Microsoft Getting Stimulus Funds? You Gotta Be Kidding Me!

Originally from Friday, March 13th, 2009

http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-memo-to-temps-your-10-pay-cut-is-effective-march-2-2009-2

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year - Yadda yadda yadda - here ya go!

Microsoft, in the middle of laying off up to 5,000, is cutting the rate of it's Allegis Group (e.g. TekSystems and others) temporary (read: contractors, consultants and the like) employees by 10 percent as of March 2d. Further cuts of up to 15 % more are expected. This from the firm that says there aren't enough qualified IT professionals in America to do it's work (is that, um, dirty work or ?). At the same time, Microsoft is enjoying the fruits of it's labors by a direct benefit of the Stimulus Spending Bill - 11 million dollars is going to build "a bridge to Microsoft" - Ballmer or Gates probably have that much lying around in last year's swim trunks, so why build a bridge to Microsoft who is cutting it's U.S. employee population (yet, still hiring overseas?!?!?!?!?!?!) and while they are cutting the rate of it's non-employee's? Smells like a ton of pork in the bill if you get my drift. If it looks like pork, smells like pork, tastes like pork, then it's probably pork. The only stimulus Microsoft is creating now are overseas jobs while they trim the fat and paychecks of Americans. Way to go Microsoft - my Red Hat's off to ya! On a more somber note, Microsoft's lawyers - Screwy, Do'em and How gave themselves a fat raise.

http://www.businessinsider.com/stimulus-package-contains-11-million-bridge-to-microsoft-give-away-2009-3

Oh and, by the way, guess what happened to Microsoft's dividend? It's up 2 cents a share (to 13 cents a share) from this time last year.

http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-sets-its-dividend-up-from-last-year-2009-3

Me? Hell, I'd tie the 11 million bucks to them keeping those 5,000 employees or giving them their jobs back and giving the consultants, who take crap from everyone almost all the time, a raise! Now, that would be stimulating. Despite Microsoft spending 34 million on the roadway/bridge to Microsoft project - I do salute them for that - I don't see how injecting 11 million more dollars of federal stimulus money IS NOT a pork barrel project. What could any one of us do to stimulate the economy with 11 million dollars? Maybe they should start charging the foreign markets (China in particular) what they would charge one of us for say, Windows Server 2008 instead of the few bucks they do charge for it.

It's too bad that there's nobody else in the world who can make and deploy a (decent) handheld to desktop to server to enterprise operating system that doesn't require a brain surgeon to operate, maintain and keep healthy (yes, I have had Macs - recently even - and also Linux boxes - while I love the sleek elegance of Apple products, it doesn't justify the mark-up to me - and most Linux distributions are not ready for Joe six-pack). If you're into the tech stuff, even a little, and have multiple pc's (or Windows devices or a Mac) check out Microsoft Mesh https://www.mesh.com/Welcome/default.aspx - if nothing else it will stop you from e-mailing stuff (where stuff equals pictures, documents, databases, Outlook.pst files and the like) to yourself just so you can have it wherever you login.

Cheers,
P.S. - has anyone tried Twitter yet? It's micro-blogging and it's fairly addictive - a position I was applying to for Search Engine Optimization required that you have an account on Facebook (yep, had one), MySpace (yep, have one of those too) and Twitter (didn't have one just yet but set one up last week). Please let me know your id or if you do sign up, locate me (dshiggins) and click on the follow button. I don't recommend joining unless you have a little time to kill as it's fairly addictive. Ciao!