Technology News and IT Business Intelligence

A new study from subscriber management company Allot Communications today says that worldwide mobile broadband consumption increased approximately 72% in just the second half of 2009.

Though the Federal Communications Commission is worried that there won’t be enough bandwidth in the United States to support the growth in mobile broadband use, the Americas are actually being outpaced by both the Asia Pacific region (APAC) and the Europe/Middle East/Africa region (EMEA) in terms of growth rate. APAC experienced an 86% growth in mobile broadband consumption, and EMEA experienced 70% growth, while use in the Americas grew by 59%.

Allot’s study says that streaming video is “the single most influential factor driving the need for increased mobile network capacity,” and that consumption of streaming video grew by 99% in the second half of ‘09. YouTube alone accounted for 10% of the world’s mobile bandwidth consumption in the third and fourth quarters of last year.

“Mobile broadband networks are still facing the same challenges as fixed networks — growing bandwidth demands, congestion, as well as finding ways to enhance the user experience and to lessen the negative impact of a few [P2P users] on the network,” a statement from the company said today.

For the most part, last week’s over-the-air software update to Google Nexus One phones, which was intended to address the 3G connectivity issues with certain versions of the phone’s firmware (with a gift of added multitouch), appears unsuccessful for many commenters to Google’s support forums. Very few customers reported improvement, and some who did in the early going are now saying their flip-flop problems between 3G and EDGE have returned.

Meanwhile, although Nexus One manufacturer HTC has typically referred phone issues to Google — the self-proclaimed “vendor of record” when the device premiered — as of now, it has declared the issue resolved, suggesting that customers still experiencing problems “restart their Nexus One device to restore their T-Mobile data connection.”

The entry of new customers into the Google support forum who report having purchased their phones in the last week, only to be confronted with the issues some others have faced since last month, suggests that Google may continue to be selling phones containing the firmware suspected of having the connectivity defect.

“I just recently purchased the Nexus One and discovered that I am unable to make calls and access the internet at the same time,” reports new entrant Mayo1 on Saturday. “Once I make a voice call, I am unable to browse the Internet or use any apps that require Internet connectivity. I am mostly in a 3G area. Initially, I’m browsing or using my apps just fine then I decide to make a voice call and all of a sudden Internet connectivity is gone. The minute I hang up the voice call, I can go right back to browsing.”

Besides this and the flip-flop problem, the other prominent symptom users are reporting is that connectivity seems high until someone touches the phone, then it drops to zero — which suggests a problem with the phone’s antenna. Although the common thread among customers with these symptoms appears to be the same firmware version, customers are beginning to suspect that these issues are actually unrelated — that they are separate problems that afflicted a certain strain of the phone, but may not be caused by the firmware in that strain.

Last Sunday afternoon before the Super Bowl, Google employee Ry Guy posted a perplexing message. Citing the fact that “there’s still a lot of interest here,” he began by reminding customers of the existence of the OTA software fix “that will improve 3G connectivity for many Nexus One users.” No one continuing to report negative symptoms had claimed to have refrained from installing the fix.

“However,” Ry Guy continued, “there are a variety of factors which feed into the quality of 3G connectivity on mobile phones, a number of which are dependent on the environment rather than the phone itself. For instance, a software update can’t address the experience of users on the edge or outside of 3G coverage areas. We’re going to continue to track 3G performance closely with HTC and T-Mobile and will post any updates we’ve got.”

Customers responded as though Google had just fumbled in the fourth quarter. “Just face facts: There is something significantly wrong with the software or hardware,” wrote andrewrchick. “If you just tell us you will fix it but you need time, most of us will hang on in there. But don’t insult us and blame it on T-Mobile as too many people here have enough experience to say otherwise.”

And customer olypdd noted the trend of some technology news services following the forums lately: “Please remember…many, many entities, some who research and report on these technologies, are following these blogs. I would be careful to not blow smoke. It doesn’t do anything to save Google (and HTC) from what is already an embarrassing Superphone release, and anything that looks patronizing will be reported as such elsewhere.”

Over on the T-Mobile forums, customers who had not reported 3G connectivity problems appreciated the “pinch-to-zoom” multitouch addition in the latest OTA fix. For them, it certainly didn’t hurt. For others who did report troubles, not only were their connectivity symptoms unchanged, but multitouch seemed to be crashing their browsers.

Writes T-Mobile customer polobear this morning, “Overall, I’m happy with the phone. Specifically however, I’m not happy with the 3G. As luck would have it, I live in an area with fantastic T-Mobile coverage. I get 5 bars (EDGE) in my basement no matter what phone is used. But on the N1, I can’t pick up 3G anywhere around here (not in the house, not outside). I’ve never actually seen a 3G connection on the phone, ever.”

Judging from T-Mobile’s support forum, there did not appear to be any similar 3G connectivity issues affecting its other Android brands, including the MyTouch 3G, which is co-branded with Google.

Do middling, middle managers run Microsoft? That’s the consensus among the former Microsofties who shared their work stories with me over the last couple months. The new work week starts with another Microsoft Confessional — the fourth in four days — from 13-year company veteran Boris, which isn’t his real name, of course. Boris was smart enough to see the end coming, and he made preparations in the days before his May 2009 layoff. He learned to read middle managers the way a genuine fortune teller might read tea leaves.

People being asked to leave are one view of Microsoft. But those leaving voluntarily are another perspective. In looking at Microsoft, I’m hugely concerned about the departures of two important and long-time Microsoft executives: Mike Nash and Bill Veghte, revealed on February 4 and January 14, respectively. Both men are 19-plus years veterans working for the Windows and Windows Live groups. Nash is headed to Amazon, and Veghte departs following last year’s executive shuffle that put Steven Sinfosky in charge of the group (as one of five Microsoft presidents).

Historically, successful shipment of a new Windows version ends with big promotions. Windows Vista was the exception, leading to demotions, sideways transfers and departures (Microsoft wouldn’t call them firings). But Windows 7 is a huge success, so what gives with Nash and Veghte leaving Microsoft?

The departures of Nash, Veghte and also Chris Liddell, Microsoft’s former chief financial officer, are canaries in the coal mine. They signal something fundamentally wrong. Boris’ story and the three before it — “Killed over politics,” “Deeply dysfunctional family” and “Poor worker bees” — offer some insight into what is part of the problem.

Boris’ story is the longest of the quartet of confessionals; as such, I’ve added subheads to make it easier reading. With that introduction, Boris’ story:

My career out of college started with working as a technical writer for a few now-defunct engineering software firms. I recall my first day on the job, being assigned a massive Compaq ‘portable’ as my workstation, and teaching myself MS-DOS and batch file programming via the Compaq’s user manual. We had a cool array of hardware around the office for porting: IBM AS/400, Silicon Graphics Iris and Indigo, some of the early Sun SPARCstations, and my favorite, a NeXT Cube.

During the next five years I moved up from a junior writing position to managing an entire department of writers and illustrators. I was largely self-taught as a manager. We made some good hires, got the work done on time, wrote what I still think were some actually helpful manuals, and introduced a bit of publishing innovation with on-demand printing, electronic distribution of documentation on the Web (in 1995!) and CDs, highly modular content, and so on.

In the mid-90’s, on a goof, I applied for a job with Microsoft. I was convinced a friend was pulling a fast one when they called for an interview. A month later I was a full-time, blue-badge Microsoft employee.

Through most of my career at Microsoft I worked as an editor of one sort or another, working on both developer and end-user content. In the early years, I was aligned with the Developer Evangelism team and got to work with a really amazing cross-section of smart, influential people in the software industry. Jeff Richter, Don Box, Aaron Skonnard, Charles Petzold, Mark Russinovich — the list goes on and on.

For a few years I was part of the user assistance team for one of the big orgs, working on UI, help, SDKs, articles, books — whatever they threw at us. We shipped some very good products and got a lot of recognition in the form of industry awards. I worked on launching a few companywide internal tools and standards projects that made important contributions to the way we build products and communicate with customers. One is still in active use today, almost 7 years after we started. That’s a long time in MSFT years. I’m very proud of that since I was a key contributor from the very beginning.

Hamstrung by Ineffective Management

My career trajectory slowed a bit at Microsoft, in part because I mostly worked on small teams and there simply wasn’t room for advancement. Also in part because, during the first few years, I didn’t understand how the MSFT review and promotion system worked. The reality is quite a bit different from many people’s expectations.

It was clear to me at a certain point that Microsoft had turned the corner. There were still a lot of smart people beavering away on various projects, but they were largely hamstrung by multiple levels of largely ineffective management. Who you knew, or how well you could influence those above you, counted more than results.

There were a ton of bozos. Arrogant bozos. Not to suggest that I’m some sort of genius. Far from it. But the intellectual rigor demonstrated by much of the management — and strategy — was sadly lacking. In some ways it was funny, but mostly depressing.

The end of the road came in early 2009. Half of my team was let go in the January layoffs. We scrambled forward with vendors for a few months until the remaining editors were canned in May (me included). Out of a starting staff of nearly 20, four remained, all managers. I’m not sure what they manage.

The End — a Relief

Some of us saw the end coming. I was working on a post-Microsoft business plan, but had envisioned another 12 months of employment for planning and scraping together a bankroll. In the event, on a Thursday afternoon, a friend and I intuited — partly from sudden, unnanounced travel status of certain managers — that the end was much closer. Friday we brought in suitcases and took home our personal items. I used my StayFit allowance to buy a gym membership. Monday we printed out any important personal papers. Tuesday we sat down with our GM and got the news.

In my case it was a relief. I wanted to leave many times over the years — and in fact did once — but the salary, the benefits and to be honest the good people, too, kept me there. Devil you know. But I walked out the door that day knowing it was for the best and, though it might take a while, I’d come out of the experience OK.

I spent the summer with my family, relaxing, and taking a wider look around the industry. It was much needed, much appreciated time away from the Microsoft hot house. Thanks to the severance package, unemployment and some careful budgeting, we haven’t yet needed to dip into our savings. In the longer term we may need to move somewhere less expensive to reduce our housing costs.

Of my former colleagues, only two of us are now employed fulltime in the industry, though at significantly lower compensation. Another seems to have steady consulting work. Clearly the tech publishing industry (including tech writing/editing) has changed significantly, and probably permanently. I don’t think the need for communication experts has vanished, but it remains to be seen how we fit into the changing landscape of the industry.

From six to 13 Management Layers

It’s a bit hard to equate the different [Microsoft compensation] level systems over the years, but I basically started at what today would be a level 59 and finished a level 61. That’s not much of a bump in a dozen or so years. Assume what you will. I know what went down. I know the value of what my team accomplished (we measured it, with business-relevant, industry-relevant metrics). I know what my contribution was to the team. I am more than satisfied that I pulled my weight and more.

When I started at MSFT in 1996, there were six people between me and Bill Gates. In 2009, there were 13 people between me and Steve Ballmer. My inability to climb the corporate ladder cannot alone explain that away. When layoffs hit my team, only the bottom two layers of the org were affected — the entire bottom layer of individual contributors (ICs) and two first-level managers. Who’s working here?

Ironically, I once wanted to climb up that ladder. But I’m glad it never happened. Through friends, I saw the costs: Huge amounts of additional hassle, not a lot of additional pay, effectively no training or support, unbelievable politics, etc.

On the other hand, MSFT philosophy is up or out. Review depends more on managing perception up the chain of command than actual results. (I tested this theory and it’s true. I managed a single set of metrics up the management chain, just spinning the results differently depending on who I talked to and what they cared about. The metrics were useless as the tools they came from were broken. Result = promotion.)

There’s little or no interest in sustainability. No recognition for doing a job consistently well over time. No incentive for effective cross-team work (unless you can get another team to do work you can take credit for).

Swimming Against Reward-Driven Culture

Interestingly, [internal] MS Poll results show that the ability to work effectively across teams has been consistently one of the lowest-scoring poll items for over a decade. (Yes, I looked it up.) I’ve seen managers bend over backward to bring a poll score from 75 percent to 80 percent. I’ve never seen anyone try to address the cross-team problem.

There are good managers at MSFT. I’ve seen them. There just aren’t very many, and they’re swimming against an internally focused, reward-driven culture that puts the highest value on visibility.

It can also be very, very difficult to work in a non-engineering role or organization within an engineering-dominated company. Management focus was just on completely different things than what my teams were doing. Successful or not, it was seen as a distraction. Arguably, good management should be able to multitask, look at the world through different lenses, make situation-specific decisions, strategize in a diverse and complicated world. Realistically, that’s a rare set of skills.

Long story short, there were many good and bad experiences over the years. The bad stuff made me stronger and more confident in my abilities. The good stuff is work, friendships, and experience I’m still proud of. I know, for a fact, that we helped people. So that’s my story. I remain proud of what I did and [I am] hopeful for the future.

Today’s Microsoft Confession comes from a woman let go during the first round of layoffs, in January 2009. I’ll call her Amanda, which, of course, isn’t her real name. Amanda shared key elements of her story on deep background, but she also provided a reflective portion that she hopes will give deeper insight to anyone looking to work for Microsoft or to HR departments looking to hire former employees.

By telling this story, Amanda wants to give some meaning to her layoff, or so I detected from what she shared for private and public consumption. Amanda’s story is consistent with every other I received. She sharply criticizes Microsoft’s culture of reorganization, but also emphasizes the heavy workload. I detect deep frustration in her story about Microsoft management problems that won’t easily be fixed.

Amanda’s story follows two other confessionals — “Killed over politics” and “Deeply dysfunctional family.” As explained on Friday, after the last round of Microsoft layoffs, I asked former employees to tell their stories, which are presented anonymously to diminish risk of repercussions — either to work elsewhere in the tech industry or to any Microsoft severance arrangement.

I challenge current or former Microsoft employees to either confirm or contradict two key points from Amanda’s story: That some Microsoft divisions demand overlong work weeks and that employees who can’t keep pace are penalized. From my experience, long hours are standard among many software companies. Does Microsoft demand too much? Current or former employees, please answer the question in comments. With that introduction, Amanda’s story:

A lesson and caution to the masses is found in how quickly I went from rising star with a bright future to yesterday’s dishwater that couldn’t be tossed out quickly enough, without changing how I approached my work! In summary, it was all due to the arrival on the scene — all praise the holy reorg, which is an approximately annual religious festival in certain sects, I mean divisions, of Microsoft — of a particular manager…The organizational culture in many parts of MS is such that one manager, even one with a history of their own performance problems, can spell doom for even the most diligent, accomplished, well-intentioned and politically-savvy employee.

The opportunities? [They] can be among the most amazing for your career that you’ll ever encounter. This is balanced, however, by the reality that merit isn’t always the primary criteria by which opportunities are given out, and that opportunities that are given in the blink of an eye can be — and sometimes are — taken away in the blink of an eye for no apparent reason at all.

The culture of the work environment? Let’s talk about that, because while people need to know that the culture of working like a dog for 5 years to retire a millionaire is long gone, they also need to know that the culture of working like a dog for 5 years for your regular wages isn’t, in some departments.

My former team required 60-90+ hours a week of its employees for several years straight. The average across many weeks was 80-90 [hours], for months on end. If you were unwilling to do the hours any more, you became persona non grata. This meant the least desirable assignments, poor reviews and so on. While the conventional answer to a bad team situation in a big company is to transfer teams, it didn’t work for people on that team.

Multiple people on the team wanted to transfer off the team and away from its overtime commitment but management exercised their prerogative to retain them on the team out of urgent business need so that they could not leave. This justification was used to delay their departures 3-6 months, with the effect of causing them to miss the opportunity they’d wanted to pursue [elsewhere in Microsoft] and requring them to continue to do the excessive hours.

Meanwhile, the rest of us poor worker bees had to listen to them complain about the situation until they were allowed to leave. It’s not good for morale to be reminded every day that when you get tired of the excessive commitment required by the team, you’re likely to be just as trapped, and just as unhappy about it, as your peers are.

In some cases, overassignment of work was used to cause competent employees to appear to be failing at completing their required responsibiltiies. In other cases, people who had not been with the company long enough to be eligible to transfer to another team had to just quit to get out of the unpaid overtime without a permanent black mark in the form of a bad review on their Microsoft record.

Pregnant women ended up on early bedrest from the stress. People slept at the office in order to use the commute time for more work. For some, there were weekly all-nighters in the schedule. A capable contributor on my former team, whose name I know, experienced the indignity of a second-level manager suggesting that they go out on disability if they couldn’t handle the stress of the workload, as the manager insisted they should be able to get that workload done in a 40-hour week. Given my background as the longest-term member of the team, including management, I’d call the assertion that that was a 40-hour load shamefully ludicrous to the point of professional negligence.

Anyone in the industry knows about crunch times right before ship. But this was three years of crunch times. After a year had elapsed, the “we don’t have the luxury of time to train additional staff to help us get this done” justification for it started to smell kind of bad.

Few teams are like this, but it only takes ending up on one to end your career as a blue badge. It’s good for people who are considering Microsoft employment to know. It’s also good for people who are considering ex-Microsoft employees for roles in other organizations to know, because among those cut loose are some smart, dedicated, hard workers who were simply asked to do too much, for too long to be able to succeed at it forever in the eyes of the organization — and who’d be an asset to just about any company in the industry. I know that if I ever, in the future, receive a résumé from someone who left Microsoft during one of the layoff timeframes in 2009, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Microsoft today confirmed the long-running rumor that support for the original Xbox will be terminated on the Xbox Live online game servers. The company announced that April 15, 2010 will be the last day legacy Xboxes will be able to play on Xbox Live.

“This isn’t a decision we made lightly, but after careful consideration, it is clear this will provide the greatest benefit to the Xbox Live ommunity,” Marc Whitten, General Manager of Xbox Live announced today. Whitten noted that Halo 2, a version of the popular first person shooter for the original Xbox still retains a dedicated community of players.

The creators of the Halo franchise, Bungie, have forums dedicated to each version of the game, and users are already begun waxing nostalgic about the “classic” Xbox Live.

One user wrote, “Words don’t describe the memories I’ve had on this title over the past roughly half decade… not just this game, but loads of others as well. I’ll tip my hat to just that said fact any day. I’m sad to see the service go, I don’t want to see it go, but so be it if it’s in the best interest of future engagements for the Xbox Live community.”

But there are still alternatives for the most devoted Halo 2 players. Users can connect to online games outside of Xbox Live with XbConnect or Xlink Kai, online game servers which support the legacy consoles, but require them to be connected to a PC.

While neither offer the same level of playability as the Xbox Live version, they will be the only options diehards will have after the April retirement of legacy Xbox Live.

The Droid has gotten pinch-to-zoom in Google Maps.

Immediately after Google introduced the multitouch gesture on the HTC Nexus One browser, photo gallery, and maps applications, owners of the popular Motorola Droid began to ask if their devices would receive the same update, since it is widely known to support multi-touch input.

It looks like Google has delivered…partially, at least.

The update to Google Maps (v.3.4.0) which rolled out this week adds pinch to zoom to the Droid, but is the sole app to do so. Interestingly, it was not advertised with the update.

Devices without multi-touch capability received the same update, but naturally, it did not include the added gesture recognition.

For these devices it is a somewhat mundane update, adding deeper synchronization with the user’s Google account. For example, a user’s Google searches on the desktop can now affect the location-based suggestions in his mobile queries. Similarly, when a user “stars” a location as a favorite, it is now synchronized with his Google account.

Arguably the most important place to add the feature is in the Browser, but there are currently no updates available to the Droid’s browser (or photo gallery, for that matter.)

Last September, the US Justice Dept. objected to the proposed terms of a settlement between Google and the Authors’ Guild, which would have enabled Google to publish out-of-print titles in its Google Books catalog. The theory of the settlement at the time was, if authors or rights holders are given enough time to respond to a request to stand up for their rights — say, at least several months — and they don’t do so, then that’s as good as acquiescence.

Since that time, on orders of US District Judge Denny Chin, the two disputing groups have worked on a revised settlement. But yesterday, the Justice Dept. — representing the United States’ interests in the matter — filed a second objection to the settlement. Although Google and the Authors’ Guild made progress, US attorneys say, Google still appears to take the position not only that it can strike bargains on behalf of copyright holders, but that only Google can do so — a position which they say the law does not allow them to take.

“The ASA [amended settlement agreement] suffers from the same core problem as the original agreement: It is an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute before the Court in this litigation,” write the attorneys, on behalf of Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust William Cavanaugh. “As a consequence, the ASA purports to grant legal rights that are difficult to square with the core principle of the Copyright Act that copyright owners generally control whether and how to exploit their works during the term of copyright. Those rights, in turn, confer significant and possibly anticompetitive advantages on a single entity — Google. Under the ASA as proposed, Google would remain the only competitor in the digital marketplace with the rights to distribute and otherwise exploit a vast array of works in multiple formats. Google also would have the exclusive ability to exploit unclaimed works (including so-called ‘orphan works’) without risk of liability.”

Orphan works were one of the principal problems with the settlement agreement as originally proposed, which attorneys concede was slightly improved upon in the amended form. Originally, Google intended to claim the right to act on behalf of the authors or rights holders of orphan works, unless they spoke up for themselves.

But a kind of Catch-22 managed to unravel the rest of the amended agreement, from the attorneys’ perspective: Because Google has never expressed any intent to sell the books it intends to publish — only make them available for free reading electronically — it avoided taking any position on the matter of claiming any rights to sell that material. Such a claim, the attorneys concede, “would have been legally indefensible, and thus would have been at odds with Google’s entire pre-settlement book search strategy, which was premised upon staying within colorable ‘fair use’ grounds.”

Apparently in an attempt to be thorough, the amended settlement deals explicitly with the same rights Google tried to avoid — the rights to sell orphan works, among others. And because it does so even though Google didn’t intend to, the settlement may fail one of the critical legal tests of any such settlement: specifically, by attempting to settle in the future a claim that Google is not making at present.

But later, the attorneys return to their original claim: that Google is claiming rights it might not have exclusively:

“A core issue that arises out of the parties’ effort to resolve this matter is the ability of Google, and no other entity, to compete in a marketplace that the parties seek to create. Nothing in the ASA addresses this concern…There is no serious contention that Google’s competitors are likely to obtain comparable rights independently. For example, Amazon — Google’s likely chief rival digital book distributor were the ASA to be approved — began scanning copyright-protected books in 2002, after first securing permission of the works’ rightsholder(s). To date, Amazon has amassed a library of approximately three million digital titles…This impressive number pales in comparison to the tens of millions of books Google has scanned or is poised to scan if the ASA is approved. The suggestion that a competitor should follow Google’s lead by copying books en masse without permission in the hope of prompting a class action suit to be settled on terms comparable to the ASA is poor public policy and not something the antitrust laws require a competitor to do.”

Another tenet of Google’s claim of exclusive rights was the focus of an objection to the amended settlement filed last week by the Free Software Foundation. It’s a unique objection, in that the FSF would prefer to not have its due royalties negotiated on its behalf, even if the amount is tallied at zero. Doing so, it claims, would go against the spirit of the free licenses which cover open source documentation and manuals.

“When a copyright holder’s license allows Google to distribute and display a work such that it may be included in Google Book Search, Google should be obligated to follow those terms,” writes FSF license compliance engineer Brett Smith. “If those terms are unacceptable to Google, the company should simply refrain from including the work in the Google Book Search database. The proposed settlement agreement generally allows Google to include works in Google Book Search unless a specific reason exists to disallow it. The FSF has no objection to this approach for works that have been published under terms that never contemplated inclusion in a large digital database, as is the case with most works in the agreement’s scope. However, copyright holders using Free licenses have demonstrably considered such a possibility, and set forth terms for such inclusion. Google should respect the freedoms that these licenses offer to the public and comply with their terms.”