that typically generates antitrust concerns.

Flanked by his father, Comcast founder Ralph J. Roberts (whom at least two representatives today broke protocol to identify as their personal friend), Brian Roberts promised Rep. Markey that it is not, and will not be, in Comcast's business interests to deny programming to an available carrier. That left Rep. Markey to do little more than praise Roberts, literally for creating a business model that the rest of the world could live by: "Broadband, to a very large extent, is a proxy...for 21st century American competitiveness for the 3% of the population of the world that we represent, and we have to make sure all of that creativity gets unleashed, because that's something we have to brand globally. So that's the conversation that I think we have to have going forward; and this agreement that you have really should be a model to ensure that that becomes who we think of ourselves [to be] as a nation."

Next: But what about Boxee?...

Committee Chairman Rep. Rick Boucher (D - Va.) turned up at least a few ticks more heat than Rep. Markey, by bringing up the subject of Boxee, the media center software that last spring got into a tangle with Hulu, which is co-owned by NBC. Boxee wanted to be able to show videos provided by Hulu, but its methodology appeared to give Boxee the ability to remove Hulu's advertising.

With NBC effectively getting married to the creator of the TV Everywhere concept, Rep. Boucher asked witnesses, what's to keep the combined entity from denying NBC or Hulu content from Boxee's or anyone else's software? Comcast's Roberts responded with a message that was crafted in a very comforting manner, taking credit for having done no less than invent broadband as we know it, and invent its successor as well.

"We have helped create the broadband experience that consumers enjoy today, some of the work out of CableLABS, going back a decade, was one of the first to create high-speed broadband. It's the fastest-growing part of Comcast, our broadband business," said Roberts. "In fact, we are in the process of completing a nearly $1 billion upgrade to create wideband. And if you say, 'What do you do with wideband?' Right now, I don't have a great answer, except that at 50 or 100 Mbps, I trust there are great entrepreneurs out there to come up with the answers, and we want to be a company on the leading edge...I've said consistently for several years that we believe that video over the Internet is one of those applications that requires more speed, and justifies the investments that we're making in wideband and broadband. We think it is a friend, not a foe."

All that without having to utter the word "Boxee." Boucher then put the question to NBC's Jeff Zucker, representing a co-owner's stake in Hulu. Zucker was more direct in his response, accusing Boxee of not stepping up to the bargaining table.

"What Boxee was doing was illegally taking the content that was on Hulu without any business deal," Zucker told Congress. "We have several distributors...of the Hulu content that we have legal distribution deals with, so we don't preclude distribution deals. What we preclude are those that illegally take that content." Would NBC be willing to negotiate such a deal with Boxee, Boucher pressed on? "Well, we said that we're open to negotiations."

One of Rep. Henry Waxman's (D - Calif.) perennially key issues has been content protection, and the need to craft digital content to prevent theft and piracy. With NBCU's content being added to the production catalog of Comcast, Rep. Waxman asked Roberts, would Comcast be more compelled to provide more of a leadership role in taking steps to reduce online content theft?

"I think we absolutely recognize the vital nature of protecting the licensed, legitimate, non-theft model. It's what's propelled NBC Universal to where it is today, and every owner of content," Roberts responded. "In the distribution business, we also rely on licensed content to be the successful part of our business. So I think we now have double the incentive to figure this issue out, better than it's figured out today. Specifically, I think there have been technological advancements in the last couple of years that are going to make it more likely that we can cooperate...We will now be an active member of NCTA, MPAA, and other industry trade groups that are focused on these questions. I think it's vital that we have a cooperative solution; we obviously, on one hand, have privacy concerns and copyright protection concerns; on the other hand, by having 33,000 employees at NBC Universal that I've got to worry about, and 100,000 employees at Comcast Cable, it's in my interest, and I think the consumer's interest, to continue the licensed model and find solutions that are acceptable."

The strongest opposition to the idea of extending cable-style licensing into the Internet space -- the thing that keeps Boxee from simply showing Hulu in its own window -- came from Dr. Mark Cooper, research director for the Consumer Federation of America. Although Dr. Cooper was advised at least twice to keep his answers short so everyone could move on with things -- Rep. John Dingell (D - Mich.) strictly advised "25 words or less" -- he laid down the only law that anyone was going to lay down today regarding opposition to the deal for ethical reasons.

"Frankly, we see it as an effort to extend the market division agreement that has existed between cable operators in the physical space, into cyberspace," Cooper told Rep. Dingell. That is the explicit intention of TV Everywhere. The statement that they will not use NBC properties to reinforce that does not answer our concerns, because NBC will stop developing altogether --." At that point, Dingell cut him off.

Dingell then asked Roberts, what commitments would Comcast make to prevent the very abuses that Cooper predicted? "Well...we're still 80% a cable company, so our eye is very much still in that perspective...Number two, I don't think the deal changes anything in that regard. NBC has great content and charges the best price that it can get from its customers, and I'm not sure that our incentive is any different, given the two companies coming together. I think that the quality of the content and the technology that's changed in the last several years, is part of the answer, but I think it's a broader industry question, not necessarily specific to this deal."

Earlier in the hearing, Roberts cited statistics saying that in the areas served by WOW cable, Comcast lost 1 million subscribers at the same time WOW gained 7 million -- a sign that competition must be working. But after Roberts' last remark, in an act of grace, Dingell allowed Cooper a "very quick" response, and it was definitely to the point:

"Comcast's sob story about losing cable subscribers is a dog that doesn't hunt," pronounced Dr. Cooper. "In the past few years, they have shifted to triple-play, increased the total number of subscribers that they have across their [portfolio], increased the price of cable, increased the margin on their cable customers. That is inconsistent with a market that is forcing them to lower prices. They are counting the wrong thing -- the thing that they're not really interested in any more."

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Australian federal courts have decided that the country's second largest ISP, iiNet, is in no way responsible for the illegal actions of its subscribers.

In 2008, iiNet was sued by more than 30 film and television industry companies for copyright infringement; or more accurately, for the copyright infringement of its customers using BitTorrent to download pirated content. The group alleged that iiNet failed to take appropriate measures to stop customers from illegally sharing files with the P2P software.

Among the plaintiffs in the case were Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Disney, and the Seven Network. Justice Dennis Cowdroy's ruling says there was no way to find iiNet liable for the behavior of its customers.

"It is impossible to conclude that iiNet has authorised copyright infringement," Cowdroy said today. "It did not have relevant power to prevent infringements occurring."

In response to the ruling, iiNet said, "We have never supported or encouraged breaches of the law, including infringement of the Copyright Act or the Telecommunications Act. Today's judgment is a vindication of that and the allegations against us have been proven to be unfounded. iiNet has always been, and will continue to be, a good corporate citizen and an even better copyright citizen."

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