TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

Many people consider themselves more productive when they're working away from the office, according to a study of workers at a variety of companies across the country, commissioned by Microsoft. But the study also found that not as many companies support the practice.

"Sixty percent of respondents to the Microsoft Telework survey — conducted among 3,600 employees in 36 cities nationwide — say they are actually more productive and efficient when working remotely," Microsoft says today said in a summary of the findings. "With less time spent commuting and fewer cubicle 'drive bys' causing distractions, respondents say, more time can be spent on the task in front of them."

In the annals of marketing, I am not quite sure where finger puppets rank. But that's the tactic Microsoft and the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce have employed to promote a new video contest which is open to small businesses in the state of Washington. Here's the video -- direct from "cuticle hell."

Yes, that's slightly odd. But there's real money on the line, with Microsoft and the Greater Seattle Chamber pledging $10,000 to the small business that creates the best viral video which promotes use of Office 2010.

TechFlash is pleased to welcome BDO, an accounting, tax and valuation firm with deep roots and expertise in the technology industry, as an annual sponsor. We appreciate BDO’s decision to support our mission of informing and bringing together the Seattle region’s technology community. Sponsors make TechFlash possible, and we hope you’ll join us in thanking BDO for its support.

Through the annual sponsorship, BDO will engage with the technology community in a variety of ways -- including sponsor messages on the site and in the daily TechFlash email newsletter. The BDO brand will become a familiar sight to TechFlash readers. The firm’s leaders will also be active participants in TechFlash events, including the upcoming March 23 TechFlash Live at the Showbox Sodo. (Maybe they'll even join us in the official sport of TechFlash, ping-pong.)

In what must be an embarrassing blow to Google, Motorola has chosen Microsoft's Bing as the default search engine on Android phones in China. Android, of course, is the mobile operating system from Google and China represents the world's largest mobile market.

Can you imagine the new Windows 7 phones featuring Google search or the iPhone promoting a browser other than Safari?

Microsoft isn't pulling any punches in its latest marketing campaign in the United Kingdom, indirectly attacking Google for producing meaningless search results. Take a look at the first ad, which shows a man and a little boy howling like a monkey at one point.

We've seen Microsoft take this advertising approach before, with its well received "laptop hunters" ads in the U.S. That campaign slammed Apple, promoting Microsoft's products as more cost effective.

Bill Gates is no longer the world's richest man. The Microsoft co-founder was knocked out of the top slot in Forbes annual ranking of the top billionaires.

So who is the richest? That honor now goes to Carlos Slim, the 70-year-old Mexican telecommunications mogul who showed an impressive net worth of $53.5 billion. That was just above Gates' net worth of $53 billion.

Photo via Jim Glass

How a company's employees respond to adversity -- such as a broken coffee machine -- says a lot about that company's culture. Which is why it's no surprise that some Microsoft employees recently reacted to that horrible fate by spamming the machine with "helpful" suggestions about the source of the problem, in a series of notes.

Which, of course, prompted everyone else to do their best to kill the thread.

Schwarzenegger and Microsoft's Dan'l Lewin in California today. (Microsoft photo)

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was on hand today as Microsoft announced plans to offer 165,000 technology training vouchers to workers in the state, which has been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn. California becomes the latest state to work with Redmond company's year-old Elevate America initiative, which offers training and certification in Microsoft technologies.

The program has the potential to raise concerns among Microsoft's competitors -- many of them based in California's Silicon Valley -- for its potential to encourage continued usage of the Redmond company's technology. However, California's unemployment rate is 12.5 percent, and the initiative is meant to position workers to find better jobs.

Those new Windows Phone 7 Series devices can't get here soon enough. Average usage of Microsoft's Windows Mobile phones in the U.S. fell 4 percentage points, to 15.7 percent, between the three months ended in October and the three months ended in January, according to numbers released today by the comScore Networks research firm.

Google's Android was the big gainer for the period -- seeing its market share rise to 7.1 percent, from 2.8 percent previously. Apple's iPhone experienced a small gain, edging above 25 percent, from 24.8 percent before. Palm fell to 5.7 percent, from 7.8 percent previously.

Google's launch of a new Google Apps Marketplace for third-party business applications feels like the guy in the big house at the end of the block inviting the rest of the neighborhood over for a party.

And for people who follow Microsoft's partnership strategies, the approach being taken by the search company will be very familiar. This line from Google's announcement stood out, in particular.

"We're often asked when we'll offer a wider variety of business applications — from accounting and project management to travel planning and human resources management," wrote Chris Vander Mey, product Manager for the Google Apps Marketplace. "But we certainly can't and won't do it all, and there are hundreds of business applications for which we have no particular expertise."

Microsoft's Bing search engine continued to gain market share in February, but at the expense of its newly minted partner, Yahoo, according to the latest numbers from the comScore Networks research firm, as reported today by Silicon Alley Insider (via PaidContent) based on a JP Morgan analyst's report.

Bing rose to 11.5 percent of the U.S. search market in February, up from 11.3 percent the previous month. Yahoo slipped to 16.8 percent for the month, falling below 17 percent. Google, meanwhile, rose modestly to 65.5 percent, from 65.4 percent the month before.

Don't worry, Google's competitive strategy doesn't involve filling Microsoft employees up with beer. But in a strange twist of fate, one of the co-owners of the pub on Microsoft's Redmond campus is now a Google employee -- not because the pub's ownership changed hands, but because Google bought his other company.

Jonathan Sposato, CEO of Picnik, the online photo-editing company purchased by Google last week, is also one of the owners of the Spitfire bar in Belltown and its satellite facility at Microsoft's headquarters. As we reported last week, Sposato and the rest of the Picnik team are joining Google as part of the acquisition.

Valeri Kim, winner of the 2009 tournament. (Matt Hagen photo)

We've been working on a surprise for our upcoming TechFlash Live event, March 23: We've arranged to have ping-pong tables at the Showbox Sodo for open recreational play during the networking portion of the event. It will be a fun warm-up for our second annual TechFlash Ping-Pong Tournament, to be held this summer.

So if you're thinking about competing in the tournament this summer, or just in the mood for some ping-pong, you can register here for the March 23 event. As an added bonus, we'll open for ping-pong a little early, at 4 p.m., and you'll be able to play until the program begins later that evening. We'll also be scouting the tables to help us pick seeds for the tournament, when the time comes.

Microsoft will be rolling out its overhauled MSN to U.S. users starting today, with more than 30 tweaks and new features since the company first previewed the revamped Internet portal last fall. Among them: A minor concession to the old-school users who preferred MSN's longtime blue background to the new white version.

"The design of the new page was largely positively received, but we heard from some MSN loyalists that they missed our traditional blue background," MSN says in a blog post. "So, we tested many different versions of our design – including an entirely blue background – and it turns out most people prefer the clean, white background we introduced with the preview – with a touch of blue highlighting the top of the page."

Charles Thacker

Charles Thacker, a Microsoft Research technical fellow, this morning was named the recipient of the Turing Award, considered the Nobel Prize of computing, for his work designing the early Alto personal computer during his time at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.

Thacker's design "reflected a new vision of a self-sufficient, networked computer on every desk, equipped with innovations that are standard in today's models," the Association for Computing Machinery said this morning in the news release announcing the award. ACM also cited Thacker's work on Ethernet local area networks.