Links List 1.23.09

January 23rd, 2009 by Julia Lim

Microsoft has “been serving weenies (not shrimp) for the past 17 years!”  Well, that’s one way to look at it. Taken directly from a 1993 memo by Mike Murray, Microsoft’s then head of human resources, this quote from the “Shrimp and Weenie Guidelines” is a fitting blast from the past, given Microsoft’s recent announcement of 5,000 job cuts.

Question: How many weenies does it take to save a job at Microsoft? Here’s Steve Ballmer’s memo to Microsoft employees announcing the layoffs. For a chuckle or cringe (depending on your opinion of the Evil Empire, oops did I say that?), check out the comment to the posting of the memo by Sam Harrison. Yikes.

Riverbed Technology bought Mazu Networks for $25 million this week, doing its part in this tough economy to help save jobs (possibly not really why they did it). It must be a good news/bad news thing for the VCs who pumped $40 million into the company, but there is a baby carrot still out there in the form of sales incentives. If Mazu manages to pretty much double their revenue this year, they get another $22 million.

Virtual machines gone wild. A recent survey of UK firms found that “Two-thirds of UK businesses do not know how many virtual machines they have.”  Pretty bloody honest, especially considering one-half said they had a system to keep track of them.

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