TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

REDMOND -- Hundreds of people gathered here this morning for the annual Microsoft Puzzle Hunt, sizing up the competition and preparing to spend hours immersed a series of mind-bending brain-teasers.

But first they faced a more basic challenge.

"You can figure out how to find the number for Pizza Schmizza on your own," said Peter Sarrett, one of the organizers of this year's event, during the opening orientation session. "If you can't," he joked, "it's going to be a long weekend for you guys."

Volt Workforce Solutions, believed to be the largest provider of Microsoft temporary workers, informed them tonight that it will be cutting their pay by 10 percent as a result of the Redmond company's decision to reduce the amount it pays employment firms. Volt joins most but not all of the other firms in deciding to pass some or all of the impact of the cuts on to their workers.

Read on for the full text of the message Volt sent to its Microsoft workers Friday evening.

With Microsoft's Windows 7 preview getting positive reviews, and Windows Vista riding into the sunset, the computer industry is enduring a lame-duck period -- that moment in time when people wait to buy for fear of missing out on the next big thing. And the economy isn't exactly helping, either.

Microsoft and PC makers are expected to juice up the market later this year with offers of free or discounted upgrades to Windows 7 for people who buy Windows Vista machines in advance of the new operating system's release. But in the meantime, one Seattle-area computer builder is taking matters into its own hands.

Microsoft has quietly finished and begun using the gigantic parking garage beneath the new Entertainment & Devices campus under construction in Redmond. Four stories deep, with room for a few thousand cars, it's one of the largest underground garages in the Western Hemisphere. Here's an inside look.

Lawyers for PC buyers are trying a new approach in an attempt to get U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman to reinstate the class-action status that she recently removed from the lawsuit over Microsoft's Windows Vista Capable marketing program. According to a document filed today (PDF, 5 pages), the lawyers are asking the judge to certify a narrower class of plaintiffs than before.

Microsoft may have just accomplished what the WashTech labor union tried to do for years -- motivating its workers to band together and fight for their common interests. At least, that's the aim of a new site called MSRateCuts.org, which objects to the pay cuts expected to result from Microsoft's decision to reduce the rate it pays the agencies that provide many of its temporary workers.

Microsoft is postponing, by about two weeks, the planned cuts in the amount it pays employment firms for many of its temporary workers, a spokesman confirmed this afternoon. The cuts had been set to start March 2, but they're now slated to go into effect around mid-month.

The company is delaying the changes at the request of some of the employment firms, saying some of them needed more time to adjust their payroll and other internal systems to reflect the lower billing rates.

Horacio Gutierrez

Microsoft's suit against TomTom has created a stir in the open-source world as the Redmond company's first case alleging patent infringement over an implementation of the Linux kernel. However, Microsoft downplays that aspect of the suit and says the case is not the beginning of a broader legal campaign against open-source software.

Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's corporate vice president deputy general counsel for intellectual property, didn't raise the Linux subject on his own when he outlined the case for me yesterday, but he acknowledged the issue and went into detail in response to my questions. Read on for the key excerpts from our exchange.

As reported earlier today, Microsoft is reducing the rates it's paying the companies that supply many of its temporary workers, citing the bad economy. Read on for the full text of the company's email on the subject, which we obtained in the course of our work on the story.

Microsoft, citing the "realities of a deteriorating economy," will reduce by 10 percent the amount it pays employment agencies for many of its temporary workers -- and cut by 15 percent the target billing rate for future temporary work.

The decision is expected to ripple through the tech job market -- requiring the agencies to reduce their already slim profit margins or cut worker pay. Some say they will need to do both. The situation also creates a dilemma for many temporary workers in existing Microsoft assignments, who will need to either accept pay cuts or take their chances in an increasingly difficult economy.

The changes, to take effect March 2, were detailed in a Feb. 20 email from Duff Hall, Microsoft's U.S. Talent Source Program Manager. The email, obtained by TechFlash, also tells the agencies that they can expect Microsoft's business groups "to control overall demand for temporary labor" by reducing or eliminating overtime for temporary workers, and reducing the total hours they work.

Microsoft filed suit against TomTom today, alleging that the in-car navigation company's devices violate eight of its patents -- including three that relate to TomTom's implementation of the Linux kernel.

Once every year, researchers from Microsoft's labs around the world gather in Redmond to show their latest projects. The event, TechFest, is a glimpse into the minds of the people responsible for pushing the bounds of technology inside the company. In some cases, it can also serve as a preview of future Microsoft products and features.

Source: Inrix

Here's one benefit of the slowing economy. People are spending less time driving, reducing congestion in major U.S. cities, according to a report today from Kirkland-based Inrix. Seattle ranked 9th, but congestion dropped by 28 percent in the region last year. That compares to a 25 percent decline in San Francisco and New York, and a 47 percent decline in San Diego.  On average, Inrix found that Americans spent 13 fewer hours stuck in traffic last year than they did in 2007.

REDMOND -- Microsoft researchers plan to release their own search site to test their latest technologies separate from the company's Live Search engine. The site, code-named Viveri, was one of the more interesting finds on the floor here today at the company's annual TechFest event.

The European antitrust dispute over Internet Explorer keeps getting more interesting: Google today said it will seek status as a third party in the case, which revisits a central issue in Microsoft's landmark U.S. case by challenging the company's inclusion of its Web browser in Windows.

In a blog post announcing the move, Google's Sundar Pichai said the company believes its experience launching its Chrome browser gives it a valuable perspective to add to the debate. The company, he wrote, "believes that the browser market is still largely uncompetitive, which holds back innovation for users."