Corporate stuff

Microsoft on Wednesday began cutting a small number of jobs from its workforce, a source confirmed to CNET.

As previously reported, the layoffs are not expected to be the start of mass cuts, but are more similar to the types of reshuffling that the company does each year as it begins a new fiscal year. Microsoft started fiscal 2011 on July 1.

Microsoft has declined to comment on the cuts or say how many jobs are affected. However, a source told CNET that, even with the cuts, the company still expects to grow its ranks overall this year as it … Read more

Microsoft may eliminate some jobs as it begins a new fiscal year, however the company is not expected to undergo massive layoffs along the lines of what it did last year, when thousands of jobs were eliminated, according to a source.

The cuts currently being considered are along the lines of the company's historical pattern, in which it undergoes a yearly reshuffling that sometimes results in jobs being cut in some areas at the same time new positions are added in other areas, the source told CNET.

After shedding jobs last year, Microsoft added around 1,800 jobs in … Read more

Led by hot demand for the Xbox 360, the video game industry scored its third best-selling May, trailing only 2009 and 2008. Revenue was down compared with a year ago due to lower console prices, according to the latest figures released Thursday by The NPD Group.

For the month, total revenue from gaming consoles, hardware, and software slipped 5 percent to $823.5 million, compared with $865.7 million a year ago. Video game hardware took the hardest hit, dropping 20 percent to $241.5 million from $303 million a year ago. Though sales were strong, lower hardware prices added … Read more

Salesforce.com hopes its new Chatter product will give businesses something to talk about.

After beta testing the collaboration service since February, the company says the product is ready for mainstream use. Although it is designed to compete with Microsoft's SharePoint or IBM's Lotus Notes, Salesforce.com aptly describes Chatter as sort of a Facebook for businesses.

Instead of following old high school classmates, though, Chatter allows workers to follow co-workers, specific business documents, or pieces of data. A sales rep, for example, could follow a pending deal and get updates whenever details on the transaction are updated, … Read more

Editor's note: We used Cover It Live for this event, so if you missed the live blog, you can still replay it in the embedded component below. Replaying the event will give you all the live updates along with commentary from our readers and CNET editor Josh Lowensohn. For those of you who just want the updates, we've included them in regular text here.

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif.--Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie are slated to speak Thursday at the D: All Things Digital event.

Check back around 8 a.m. PDT for … Read more

Apple has long been the little guy in the Mac vs. PC debate, but that's no longer the case.

As of trading near the end of the day on Wednesday, Apple has passed Microsoft in terms of market capitalization, with a value of roughly $222 billion--about $3 billion ahead of Microsoft. Apple had been flirting with the milestone for days and had already passed Microsoft by another measure--a valuation known as enterprise value, which adds in debt and other factors.

The fact that Apple, not Microsoft, is the more valuable franchise represents a remarkable turn of events in … Read more

The exit of Microsoft's two top entertainment executives on Tuesday has many wondering just what is going on within Redmond's executive offices.

Although Microsoft reorganizes itself in some way on a nearly annual basis, the departure of both Robbie Bach and J. Allard is clearly a big deal. Bach, 48, had spent two decades at Microsoft and was one of its four divisional presidents, while the 41-year-old Allard was a key visionary behind the Xbox game console and other Microsoft consumer efforts.

The move comes at a critical time for Microsoft, which this year has on tap the … Read more

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent an e-mail to Microsoft workers on Tuesday reassuring them that the company is well-positioned in the consumer arena even as it is shaking up its executive ranks there.

The company announced Tuesday that Entertainment and Devices unit President Robbie Bach as well as another top executive, J. Allard, are both leaving the company. Bach will retire this fall, while Allard is shifting to be an adviser to Ballmer on certain, unspecified projects.

"Transitions are always hard," Ballmer wrote in an e-mail. "Robbie has been an instrumental part of so many key moments … Read more

Microsoft shook up its entertainment and devices unit on Tuesday, with unit President Robbie Bach and Chief Technology Officer J. Allard both leaving the company.

Bach, who joined the company in 1988, is "retiring" and will leave the company in the fall, while Allard will be an adviser to CEO Steve Ballmer on "a specific set of projects," according to a Microsoft spokesman.

"At Microsoft, I've been so fortunate to spend more than two decades of my life working with incredible people and doing amazing things like launching Office, Xbox and Xbox Live, the '… Read more