The leading software giant Microsoft is in the thick of it with concerns arisen from the Foxconn factory over pay and working conditions. The assembly of the Xbox takes place at Foxconn with approximately three hundred employees.
Microsoft said, “The welfare of our employees is our top priority and we are committed to ensuring that all employees are treated fairly and that their rights are fully protected”, the statement was provided to CNN by Microsoft.
When work problems start they do not go away easily as at Foxconn it all started with employees experiencing a move to another production line resulting in a pay difference argument.

Share on Facebook

Category: Software News | 0 Comments |

The skirmish between Google and Microsoft to sell software applications that run on the Web “cloud” is escalating.

The tech giants have already engaged in a public war of words this year as they vied to sign up businesses, government companies and colleges for their competing variations of cloud-based productivity software.

Now Microsoft has cut its costs to minute and midsized companies for its Office 365 software, and Google is putting out the word for the first time that the rate of small companies signing up for cloud-based services like Gmail and Documents has doubled over the past six months.

That suggests the competition to put up for sale cloud-based apps to small and intermediate-sized businesses is only increasing in intensity, said Matt Cain, an analyst with Gartner.

Microsoft’s small-business offer “is a superior deal, maybe even a great deal,” Cain said. “So Google now faces a very aggressive Microsoft in the race for SMB business, and the search giant is trying to get a leg up on Microsoft through a press campaign.”

For Google, its 4-year old apps business is a opportunity to diversify from its profound dependence on publicity for its revenue. For Microsoft, the competition is about retaining its profitable core business of promotion Office productivity software like Word, PowerPoint and Excel.

Microsoft states that within two weeks of the launch of Office 365 in June, more than 50,000 businesses, universities and nonprofit organizations had signed up to try the cloud services.

Google says about 5,000 organizations a day are joining, up from about 3,000 a day less than a year ago.

Share on Facebook

Category: Software News | 7 Comments |

Microsoft’s Security Essentials antivirus software flagged Google Chrome as malware and removes it from the PCs of thousands of people.

The antivirus application appears to have identified Google Chrome as the PWS: Win32/Zbot virus, a variation of the Zeus Trojan, and repeatedly blocked it or even deleted it from customers’ machines. Approximately 3,000 users were affected.

Several people suspected that the move was simply Microsoft’s way of seeing off the browser rivalry, with Chrome quickly gaining ground on I.E.

“Was there actually a trouble, or is this just a tactic for Microsoft to fuse it to Google?” asked one user on a Google support forum. “This is a conspiracy on behalf of Microsoft to take down Google!” claimed another.

Microsoft, though, has apologized, and quickly released an update. “Affected customers should manually update Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) with the latest signatures,” it says.

“To do this, just launch MSE, go to the update tab and click the Update push button, and then reinstall Google Chrome.”

Meanwhile, Google’s released an update to automatically repair Chrome for affected users.

“The Chrome Stable channel has been restructured to 14.0.835.187, and the Beta channel has been updated to 15.0.874.58,” says the company’s Jason Kersey. “These updates should be of assistance repair Chrome installs that had been broken due to the problem with Microsoft Security Essentials.”

However, many affected customers are reporting that they’ve lost their bookmarks.

Share on Facebook

Category: Software News | 7 Comments |