52891185
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Strudelkugel writes:
In an overhaul of its employee-review system being announced Tuesday, Microsoft will stop requiring managers to rank workers on a scale of one to five on a "bell" curve. The system—often called "stack" or "forced" ranking— meant a small percentage of workers had to be designated as underperformers. The rankings were also crucial in allocating bonuses and equity awards.In place of the bell curve and numerical-ranking system, Microsoft managers will give employees more frequent feedback on how they're doing their jobs. Managers also will have more flexibility in how they dole out bonuses. The changes take effect immediately. The stack-ranking system was designed to ensure Microsoft's most-effective employees were awarded the lion's share of bonus pools, and were first in line for promotions. Such forced-ranking systems were widely copied after they rose to popularity at General Electric under CEO Jack Welch, but have fallen out of favor in recent years. Some current and former Microsoft employees say the software giant's system has serious flaws. Critics said the review program sometimes resulted in capricious rankings, power struggles among managers jockeying for their employees to get better reviews, and unhealthy competition among colleagues.
51439361
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Strudelkugel writes:
The average car on the road is 11.4 years old, according to Polk, a global automotive analysis firm, which reviewed 247 million light vehicles in the U.S. The age of cars has been gradually increasing since 2002, when the average car was 9.8 years old. Polk expects the trend to continue over the next five years. Automotive density is projected to decline to 77.5 cars per 100 people, down from 80 cars per 100 in 2007, according to Kelsey Mays of Cars.com.
Another study, from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, analyzed the reason for the decline in young driver licensing. Of the 618 unlicensed respondents aged 18-39, 26.9 percent said the main reason they did not get a license was “too busy or not enough time to get a driver’s license.”
50182761
submission
Strudelkugel writes:
Microsoft said it has reached an agreement to acquire the handset and services business of Nokia for more than $7.1 billion, in an effort to transform Microsoft’s business for a mobile era that has largely passed it by. In a news release late Monday night, Microsoft and Nokia said 32,000 Nokia employees will join Microsoft as a result of the all-cash deal. Stephen Elop, the chief executive of Nokia and a former Microsoft executive, will rejoin Microsoft, setting him up as a potential successor for Steven A. Ballmer, who has said he will retire as chief executive of Microsoft within 12 months after a successor is found.
45935019
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Strudelkugel writes:
WHEN the e-mail came out of the blue last summer, offering a shot as a programmer at a San Francisco start-up, Jade Dominguez, 26, was living off credit card debt in a rental in South Pasadena, Calif., while he taught himself programming. He had been an average student in high school and hadn’t bothered with college, but someone, somewhere out there in the cloud, thought that he might be brilliant, or at least a diamond in the rough. “The traditional markers people use for hiring can be wrong, profoundly wrong,” says Vivienne Ming, the chief scientist at Gild since late last year. That someone was Luca Bonmassar. He had discovered Mr. Dominguez by using a technology that raises important questions about how people are recruited and hired, and whether great talent is being overlooked along the way.
43214807
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Strudelkugel writes:
EVERY time you purchase an app on Google Play, your name, address and email is passed on to the developer, it has been revealed today. The "flaw" — which appears to be by design — was discovered this morning by Sydney app developer, Dan Nolan who told news.com.au that he was uncomfortable being the custodian of this information and that there was no reason for any developer to have this information at their finger tips.
31963465
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Strudelkugel writes:
An insurance company will discount insurance premiums for drivers who volunteer to have their driving habits monitored. Insurance is an asymmetric market. The insurer does not really know how the insured will drive, so the actuaries assume the worst. But by adding the black box, the insured can get a discount by providing the insurer with more information. But that also includes privacy, the future value of which might be quite high:
Young Marmalade MD Crispin Moger states that they offer low-cost insurance packages because, “Young Marmalade buys many new cars and receives assistance from manufacturers, which is passed on to young drivers as Cash back. For example on the best seller Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 SXi 3 door, the Cash back on that model is £3,558 and can help pay off your first year of car insurance.” Fortunately, when you purchase a low-powered car from Young Marmalade, the free installation of a black box can cut your insurance premiums into half. By monitoring the driving behaviour such as acceleration, braking, what time of the day the car was driven and at what speed, Young Marmalade provides affordable telematic insurance premiums.
18965982
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Strudelkugel writes:
Apple is further tightening its control of the App Store.
Some application developers, including Sony, say Apple has told them they can no longer sell e-books within their apps unless the transactions go through Apple’s system. Apple rejected Sony’s iPhone application, which would have let people buy and read e-books from the Sony Reader Store.
Apple said on Tuesday that it was still allowing customers to read e-books they bought elsewhere within apps. For example, a Sony app could still access books the customer bought earlier from Sony’s store.
But Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division, said on Monday that Apple had told his company that from now on, all in-app purchases would have to go through Apple.
“It’s the opposite of what we wanted to bring to the market,” Mr. Haber said. “We always wanted to bring the content to as many devices as possible, not one device to one store.”
14746618
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Strudelkugel writes:
Edwin Perello discovered that Bing, the Microsoft search engine, could find addresses in his rural Indiana town when Google could not. Laura Michelson, an administrative assistant in San Francisco, was lured by Bing’s flight fare tracker. Paul Callan, a photography buff in Chicago, fell for Bing’s vivid background images. When Microsoft introduced it last year, Bing made a splash with its vivid background images. In June, Google presented searchers the option of a colorful background rather than the stark, white page.Like most Americans, they still use Google as their main search tool. But more often, they find themselves navigating to Microsoft’s year-old Bing for certain tasks, and sometimes they stay a while.
14619148
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Strudelkugel writes:
The Beast reports unhappiness with Steve Ballmer as CEO of Microsoft: Sources say the talk around Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, headquarters—which has grown increasingly louder ever since Apple surpassed Microsoft in market capitalization—-is that the company's stock suffers from a "Ballmer discount," and that the CEO is on the clock to significantly move the needle on its share price over the next two or three quarters or face a potential move to oust him. "Ballmer is on the list of mega-executives under pressure," says a banker who has negotiated deals for Microsoft. "If he was asked to leave the building, I suspect there would be more happy than unhappy people."
12768732
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Strudelkugel writes:
The New York Times reports that Apple's valuation now exceeds the market cap of Microsoft for the first time: In intraday trading shortly after 2:30 p.m., Apple shares rose 1.8 percent, which gave the company a value of $227.1 billion. Shares of Microsoft declined about 1 percent, giving the company a market capitalization of $226.3 billion.The only American company valued higher is Exxon Mobil, with a market capitalization of $282 billion.This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in business history, as Apple had been given up for dead only a decade earlier. But the rapidly rising value attached to Apple by investors also heralds a cultural shift: Consumer tastes have overtaken the needs of business as the leading force shaping technology.
12123186
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Strudelkugel writes:
CNN has a report about a new dating site for people who love all things Apple. Is this the zenith for Apple coolness? Will it become unhip to have an iPod on your hip and an iPad in your bag? And here I am just about to buy a new Betamax^H^H^H^H Macbook Pro... From the article: Do you spend your nights debating the merits of iPhone multitasking? Do you have a poster of Steve Jobs on your bedroom ceiling? And are you looking for a partner who has plenty of free wall sockets, so you can charge up your iPod, iPad, iBook and iPhone — all at once?!? Well, maybe Cupidtino is the website for you. The new dating site, designed exclusively to set-up fans of Apple gadgets, says it will launch in June.
10759658
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Strudelkugel writes:
Business Insider is reporting that Google Is Hiring Bond Traders. Google is hiring traders for its new bond trading platform, according to published advertisements on its job site. Currently, roles include trader of foreign government bonds, portfolio analyst for Google's U.S. government bond portfolio, and a portfolio analyst for agency mortgage-backed securities. A source who interviewed for one of the positions said that this was a means for Google to make use of its large cash reserves. Google has long discussed using its access to massive amounts of data to build a hedge fund.
9273314
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Strudelkugel writes:
Dick Brass, a former VP of Microsoft, wonders if the company has a future, given the lack of innovation compared to Apple, Google, Amazon and other competitors: AS they marvel at Apple’s new iPad tablet computer, the technorati seem to be focusing on where this leaves Amazon’s popular e-book business. But the much more important question is why Microsoft, America’s most famous and prosperous technology company, no longer brings us the future, whether it’s tablet computers like the iPad, e-books like Amazon’s Kindle, smartphones like the BlackBerry and iPhone, search engines like Google, digital music systems like iPod and iTunes or popular Web services like Facebook and Twitter.
8829850
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Strudelkugel writes:
Businessweek reports a possible Apple/Microsoft search deal in the making: "In 2003, when Apple said its iTunes music software would work on PCs using the Windows software of its age-old rival, Microsoft, Apple made up posters that read "Hell Froze Over." Hell may be getting frosty again. Apple is in talks with Microsoft to replace Google as the default search engine on its iPhone, according to two people familiar with the matter. The talks have been under way for weeks, say the people, who asked not to be named because the details have not been made public." What's next, the CLR running on the iPhone?
7202772
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Strudelkugel writes:
The NY Time reports an insurance agent looked at the Facebook page of a woman receiving benefits for depression and determined she was no longer entitled to them based on her Facebook pictures. "She said her insurance agent described several pictures Blanchard posted on Facebook, including ones showing her having a good time at a Chippendales bar show, at her birthday party and on a sun holiday."
