Goodbye, boom. Hello, reality.
It's a good sign for Washington state that Microsoft is abandoning stock options. The company is looking ahead, not back to the days when Microsoft millionaires put the true jet power in the local economy.
The switch from risky options to handing out stock shares is almost a rite of passage. Microsoft -- 28 this year, older than a fair number of its workers -- is maturing and considering the long run.
Given Microsoft's position in the economy, the decision generated ponderous observations. On its front page, The Wall Street Journal proclaimed, "The golden age of stock options is over." If so, good riddance to the accounting games too many corporate honchos played during the bubble. Microsoft execs portrayed their decision as simply best for their people.
Microsoft is terminating its once-lucrative stock option lure for potential employees, ending an era of "Microsoft Millionaires," and providing current employees with a more viable compensation package that includes actual shares of Microsoft stock. In the go-go 1990's, Microsoft's stock option plan helped the company lure top talent with the virtual assurance they could strike it rich at the tech industry's brightest star, and over 1000 employees became millionaires in that time. But as the stock market imploded in the late 1990's, Microsoft's earnings became rather pedestrian compared to the huge gains the company had historically made year-over-year, taking its stock price down with it. Most of the stock options Microsoft issued to employees in the late 1990's and early 2000's are "under water," or worthless, a foreign concept to the Porsche- and Lexus-driving coworkers who were fortunate enough to join the company years earlier. Something had to give, executives at the company say, or they would risk losing key employees.
Microsoft released the final version of its Internet SCSI (iSCSI) driver for Windows, which has been in beta form since earlier this year. The software package, which includes an iSCSI initiator service and iSCSI initiator software driver, is available from Microsoft's site for Windows 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) approved the iSCSI standard in February. iSCSI is expected to connect nearly 1.5 million servers to Storage Area Networks (SANs) by 2006, according to research firm Gartner Dataquest.
As Microsoft announced its plans to transition from the New Economy to the Old Economy with the discontinuation of the most successful stock option plan in corporate history, analysts hailed the move as a huge long-term win for investors. While giving employees actual stock in the company rather than options will cost Microsoft billions of dollars in the short term, it's impossible to measure the positive effects this will have on its workers, and the number of employees the company will now retain. On July 17, Microsoft will divulge exactly how this change will affect previously reported earnings.
Microsoft's MSN network said Thursday that it is further strengthening its ties with eBay by placing direct links to the auction site on its search pages. Users performing searches on MSN's home page, MSN Search, MSN Shopping and MSN Auction will soon see links to eBay for items related to their search popping up along with the search results. The partnership expands on a joint marketing and e-commerce agreement forged by the companies in March 2001.
In addition, the companies said that they plan to further integrate eBay auction alerts delivered over Microsoft's .Net Alerts platform later this year. The service already delivers "outbid" and "auction ending" alert notifications to eBay users.
Continuing its push into speech technology, Microsoft Wednesday unleashed the first public beta of its Microsoft Speech Server, and refreshed its Speech Application Software Development Kit (SASDK) with a beta 3 release.
"Speech technology is on the cusp of reaching its full potential, and we are committed to bringing it to the mainstream," said Kai-Fu Lee, corporate vice president of the Speech Technologies Group at Microsoft. "With the beta release of Microsoft Speech Server and the beta 3 release of the SASDK, we are making it easier for enterprise companies and their customers to access information."
Microsoft has hired top scientists in its quest for search algorithms that will allow it to compete directly with Google. Microsoft is actively working on new search algorithms it will use to power its own search engine and enter into competition with Google, according to the head of the company's Theory Group.
Speaking here at the Fifth International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM), professor Jennifer Tour Chayes said Microsoft is patenting new search algorithms with a view to replacing the Inktomi technology currently powering MSN's search with Microsoft's own.
Just found this in my email inbox from our beta insider, Ditto.
Dear Microsoft Beta Tester,
The Microsoft Systems Management Server ("SMS") group is happy to announce the availability of Release Candidate 1 of SMS 2003. The English language build has been posted on the BetaPlace web site for download. International Client Pack ("ICP") 1, German, Japanese and French server builds will be released during the month of July 2003. Please check the BetaPlace web site weekly for updates.
Before you continue, it is important to understand that this pre-release version
may not display the stability of a shipped Microsoft product. You may encounter
problems with Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 RC 1 that could possibly
result in a loss or destruction of data. We suggest that you back up your
existing data before you install and run this software.
Thank you for participating in this beta program. We look forward to your
valuable feedback.
The Microsoft Systems Management Server Group
The Wi-Fi Alliance, following successful interoperability testing, has put its stamp of approval on the first batch of products based on the new 802.11g wireless Internet standard. This is the fourth Wi-Fi product certification developed by the alliance since it began its interoperability testing program in March 2000, the group of wireless equipment vendors said Tuesday in a statement.
The new 802.11g standard lays out the ground rules for WLAN (wireless LAN) gear that is capable of at least 24Mbps and up to 54Mbps, while remaining backward compatible with existing 802.11b gear that runs at a maximum 11Mbps. Both use radio spectrum in the 2.4GHz radio band. Another standard, 802.11a, defines 54Mbps gear in the 5GHz range.
A Web services security specification, introduced this week by IBM and Microsoft, could emerge as a rival to the existing Sun Microsystems-backed Liberty Alliance Project. A group of major players on the Web services landscape, including IBM, Microsoft, BEA Systems, RSA Security and VeriSign announced the WS-Federation security specification on Tuesday.
While observers agree the need for a specification such as WS-Federation exists, they say WS-Federation largely re-creates work already done by Sun and other companies as part of the Liberty Alliance. The new specification could complicate the movement to build Web services industry standards by creating overlapping and competing movements, said analysts.