Week in review: War over the workers

Hewlett-Packard this week announced plans to ax 14,500 jobs, and Microsoft and Google tussled over a worker.

As part of a strategy to reinvent itself, HP announced that it will lay off about 10 percent of its staff under a restructuring plan designed to bring the company's costs in line with those of competitors such as Dell and IBM.

HP said the broad changes will save the company about $1.9 billion each year starting in the summer of 2006. Though the job cuts will be felt throughout the company, the majority of staff reductions will come from sales and from support functions, such as IT, human resources and finance.

A striking fact about HP's latest staff-slashing news is that the company has already returned to its mid-2002 size, despite reported job cuts in the past few years totaling more than 22,000. What's behind the bulge? Some analysts suggest bureaucratic bloat and a growing presence offshore are factors.

Trying to retain employees has touched off a new chapter in the rivalry between Google and Microsoft, as the software giant sued the search giant and a former Microsoft executive who has been tapped by Google to run its China operations.

Source: Microsoft

Kai-Fu Lee

The suit names Kai-Fu Lee, who until Monday was the corporate vice president of Microsoft's Interactive Services Division. Google said Tuesday that Lee was joining the company and would head up a new research effort in China.

In the suit, Microsoft seeks monetary damages as well as an injunction upholding the noncompete clause and other provisions of Lee's contract, including terms barring him from sharing Microsoft trade secrets.

The suit against Lee garnered a variety of reactions from CNET News.com readers. Betty Roper wrote that "corporate noncompetes are serious business, and this guy knew exactly what he was getting into when he signed his. I'm guessing his career at Google will be...brief."

Thomas Carley, on the other hand, wrote that Microsoft has done its share of aggressive hiring from rivals. "I think it's a hoot that Google has used Microsoft's own tactics on them," he wrote. "Turnabout is fair play." (Click here to join the discussion.)

Meanwhile, at Microsoft's annual gathering with university researchers, executives bemoaned the lack of computer scientists, both globally and in the United States. Part of the problem, say both academics and Microsoft executives, is that the technology field just hasn't done a good job of positioning itself as hip and exciting.

There needs to be more of a sense of romance and magic, said Kevin Schofield, general manager of Microsoft Research communications and strategy. "You don't have to go to Hogwarts to learn magic," Schofield said in an interview with CNET News.com, referring to the fictional school in the Harry Potter series.

Maybe getting a little more Harry Potter into Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., headquarters would be an employee recruitment incentive. The company recently qualified a 9-year-old Pakistani girl as a Microsoft Certified Professional.

Arfa Karim of Multan, a city in northeast Pakistan, has officially become the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional in that country, and one of the youngest in the world.

"(I) had my suspicions...that getting the MCP rating was child's play..." --Earl Benser

Arfa, now 10, met with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates last week--an experience she later described as second only to visiting Disneyland.

To attain the credential, a person has to display technical proficiency in areas such as .Net, Visual Studio 6.0 and Windows Server 2003.

Regardless, some CNET News.com readers were unimpressed. Greg Klebart wrote: "OK, so a 9-year-old can answer some multiple choice questions correctly. Dumb luck."

Reader Roy Stewart, however, congratulated Arfa in News.com's TalkBack forum. "You have achieved a very significant accomplishment," he wrote. "Ignore any detractors to your prowess." (Click here to join the discussion.)

Far from flawless
A security flaw that could let an attacker remotely crash computers running Windows exists in several versions of the operating system, not just Windows XP. Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 are vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack that exploits a problem in the Remote Desktop Protocol.

RDP is a protocol that enables remote access to Windows systems. Because of a flaw in the way Windows handles remote desktop requests, an attacker could crash a PC by sending a malformed remote request, Microsoft said.

Microsoft is also investigating reports that a flaw in Internet Explorer's image-rendering capabilities may allow attackers to execute code

HP WAS PREDICTED

HP is a company that had a great start and tried to take on a bit more then they should have. Their product line has never really been superior, although they have had great products from time to time.

None of that really matters because even the mediocre products can make a company a great success as long as are able to offer great support on products. This is something that HP has failed at. At the hands of Ann Livermore and other executives, HP has shown customers how unimportant they are to them once they purchase a product. Anyone who has had to call an HP customer support knows what I mean.

Perhaps we can blame globilization and the hunt for cheap labor instead of using us fat, lazy, overpaid Americans. Personally, I have to throw the blame directly at the people who make decisions to use support staff that can not communicate with the biggest markets such as the US, UK, and Asian markets. Because of the communication problems, these "cheap" foreign call centers spend more time practicing how to speak without an accent then they spend learning the products they are supposed to be supporting.

The #1 thing that I look for in a company is always support. If I buy a camera, I expect to call back in 5+ years and not hear, "I'm sorry-jib-jab-doodle-doodle-No support this product anymore.". As it stands HP doesn't even support last years model. I called for drivers on a digital camera and it wasn't until I found the drivers on a 3rd party web site that I was able to use my camera with a new PC.

These foolish executives really think that MARKETING is the #1 factor that makes a company a success. I say absolutely NOT! I can give many examples of companies that have made it entirely based on the quality of their products and support before any real budget was put into marketing. (NetFlix for instance only used word of mouth, a great idea and awesome service) I can also give examples of companies that started out good enough but, like HP, made the mistake of spending more on marketing and less on support. Vonage VOIP phone for instance were built on a great service but they treat customers EVEN WORSE then HP.

My prediction made long ago is that HP will continue to try and capture new customers while disregarding the potential and the need for customer satisfaction. They will find ways to survive for years to come but will certainly not last unless they learn what makes companies like Dell look so good to customers.

Lets all give a nice long middle finger to HP, Vonage and the rest of the companies that don't give a damned about you.