Ged Carroll

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  • Microsoft employee revolt?

    Last week Microsoft Corp. announced that it was cutting medical benefits, stock discounts and parent leave for employees. The medical benefits cut amounted to a measure to encourage them to use generic drugs rather than prescription drugs in order to the help the company conserve its 50 billion USD cash pile.

    The chosen few, are not happy according to results of an internal poll obtained by Reuters.

    This follows on from changing the stock options structure, allegedly to improve corporate governance and had the effect of making it less likely that their hard work would be converted into the status of a burnt out millionaire. In addition, Bill Gates has become one of the largest investors in the pharmaceutical sector.

    I must admit I don’t feel that sorry for them:

    – In the case of the prescription drugs cut, why pay more for a brand that only does the same or is worse than a non-label product? Agreed, oh but wait a moment, that disrespects investments made by companies in intellectual property and building a brand, rather like the arguments that Microsoft employs against the open source LAMP cabal? (LAMP is geek marketer speak for Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP)

    – It shows that Microsoft is becoming a middle aged and mature business. Therefore there is less likely to be a Windows 95 type cancer spreading through technology. The new new thing is likely to happen elsewhere

    – Microserfs are likely to be less committed and work less hours, they will no longer feel that they have everything to play for. That means less products launched, products taking a longer time to get to market and less commitment in marketing the products. This provides other companies and start-ups with a better chance of bringing truly innovative products to market, with less chance of suffering a Netscape-like death

    – Nothing loosens tongues like dissatisfaction. It is noticeable that that benefits cuts have been brought in after the company made its peace with the US government, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and AOL. However there is still some outstanding court cases like Microsoft v Burst.com, the EU and South Korea that could benefit from some prime time whistle blowing a la Deep Throat’s role in the Watergate Scandal

    – It is a bit of a leveller in the Microsoft class structure. Vested staff (full-time employees) were known to lord it over contract employees wearing pin badges with the message “Fuc* You – I’m Vested”. This message kind of rings hollow now. In addition, it lows the still huge challenge facing those workers who would like union recognition. (Microsoft historically has been an anti-union shop, but treated its serfs well)

    – Anybody who has seen the blue screen of death, been stymied by a wizard, irritated by a paper clip, or had a corrupt file with two weeks of work in it would be sitting there wondering why the hell Microserfs deserve more than a McDonalds Happy Meal(TM) and sharp kick in the backside. Guys many of your products lack quality, when they’re good they’re cool (Microsoft Word and Excel on the Mac) but the vast majority of time they are like a sprinkling of hundreds and thousands (marketing and candy coloured graphics) used to hide a manure heap. To paraphase Martin Luther – it doesn’t matter what you cover it with a manure heap is still a manure heap

    OK before I get pro-Microsoft hate mail, I have enough respect for some of the decent products they’ve made to give the disgruntled Microserfs some words of wisdom:

    – Don’t complete another survey on an internal web site, they can trace you from your IP address or other internal network identifiers. They know who you ‘troublemakers’ are. In fact wait until a colleague leaves their PC and do it on theirs instead, now your job is likely to be more secure because guess whose job is more likely to be offshored now? BOGU (a quaint Microsoft phrase that means ‘bend over and grease up’)

    – Read Dilbert and Machiavelli’s The Prince diligently to learn how to survive in the Microserf culture

    – Get a life, you aren’t going to make dent in the universe, get out meet people, make someone happy and through that hopefully find your own happiness, volunteer at The Samaritans and try to make more of a difference than just screwing over the same poor saps with a new winkle in the licensing agreement

    More on Microsoft here.

  • Salam Pax & mesh networks

    Today I talk about two things blogger Salam Pax and mesh networks, the latest thing in wireless networking.

    First off, a bit of history. The first film based on a weblog is in the pipeline. Many of you may have read in the news last year about Salam Pax, apparently someone blogging in Baghdad during the last gulf war. The blog despite doubts over its authenticity was turned into a book. Now the film rights of the book have been taken up. Coverage here from the BBC Online. Salam Pax was the pseudonym of Salam Abdulmunem.

    Friends and journalists who went to Network+InterOp the networking and communications show in Las Vegas have provided some mixed feedback.

    – Vendors dwarved the amount of customers at the show. This is being touted as an indication that business customers are not there to buy. I am inclined to think that it is much more of a cultural shift in organisations, when your job could disappear abroad, how can you justify a week long company shopping trip in Las Vegas when you can get the information off the web or by reading journals? Shows have been more of the business culture in the US than in Europe, with the exception of a few events like drupa and CeBIT in Germany

    – Lots of people where showing cool technology that will never see the light of day because computer users are in business and the home move at a slower basis than technology advances

    – Mesh networks had a higher profile. Mesh is one of them buzzwords that many people have been kicking around for a good while. One way of looking at it is that it allows a number of wireless devices be they a laptop with a wireless card or an airport hub to act as one network. This would allow wireless hotspots to be grown and managed more easily in businesses or in the home. I expect more of a push around this in the next few years, though it would struggle to be used with present technology to distribute high quality video around the home. More wireless related content here.

  • Apologies and Connection

     Since my last post there have been lots of interesting things happening like the media being surprised that systematic torture has been occuring in Iraq. I’ve got some news for you its war, that means that its dirty, bloody and thoroughly unpleasant – try reading the works of Wilfred Owen or watching the Battle of Algiers to get a sense of how nasty it can get.

    On RTE radio one this morning, they had an expert comment about some CIA torture manuals that had been found. The main themes were that you used peoples fear against themselves – rather than torturing them, use the threat of torture because people had a greater capacity to withstand pain than they realised. This approach makes sense given established behavioural bias towards risk aversion. Risk aversion is one of the key cues used in behavioural science, it doesn’t surprise me that it manifests itself in this scenario as well.

    Sony has launched its Connect service, a rival to Apple’s iTunes Music Service. According to the Washington Post the service is ‘unworthy’ of the corporation who gave us the Walkman(TM). If it gets the kiss of death from Walter Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be more salarymen falling on their swords than a Kurosawa samurai film. As the New Yorker put it: “someone whose judgment can ratify years of effort or sink the show.” More media related content here. 

    Lastly owe those of you who read this blog regularly an apology. I have not been contributing here much because I am in the middle of selling my house and moving closer in to London. Any of you who have dealt with British estate agents will have felt my pain. More news on the woes of house buying in the future.

  • Adult entertainment industry + more stuff

    Spare a thought for the ‘performers’ in the adult entertainment industry. According to the Sydney Morning Herald and Reuters, two of the industry’s stars have been found to be HIV+; the first since 1999. Although the mainstream American porn industry has a rigorous testing regime orchestrated by the AIM Foundation where 1,200 stars get tested every three weeks the two people had managed to have sex with 48 other performers since their last test three weeks earlier. A 60-day halt has been called to filming so that anyone who has been in contact with these performers during this time (and their partners etc) can be tested to keep the outbreak under control.

    The HIV has been blamed on a non-condom shoot one of the performers was involved in held in Brazil. The industry has been especially conscious of HIV since John Holmes the ‘Elvis of porn’ died of AIDS in the late 1980’s, bringing to an end what many view as the industry’s golden era. What I think is more frightening is the trend towards gonzo, low rent amateur material that is the rising star in the industry since the advent of the web. This part of the business does not undergo the same rigorous regime as its mainstream counterpart is a health timebomb waiting to go off.

    Amateur pornography is proving particularly corrosive and problems like this in the adult entertainment industry is down to cost cutting and performer poverty. Given the rise of tube sites and the globalisation of porn content product things may get a lot worse in the adult entertainment industry before it gets better.

    Piracy of adult content isn’t a subject that gets the same kind of consideration and discussion as record labels or Hollywood.

    While we are on about things of an industrious nature Rainier PR have launched the Cambridge Confidence Index. According to them this will cover both business and quality-of-life issues.

  • Zatoichi reboot

    I went to see Zatoichi over the weekend. It is a modern Japanese interpretation of a a series within the Japanese Chambara tradition of films. Zatoichi is similar to the ‘One Armed Swordsman’ of Hong Kong cinema or Django in the spaghetti western genre.

    The new version of Zatoichi is much more than an action movie, there are well developed characters and sub-plots and a surreal but effective dance motif that runs throughout the film. Highly recommended viewing.

    This also brings me on to a more serious matter. The key to stopping employment migration to cheaper countries according to globalisation ‘experts’ is the creative sectors – at its crudest – foreigners (sic) can work but they can’t innovate. Wrong, wrong – very wrong indeed. The two best films that I have seen this year have come from Asia – (Infernal Affairs – a Hong Kong film with a twisting plot worthy of The Usual Suspects and Zatoichi).

    A recent edition of Creative Business (the FT’s media and marketing supplement) highlighted the number of creative teams in London’s top ad agencies that hail from Thailand and South America. The Halifax (a UK bank) has shot many of its television advertisements at a Bollywood studio to keep costs down and domestic electronics firms in China like Haier and Ningbo Bird are giving both Nokia and Motorola mobile phones a pasting in product design and innovation. The market share loss in China is a source of embarrassment for Nokia, more information on this can be found in this Wired Magazine article link. If we are not careful we could find the creative industries going the way of back office and IT jobs. I have posted a bit more about this on AlwaysOn (free registration may be required).

    Mixed news on the Apple front, some good – some bad. Someone has developed a proof-of-concept trojan horse for MacOS X to stop MacEvangelists being so smug. OpenOSX have released a free (as in beer) antidote. Mini iPod users have been complaining of cracking sound on the new devices – not exactly cool and the bargain basement eMac has been given a much needed upgrade (however its still really, really bulky).