Corporate and legal

Craigslist becomes political pinata

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

If you're a pol who wants to garner some headlines there's one easy route to news coverage: kick Craigslist.

Now it's South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster's turn (Techmeme, statement, letter to Craigslist). McMaster has informed Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster (see his reply) that he has to remove "the portions of the Internet site dedicated to South Carolina and its municipal regions which contain categories for and functions allowing for the solicitation of prostitution" in 10 days. If not, "criminal investigation and prosecution&… Read more

Prepaid wireless service could spur price war

The prepaid cell phone market has finally hit the U.S. in a big way as economically strapped consumers flock to inexpensive pay-as-you-go services. The result will likely mean that big cell phone providers may be forced to slash prices on contract service plans to keep consumers from defecting.

This is good news for consumers, who could see lower prices on both prepaid and post-paid service plans. But it is very bad news for cell phone operators, which make more money from their post-paid customers than they do from prepaid customers.

Prepaid cell phone plans, which have been very popular … Read more

Ballmer on Microsoft's new layoffs notices

In the wake of handing out 3,000 layoff notices Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent an e-mail to staff.

Ballmer characterized the cuts as the second phase of the plan announced in January. At the time, Microsoft said it would cut 5,000 jobs over an 18-month-period. With the cuts made in January and those announced on Tuesday, Microsoft has now nearly eliminated all those positions.

Here is the text of Ballmer's e-mail, which was seen by CNET News.

From: Steve Ballmer Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 To: Microsoft - All Employees Subject: Update: Realigning Resources and Reducing … Read more

Microsoft sends second wave of layoff notices to 3,000

Microsoft on Tuesday notified more than 3,000 workers that it was eliminating their jobs.

The software maker said in January that it would cut up to 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months. It made 1,400 cuts at the time. With the second wave of notifications on Tuesday, Microsoft has cut nearly all 5,000 jobs already.

Although it didn't announce further layoffs, the fact that the company has already made nearly all the reductions under the January plan means further job actions will have to come under a new round of cuts. In a memo to Microsoft workers, … Read more

Craigslist to meet with state AGs over sex ads

Updated at 5:20 p.m. with Craigslist statement.

Three state attorneys general plan to meet with Craigslist representatives to begin negotiations toward eliminating advertisements from the site for prostitution and other suspected illegal sexual activities.

State attorneys general from Missouri, Illinois, and Connecticut will represent a group of state attorneys general in a meeting Tuesday in New York City with representatives of the Web site.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said his office found several ads offering and seeking prostitution on Craigslist pages for the Kansas City, St. Louis, Columbia/Jefferson City, and Springfield areas.

"Craigslist is allowing … Read more

Sprint blames economy for Q1 customer losses

Update 7:22 a.m. PDT: This story was updated with comments and information from the company's conference call.

Sprint Nextel is blaming the economy for a steep decline in subscribers, though its prepaid and wholesale businesses are seen as important growth areas as the company faces stiff competition.

Meanwhile, financial losses mounted in Sprint's first-quarter earnings released Monday.

"We are happy about the success of Boost Unlimited (prepaid, no-contract service) and our wholesale business," Dan Hesse, Sprint's CEO said during a conference call with analysts and investors on Monday. "But the economy has … Read more

SpringSource acquires Hyperic, with eye to take on IBM, Microsoft

SpringSource announced Monday its acquisition of Hyperic, a move that signals a new phase of commercial open-source competition.

Until recently, open-source vendors like SpringSource seemed content to play the low-cost commodity foil to the broader product portfolios of their proprietary peers. No more.

SpringSource, the company behind the Spring Framework, the leading open-source application framework for Java, has been nudging beyond its roots for some time. Most recently, SpringSource announced commercial support for Tomcat, arguably the world's most prevalent Java application server. It has also released tools to expedite and facilitate the development of Java applications.

In these ways, … Read more

FAQ: Why you're still paying early-termination fees

It's been almost a year since a judge in Alameda County, Calif., ruled that Sprint Nextel's early-termination fees are illegal, and yet Sprint and every other major U.S. wireless operator still charges customers a fee for canceling their services before a contract expires.

So what gives? Why are these pesky early-termination fees still around if they are against the law?

That's a good question and one that many readers have asked me over the past year. Because I get so many questions about these fees, I decided to put together this FAQ to help people understand … Read more

Sprint Nextel to outsource network management?

In an effort to cut costs, Sprint Nextel may outsource management of its cellular network to equipment vendor Ericsson and transfer 5,000 to 7,000 U.S. employees to that company as part of the deal.

That's according to The Wall Street Journal, which quotes sources familiar with the matter as saying the beleaguered cell phone operator could end up paying Ericsson as much as $2 billion over several years to maintain the thousands of cell sites that carry Sprint's wireless voice and data traffic. The WSJ quotes those sources as saying the deal could slash Sprint'… Read more