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Red rules for Golden Globes fashion

Melissa Rauch, Megan Hilty, Jennifer Lawrence, Claire Danes, Alison Pill, and Zooey Deschanel at the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 13.

Red on the red carpet? How very appropriate.

Scarlet was a trending color at the Golden Globes on Sunday, with everyone from Zooey Deschanel to Claire Danes rocking the strong, notice-me color.

Check out a few standouts:

Jason Merritt / Getty Images

Cute as always, Zooey Deschanel opts for a retro-inspired gown by Oscar de la Renta.

Jason Merritt / Getty Images

Marion Cotillard wears a flirty, red velvet dress by Dior Haute Couture.

Jason Merritt / Getty Images

Jennifer Garner poses in a strapless gown by Vivienne Westwood.

Christopher Polk / Getty Images

Going for drama: Naomi Watts wears a curve-hugging design by Zac Posen.

Jason Merritt / Getty Images

Nominee Jennifer Lawrence brings her A-game in a red Dior dress.

Watch TODAY Monday morning as Matt, Savannah, Al and Natalie report live from Hollywood on the Golden Globe winners, surprises and after-party details.

More from TODAY:
Heavy metal: Shimmer and shine on the Globes red carpet
Best celeb tweets about Golden Globes awards, fashion
Look back: Nicole Kidman's glamorous red carpet history

Source: http://thelook.today.com/_news/2013/01/13/16495008-red-rules-for-golden-globes-fashion?lite

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Hafiz Saeed issues veiled threat, says 'India is trying to destabilise Pakistan. Violence in Kashmir can get ugly...'

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UN Calls for 'Rapid Deployment' of Troops in Mali

The U.N. Security Council called for foreign troops to be quickly sent to Mali on Friday to contain a new offensive by radical Islamists who control the north of the country and are vowing to capture more terrain.

The fresh fighting in Mali has re-ignited Western fears that the al-Qaida-linked militants who currently control an area the size of France could capture even more territory and turn it into the same type of sanctuary that Afghanistan was under the Taliban.

Diplomats at the U.N. in New York said Mali's interim president Dioncounda Traore had appealed for help to Paris and U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.

"It basically said: 'help -- France'," U.S. ambassador Susan Rice to the U.N. told reporters in describing Traore's letter.

French President Francois Hollande was expected to make a statement on the request during a meeting with the diplomatic corps in Paris at 1000 GMT.

Following an emergency meeting on Mali, the Security Council called for a "rapid deployment" of an agreed African force to the country and expressed "grave concern" at the capture of the town of Konna by "terrorists and extremists groups."

West Africa's regional bloc ECOWAS has agreed to deploy a force of up to 3,000 to help end the insurgency, but U.N. officials had warned that no boots were likely to hit the ground before September.

On the ground in Mali, however, witnesses told AFP that foreign troops and weapons had already begun arriving by transport plane on Thursday to bolster government forces in central Mali, but it was unclear what country they came from.

France had so far offered only logistical support to the regional force.

Witnesses told AFP of military aircraft landing with weapons and foreign soldiers at an army base in Sevare, just 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Konna.

One witness at the airport reported seeing weapons and soldiers leaving a C-160 military transport aircraft, adding: "Some of the men were white."

A Malian official, confirming the arrival of the military aircraft, said they included one plane from a European nation that left men and equipment at Sevare, but did not say which one.

Earlier Thursday Abdou Dardar of Ansar Dine, one of the groups occupying northern Mali, told AFP that Islamist fighters had taken Konna, northeast of the regional capital of Mopti.

"We almost entirely control the town (of Konna). Afterwards, we are going to continue" pushing south, Dardar said by phone. Witnesses told AFP that Malian troops were retreating.

The fall of Konna to the Islamists is a fresh blow to efforts to contain the radical armed Islamists.

Until now, they had stayed largely in Mali's vast arid north, where they took control nine months ago, taking advantage of a power vacuum after a coup in March.

Diplomats at the U.N. said about 1,200 Islamist fighters were now 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) from the key central town of Mopti, the gateway between rebel-held and government-held areas.

The deployment of the African force to capture the territory back from the Islamists has been delayed by political tensions in Bamako, where the coup leaders still hold considerable influence, doubts about the Malian army and funding for any military operation.

Rice said doubts had been raised in the emergency meeting late Thursday about the capability of the Malian army.

"One of the things we discussed is the extent to which the Malians are ready and willing to defend their own country," she said.

? Copyright?2013?Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/01/11/un-calls-for-rapid-deployment-of-troops-in-mali.html?ESRC=topstories.RSS

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Texas Chainsaw 3D

The trend for quickie remakes has drawn plenty of ire from the horror community, bemoaning the lack of originality and often shoddy cash-in movies trading on brand recognition and little else. Of course there are exceptions: John Carpenter?s The Thing and David Cronenberg?s The Fly are genre classics, while the current crop has thrown up a few gems including The Hills Have Eyes and Piranha 3D (perhaps uncoincidentally both directed by Alexandre Aja), there?s also a decent 2003 remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

However to circumvent the fan fury Texas Chainsaw 3D is a direct sequel to Tobe Hooper?s 1974 TCM (in terms of continuity it ignores Hooper?s own 1986 follow up, the numerous sequels as well as the 2003 remake and the remake?s 2006 prequel). We open with a 3D recap of footage from the first film, then cut to the aftermath of events in the original as a posse of gun-toting rednecks show up show up looking for revenge, burning the slaughterhouse to the ground and killing the Sawyer clan. All except one, a baby girl.

Cut to 2012 and that baby is all grown up. But if our timeline is correct - the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was made in 1974, this film is set in 2012 - she should be 38 at the very youngest and certainly not a generic college kid played by 26-year-old Alexandra Daddario. It?s such a major flaw and exemplifies how lazy the whole production is.

She unexpectedly inherits a house in Texas and heads down to check it out with her pals, before encountering Leatherface (played by Dan Yeager), who should be at least 60 by now, who goes on a buzzsaw rampage eviscerating her friends and a few townsfolk along the way.

Texas Chainsaw 3D makes a big point of linking to the 1974 original in the opening sequence but it turns out to be irrelevant; it?s a gimmick to appease the fan boys but actually spits in their face by ignoring the 38 year gap between the two films (they could have easily avoided this anomaly by setting the film in the 90s).

Even if we ignore the timeline, what?s most frustrating is people don?t seem to act in a logical way: they seem to purposely run towards danger (particularly a scene where a cop explores Leatherface?s basement lair), and there?s a succession of stupid people doing stupid things. The acting is also pretty wooden throughout (R&B/hip hop star Trey Songz is particularly bad) which doesn?t help matters.

It does just about work as undemanding horror fare. The final act takes a darker turn that offers a few cool (if underdeveloped) twists, there are some gory kills and some goofy fun as a huge chainsaw thrusts out of the screen in 3D, but this is a generic by the numbers slasher that squanders TCM?s grimy history.

Source: http://film.list.co.uk/article/48103-texas-chainsaw-3d/

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Microsoft to turn off Windows Messenger on 15 March

|industry = Computer softwareOnline servicesVideo games |foundation = Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States () |founder = Bill Gates, Paul Allen |location_city = Microsoft Redmond Campus, Redmond, Washington |location_country = U.S. |area_served = Worldwide |key_people = |products = See products list |services = See products list |revenue = US$ 73.72?billion (2012) |operating_income = US$ 21.76?billion (2012) |net_income = US$ 16.97?billion (2012) |assets = US$ 121.2?billion (2012) |equity = US$ 66.36?billion (2012) |num_employees = 94,000 (2012) |subsid = List of Microsoft subsidiaries |homepage = |footnotes = }} Microsoft Corporation () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington that develops, manufactures, licenses and supports a wide range of products and services related to computing. The company was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975. Microsoft is the world's largest software maker measured by revenues. It is also one of the world's most valuable companies.

Microsoft was established to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. The company's 1986 initial public offering, and subsequent rise in its share price, created an estimated three billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market and has made a number of corporate acquisitions. In May 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion in its largest acquisition to date.

As of 2012, Microsoft is market dominant in both the PC operating system and office suite markets (the latter with Microsoft Office). The company also produces a wide range of other software for desktops and servers, and is active in areas including internet search (with Bing), the video game industry (with the Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles), the digital services market (through MSN), and mobile phones (via the Windows Phone OS). In June 2012, Microsoft announced that it would be entering the PC vendor market for the first time, with the launch of the Microsoft Surface tablet computer.

In the 1990s, critics began to contend that Microsoft used monopolistic business practices and anti-competitive strategies including refusal to deal and tying, put unreasonable restrictions in the use of its software, and used misrepresentative marketing tactics; both the U.S. Department of Justice and European Commission found the company in violation of antitrust laws.

History

Early history

Paul Allen and Bill Gates, childhood friends with a passion in computer programming, were seeking to make a successful business utilizing their shared skills. The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics featured Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems's (MITS) Altair 8800 microcomputer. Allen noticed that they could program a BASIC interpreter for the device; after a call from Gates claiming to have a working interpreter, MITS requested a demonstration. Since they didn't actually have one, Allen worked on a simulator for the Altair while Gates developed the interpreter. Although they developed the interpreter on a simulator and not the actual device, the interpreter worked flawlessly when they demonstrated the interpreter to MITS in Albuquerque, New Mexico in March 1975; MITS agreed to distribute it, marketing it as Altair BASIC. They officially established Microsoft on April 4, 1975, with Gates as the CEO. Allen came up with the original name of "Micro-Soft," as recounted in a 1995 Fortune magazine article. In August 1977 the company formed an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan, resulting in its first international office, "ASCII Microsoft". The company moved to a new home in Bellevue, Washington in January 1979.

Microsoft entered the OS business in 1980 with its own version of Unix, called Xenix. However, it was MS-DOS that solidified the company's dominance. After negotiations with Digital Research failed, IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft in November 1980 to provide a version of the CP/M OS, which was set to be used in the upcoming IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC). For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, branding it as MS-DOS, which IBM rebranded to PC-DOS. Following the release of the IBM PC in August 1981, Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS. Since IBM copyrighted the IBM PC BIOS, other companies had to reverse engineer it in order for non-IBM hardware to run as IBM PC compatibles, but no such restriction applied to the operating systems. Due to various factors, such as MS-DOS's available software selection, Microsoft eventually became the leading PC operating systems vendor. The company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as a publishing division named Microsoft Press. Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in February after developing Hodgkin's disease.

1984?1994: Windows and Office

While jointly developing a new OS with IBM in 1984, OS/2, Microsoft released Microsoft Windows, a graphical extension for MS-DOS, on November 20. Microsoft moved its headquarters to Redmond on February 26, 1986, and on March 13 the company went public; the ensuing rise in the stock would make an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Due to the partnership with IBM, in 1990 the Federal Trade Commission set its eye on Microsoft for possible collusion; it marked the beginning of over a decade of legal clashes with the U.S. Government. Microsoft announced the release of its version of OS/2 to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) on April 2, 1987; meanwhile, the company was at work on a 32-bit OS, Microsoft Windows NT, using ideas from OS/2; it shipped on July 21, 1993 with a new modular kernel and the Win32 application programming interface (API), making porting from 16-bit (MS-DOS-based) Windows easier. Once Microsoft informed IBM of NT, the OS/2 partnership deteriorated.

Microsoft introduced its office suite, Microsoft Office, in 1990. The software bundled separate office productivity applications, such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. On May 22 Microsoft launched Windows 3.0 with a streamlined user interface graphics and improved protected mode capability for the Intel 386 processor. Both Office and Windows became dominant in their respective areas. Novell, a Word competitor from 1984?1986, filed a lawsuit years later claiming that Microsoft left part of its APIs undocumented in order to gain a competitive advantage.

On July 27, 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division filed a Competitive Impact Statement that said, in part: "Beginning in 1988, and continuing until July 15, 1994, Microsoft induced many OEMs to execute anti-competitive "per processor" licenses. Under a per processor license, an OEM pays Microsoft a royalty for each computer it sells containing a particular microprocessor, whether the OEM sells the computer with a Microsoft operating system or a non-Microsoft operating system. In effect, the royalty payment to Microsoft when no Microsoft product is being used acts as a penalty, or tax, on the OEM's use of a competing PC operating system. Since 1988, Microsoft's use of per processor licenses has increased."

1995?2005: Internet and the 32-bit era

1993 took over from the Federal Trade Commission, a protracted legal wrangling between Microsoft and the department ensued, resulting in various settlements and possible blocked mergers. Microsoft would point to companies such as AOL-Time Warner in its defense.]]

Following Bill Gates's internal "Internet Tidal Wave memo" on May 26, 1995 Microsoft began to redefine its offerings and expand its product line into computer networking and the World Wide Web. The company released Windows 95 on August 24, 1995, featuring pre-emptive multitasking, a completely new user interface with a novel start button, and 32-bit compatibility; similar to NT, it provided the Win32 API. Windows 95 came bundled with the online service MSN, and for OEMs Internet Explorer, a web browser. Internet Explorer was not bundled with the retail Windows 95 boxes because the boxes were printed before the team finished the web browser, and instead was included in the Windows 95 Plus! pack. Branching out into new markets in 1996, Microsoft and NBC Universal created a new 24/7 cable news station, MSNBC. Microsoft created Windows CE 1.0, a new OS designed for devices with low memory and other constraints, such as personal digital assistants. In October 1997, the Justice Department filed a motion in the Federal District Court, stating that Microsoft violated an agreement signed in 1994 and asked the court to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.

Bill Gates handed over the CEO position on January 13, 2000 to Steve Ballmer, an old college friend of Gates and employee of the company since 1980, creating a new position for himself as Chief Software Architect. Various companies including Microsoft formed the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance in October 1999 to, among other things, increase security and protect intellectual property through identifying changes in hardware and software. Critics decry the alliance as a way to enforce indiscriminate restrictions over how consumers use software, and over how computers behave, a form of digital rights management; for example the scenario where a computer is not only secured for its owner, but also secured against its owner as well. On April 3, 2000, a judgment was handed down in the case of United States v. Microsoft, calling the company an "abusive monopoly"; it settled with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2004. On October 25, 2001 Microsoft released Windows XP, unifying the mainstream and NT lines under the NT codebase. The company released the Xbox later that year, entering the game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo. In March 2004 the European Union brought antitrust legal action against the company, citing it abused its dominance with the Windows OS, resulting in a judgment of ?497million ($613million) and to produce new versions of Windows XP without Windows Media Player, Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N.

2006?2012: Windows Vista, mobile, SaaS and Windows 7

Released in January 2007, the next version of Windows, Windows Vista, focused on features, security, and a redesigned user interface dubbed Aero. Microsoft Office 2007, released at the same time, featured a "Ribbon" user interface which was a significant departure from its predecessors. Relatively strong sales of both titles helped to produce a record profit in 2007. The European Union imposed another fine of ?899million ($1.4billion) for Microsoft's lack of compliance with the March 2004 judgment on February 27, 2008, saying that the company charged rivals unreasonable prices for key information about its workgroup and backoffice servers. Microsoft stated that it was in compliance and that "these fines are about the past issues that have been resolved".

Bill Gates retired from his role as Chief Software Architect on June 27, 2008 while retaining other positions related to the company in addition to being an advisor for the company on key projects. Azure Services Platform, the company's entry into the cloud computing market for Windows, launched on October 27, 2008. On February 12, 2009, Microsoft announced its intent to open a chain of Microsoft-branded retail stores, and on October 22, 2009 the first retail Microsoft Store opened in Scottsdale, Arizona; the same day the first store opened Windows 7 was officially released to the public. Windows 7's focus was on refining Vista with ease of use features and performance enhancements, rather than a large reworking of Windows.

As the smartphone industry boomed beginning in 2007, Microsoft struggled to keep up with its rivals Apple and Google in providing a modern smartphone operating system. As a result, in 2010, Microsoft revamped their aging flagship mobile operating system, Windows Mobile, replacing it with the new Windows Phone OS; along with a new strategy in the smartphone industry that has Microsoft working more closely with smartphone manufactures, such as Nokia, and to provide a consistent user experience across all smartphones using Microsoft's Windows Phone OS. It used a new user interface design language, codenamed "Metro", which prominently used simple shapes, typography and iconography, and the concept of minimalism.

Microsoft is a founding member of the Open Networking Foundation started on March 23, 2011. Other founding companies include Google, HP Networking, Yahoo, Verizon, Deutsche Telekom and 17 other companies. The nonprofit organization is focused on providing support for a new cloud computing initiative called Software-Defined Networking. The initiative is meant to speed innovation through simple software changes in telecommunications networks, wireless networks, data centers and other networking areas.

2011-present: Mobile, Metro and Yammer

Following the release of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft gradually began a rebranding of its entire product range between 2011 and 2012. Logos, products, services and websites were updated to use the principles and concepts of the Metro design language.

In June 2011, Windows 8 was previewed for the first time in Taipei. A Developer Preview was released on September 13 of that year, which was replaced by a Consumer Preview on February 29, 2012.

On May 31, 2012, Microsoft released the Release Preview version of its next generation Windows 8 software. It was designed to power devices ranging from tablets to desktop computers.

On June 18, 2012, Microsoft announced the Microsoft Surface, the first computer in the company's history to have its hardware made by Microsoft themselves.

On June 25, 2012, Microsoft announced that it was paying $1.2 billion to buy the social network Yammer.

On July 31, 2012, Microsoft launched the Outlook.com webmail service to compete with Gmail.

On September 4, 2012, Microsoft released Windows Server 2012.

On October 1, 2012, Microsoft announced it is launching a news operation when Windows 8 launches later in the month. It is part of a new-look MSN.

On October 26, Microsoft launched Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface. Three days later, it launched Windows Phone 8.

To cope with the potential increase in demand for products and services, Microsoft opened a number of "holiday stores" across the US to compliment the ever-growing increase of bricks and mortar Microsoft Stores that have been sprouting up in 2012.

Product divisions

For the 2010 fiscal year, Microsoft had five product divisions: Windows Division, Server and Tools, Online Services Division, Microsoft Business Division, and Entertainment and Devices Division.

Windows Division, Server and Tools, Online Services Division

The company's Client division produces the flagship Windows OS line such as Windows 7; it also produces the Windows Live family of products and services. Server and Tools produces the server versions of Windows, such as Windows Server 2008 R2 as well as a set of development tools called Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Silverlight, a web application framework, and System Center Configuration Manager, a collection of tools providing remote-control abilities, patch management, software distribution and a hardware/software inventory. Other server products include: Microsoft SQL Server, a relational database management system, Microsoft Exchange Server, for certain business-oriented e-mail and scheduling features, Small Business Server, for messaging and other small business-oriented features; and Microsoft BizTalk Server, for business process management.

Microsoft provides IT consulting ("Microsoft Consulting Services") and produces a set of certification programs handled by the Server and Tools division designed to recognize individuals who have a minimal set of proficiencies in a specific role; this includes developers ("Microsoft Certified Solution Developer"), system/network analysts ("Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer"), trainers ("Microsoft Certified Trainers") and administrators ("Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator" and "Microsoft Certified Database Administrator"). Microsoft Press, which publishes books, is also managed by the division. The Online Services Business division handles the online service MSN and the search engine Bing. As of December 2009, the company also possesses an 18% ownership of the cable news channel MSNBC without any editorial control; however, the division develops the channel's website, msnbc.com, in a joint venture with the channel's co-owner, NBC Universal.

Business Division

The Microsoft Business Division produces Microsoft Office including Microsoft Office 2010, the company's line of office software. The software product includes Word (a word processor), Access (a relational database program), Excel (a spreadsheet program), Outlook (Groupware, frequently used with Exchange Server), PowerPoint (presentation software), Publisher (desktop publishing software) and Sharepoint. A number of other products were added later with the release of Office 2003 including Visio, Project, MapPoint, InfoPath and OneNote. The division also develops enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for companies under the Microsoft Dynamics brand. These include: Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, and Microsoft Dynamics SL. They are targeted at varying company types and countries, and limited to organizations with under 7,500 employees. Also included under the Dynamics brand is the customer relationship management software Microsoft Dynamics CRM, part of the Azure Services Platform.

Entertainment and Devices Division

The Entertainment and Devices Division produces the Windows CE OS for embedded systems and Windows Phone for smartphones. Microsoft initially entered the mobile market through Windows CE for handheld devices, eventually developing into the Windows Mobile OS and now, Windows Phone. Windows CE is designed for devices where the OS may not directly be visible to the end user, in particular, appliances and cars. The division also produces computer games that run on Windows PCs and other systems including titles such as Age of Empires, Halo and the Microsoft Flight Simulator series, and houses the Macintosh Business Unit which produces Mac OS software including Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac. Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division designs, markets, and manufactures consumer electronics including the Xbox 360 game console, the handheld Zune media player, and the television-based Internet appliance MSN TV. Microsoft also markets personal computer hardware including mice, keyboards, and various game controllers such as joysticks and gamepads.

Culture

Technical reference for developers and articles for various Microsoft magazines such as Microsoft Systems Journal (or MSJ) are available through the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN). MSDN also offers subscriptions for companies and individuals, and the more expensive subscriptions usually offer access to pre-release beta versions of Microsoft software. In April 2004 Microsoft launched a community site for developers and users, titled Channel9, that provides a wiki and an Internet forum. Another community site that provides daily videocasts and other services, On10.net, launched on March 3, 2006. Free technical support is traditionally provided through online Usenet newsgroups, and CompuServe in the past, monitored by Microsoft employees; there can be several newsgroups for a single product. Helpful people can be elected by peers or Microsoft employees for Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) status, which entitles them to a sort of special social status and possibilities for awards and other benefits.

Noted for its internal lexicon, the expression "eating our own dog food" is used to describe the policy of using prerelease and beta versions of products inside Microsoft in an effort to test them in "real-world" situations. This is usually shortened to just "dog food" and is used as noun, verb, and adjective. Another bit of jargon, FYIFV or FYIV ("Fuck You, I'm [Fully] Vested"), is used by an employee to indicate they are financially independent and can avoid work anytime they wish. The company is also known for its hiring process, mimicked in other organizations and dubbed the "Microsoft interview", which is notorious for off-the-wall questions such as "Why is a manhole cover round?".

Microsoft is an outspoken opponent of the cap on H1B visas, which allow companies in the U.S. to employ certain foreign workers. Bill Gates claims the cap on H1B visas makes it difficult to hire employees for the company, stating "I'd certainly get rid of the H1B cap" in 2005. Critics of H1B visas argue that relaxing the limits would result in increased unemployment for U.S. citizens due to H1B workers working for lower salaries. The Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, a report of how progressive the organization deems company policies towards LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) employees, rated Microsoft as 87% from 2002 to 2004 and as 100% from 2005 to 2010 after they allowed gender expression.

Criticism

Criticism of Microsoft has followed the company's existence because of various aspects of its products and business practices. Ease of use, stability, and security of the company's software are common targets for critics. More recently, Trojan horses and other exploits have plagued numerous users due to faults in the security of Microsoft Windows and other programs. Microsoft is also accused of locking vendors into their products, and of not following and complying with existing standards in its software. Total cost of ownership comparisons of Linux as well as Mac OS X to Windows are a continuous point of debate.

The company has been in numerous lawsuits by several governments and other companies for unlawful monopolistic practices. In 2004, the European Union found Microsoft guilty in a highly publicized anti-trust case. Additionally, Microsoft's EULA for some of its programs is often criticized as being too restrictive as well as being against open source software.

Microsoft has been criticized (along with Yahoo, AOL, and other companies) for its involvement in censorship in the People's Republic of China. Microsoft has also come under criticism for outsourcing jobs to China and India. There were reports of poor working conditions at a factory in southern China that makes some of Microsoft's products.

Criticism of the company has resulted in it being deemed "the evil empire" by some. In a sci-fi allusion, Microsoft has also been called "The Borg" after the fictional race of aliens in the Star Trek universe. It reflects the perception that Microsoft often acquires technology from other companies rather than developing it in-house, as well as to Microsoft's ability to adapt to and overwhelm its opponents' strategies.

Corporate affairs

The company is run by a board of directors made up of mostly company outsiders, as is customary for publicly traded companies. Members of the board of directors as of June 2010 are: Steve Ballmer, Dina Dublon, Bill Gates (chairman), Raymond Gilmartin, Reed Hastings, Maria Klawe, David Marquardt, Charles Noski, and Helmut Panke. Board members are elected every year at the annual shareholders' meeting using a majority vote system. There are five committees within the board which oversee more specific matters. These committees include the Audit Committee, which handles accounting issues with the company including auditing and reporting; the Compensation Committee, which approves compensation for the CEO and other employees of the company; the Finance Committee, which handles financial matters such as proposing mergers and acquisitions; the Governance and Nominating Committee, which handles various corporate matters including nomination of the board; and the Antitrust Compliance Committee, which attempts to prevent company practices from violating antitrust laws.

When Microsoft went public and launched its initial public offering (IPO) in 1986, the opening stock price was $21; after the trading day, the price closed at $27.75. As of July 2010, with the company's nine stock splits, any IPO shares would be multiplied by 288; if one was to buy the IPO today given the splits and other factors, it would cost about 9cents. The stock price peaked in 1999 at around $119 ($60.928 adjusting for splits). The company began to offer a dividend on January 16, 2003, starting at eight cents per share for the fiscal year followed by a dividend of sixteen cents per share the subsequent year, switching from yearly to quarterly dividends in 2005 with eight cents a share per quarter and a special one-time payout of three dollars per share for the second quarter of the fiscal year. Though the company had subsequent increases in dividend payouts, the price of Microsoft's stock remained steady for years.

One of Microsoft's business tactics, described by an executive as "embrace, extend and extinguish," initially embraces a competing standard or product, then extends it to produce their own version which is then incompatible with the standard, which in time extinguishes competition that does not or cannot use Microsoft's new version. Various companies and governments sue Microsoft over this set of tactics, resulting in billions of dollars in rulings against the company. Microsoft claims that the original strategy is not anti-competitive, but rather an exercise of its discretion to implement features it believes customers want.

Financial

Standard and Poor's and Moody's have both given a AAA rating to Microsoft, whose assets were valued at $41?billion as compared to only $8.5?billion in unsecured debt. Consequently, in February 2011 Microsoft released a corporate bond amounting to $2.25?billion with relatively low borrowing rates compared to government bonds.

For the first time in 20 years Apple Inc. surpassed Microsoft in Q1 2011 quarterly profits and revenues due to a slowdown in PC sales and continuing huge losses in Microsoft's Online Services Division (which contains its search engine Bing). Microsoft profits were $5.2 billion, while Apple Inc. profits were $6 billion, on revenues of $14.5 billion and $24.7 billion respectively.

Microsoft's Online Services Division has been continuously loss-making since 2006 and in Q1 2011 it lost $726 million. This follows a loss of $2.5 billion for the year 2010.

On July 20, 2012, Microsoft posted its first quarterly loss ever, despite earning record revenues for the quarter and fiscal year. Microsoft reported a net loss of $492 million; the 2007 acquisition of advertising company aQuantive for $6.2 billion and problems associated with it have been cited as the cause.

Environment

Microsoft is ranked on the 17th place in Greenpeace?s Guide to Greener Electronics (16th Edition) that ranks 18 electronics manufacturers according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change. Microsoft?s timeline for phasing out BFRs and phthalates in all products is 2012 but its commitment to phasing out PVC is not clear. As yet (January 2011) it has no products that are completely free from PVC and BFRs.

Microsoft's main U.S. campus received a silver certification from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program in 2008, and it installed over 2,000 solar panels on top of its buildings in its Silicon Valley campus, generating approximately 15 percent of the total energy needed by the facilities in April 2005.

Microsoft makes use of alternative forms of transit. It created one of the worlds largest private bus systems, the "Connector", to transport people from outside the company; for on-campus transportation, the "Shuttle Connect" uses a large fleet of hybrid cars to save fuel. The company also subsidises regional public transport as an incentive. In February 2010 however, Microsoft took a stance against adding additional public transport and high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to a bridge connecting Redmond to Seattle; the company did not want to delay the construction any further.

Microsoft was ranked number 1 in the list of the World's Best Multinational Workplaces by the Great Place to Work Institute in 2011.

Marketing

In 2004, Microsoft commissioned research firms to do independent studies comparing the total cost of ownership (TCO) of Windows Server 2003 to Linux; the firms concluded that companies found Windows easier to administrate than Linux, thus those using Windows would administrate faster resulting in lower costs for their company (i.e. lower TCO). This spurred a wave of related studies; a study by the Yankee Group concluded that upgrading from one version of Windows Server to another costs a fraction of the switching costs from Windows Server to Linux, although companies surveyed noted the increased security and reliability of Linux servers and concern about being locked into using Microsoft products. Another study, released by the Open Source Development Labs, claimed that the Microsoft studies were "simply outdated and one-sided" and their survey concluded that the TCO of Linux was lower due to Linux administrators managing more servers on average and other reasons.

As part of the "Get the Facts" campaign Microsoft highlighted the .NET trading platform that it had developed in partnership with Accenture for the London Stock Exchange, claiming that it provided "five nines" reliability. After suffering extended downtime and unreliability the LSE announced in 2009 that it was planning to drop its Microsoft solution and switch to a Linux based one in 2010.

Logo

Microsoft adopted the so-called "Pac-Man Logo", designed by Scott Baker, in 1987. Baker stated "The new logo, in Helvetica italic typeface, has a slash between the o and s? to emphasize the "soft" part of the name and convey motion and speed." Dave Norris ran an internal joke campaign to save the old logo, which was green, in all uppercase, and featured a fanciful letter O, nicknamed the blibbet, but it was discarded. Microsoft's logo with the "Your potential. Our passion." tagline below the main corporate name, is based on a slogan Microsoft used in 2008. In 2002, the company started using the logo in the United States and eventually started a TV campaign with the slogan, changed from the previous tagline of "Where do you want to go today?". During the private MGX (Microsoft Global Exchange) conference in 2010, Microsoft unveiled the company's next tagline, "Be What's Next.".

On August 23, 2012, Microsoft unveiled a new corporate logo at the opening of its 23rd Microsoft store in Boston indicating the company's shift of focus from the classic style to the tile-centric modern interface which it uses/will use on the Windows Phone platform, Xbox 360, Windows 8 and the upcoming Office Suites. The new logo also includes four squares with the colors of the then-current Windows logo. This logo is, however, not completely new - it was featured in Windows 95 commercials from the mid-90s. Each color represents a major product of the company: blue for Windows (hence the Windows 8 logo), green for Xbox, red for Office, and yellow possibly for Bing.

See also

List of Microsoft topics

References

External links

Category:1975 establishments in the United States Category:Cloud computing providers Category:Companies based in Redmond, Washington Category:Companies established in 1975 Category:Software companies of the United States Category:Software companies based in Washington (state) Category:Dow Jones Industrial Average Category:Multinational companies headquartered in the United States Category:Publicly traded companies of the United States

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Source: http://article.wn.com/view/2013/01/11/Microsoft_to_turn_off_Windows_Messenger_on_15_March/

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