by Dionne Searcey, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Big Brother is watching. That is the message corporations routinely send their employees about using email.
But recent cases have shown that employees sometimes have more privacy rights than they might expect when it comes to the corporate email server. Legal experts say that courts in some instances are showing more consideration for employees who feel their employer has violated their privacy electronically.
by Nick Wingfield, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
On Monday, the WSJ published a story arguing that companies should give their employees more freedom to decide what technology to use in the workplace.
Predictably, it touched a nerve among people who work in corporate information-technology departments, some of whom said in the comments section that the writer (that would be me) was more or less advocating technology anarchy inside companies.
by Matthew Rivera, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
If the H1N1 swine-flu pandemic arrives this fall, one thing that may break under the strain is the Internet. Emergency planners say that school-age children and telecommuting adults could be accessing the network simultaneously, potentially overloading the public Internet’s capacity.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Fancy new smart phones and laptops may generate more buzz, but the desktop PC remains the workhorse of the office. Bosses who outfit staffers with mobile devices, however, may be able to wring more work out of them, according to a new Forrester study.
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
Facebook plans to grow headcount by as much as 50 percent amid a surplus of engineering talent, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Bloomberg. “No one else has been hiring,” he said. “It’s been a great environment for us because the economy has helped out.”
by Jessica E. Vascellaro, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies appears to be hungry for a bigger piece of Facebook.
The firm just finished spending $100 million to purchase current and former Facebook employees’ shares of the company, on top of a $200 million direct investment into the social-networking site earlier this year.
Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site. (Click on the image to see a bigger version.)
by Marisa Taylor, Tech Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Amid the profusion of job cuts at big tech firms, with the latest including Microsoft’s announcement on Tuesday that it would forge ahead with a second round of layoffs, a new executive survey sparks a glimmer of optimism about future hiring in the technology industry.
Shifting U.S. jobs overseas is nothing new for technology giant International Business Machines Corp.–or the tech sector in general–but a brave new employee relocation strategy at Big Blue is raising some eyebrows.
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
Late Monday, Logitech said it is withdrawing its sales and operating income growth targets for the March 2009 fiscal year. The maker of computer peripherals and other consumer electronics accessories also said it will reduce its global workforce by about 15 percent. The company has about 9,400 employees, suggesting the loss of about 1,400 jobs.
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
Agilent Technologies just announced that it will reduce its headcount by 500, and its temporary workforce by 300. It will also begin to require temporary pay cuts and/or unpaid time off. The layoffs will save the company $65 million the pay cuts will save $100 million. Happy Holidays.
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
IDG News Service is reporting this afternoon that Microsoft (MSFT) has instituted a hiring freeze, apparently in response to the deteriorating economy. According to IDG, the company started notifying employees of the freeze today. The company has 91,000 employees worldwide, including 54,000 in the U.S.
Companies (at least publicly traded ones) are beholden to shareholders. But they also are beholden to their employees. And while most Softies are afraid to state for the record that they think Microsoft should abandon its takeover of Yahoo, that opinion is a real and prevailing sentiment among many in the Microsoft ranks.
This is a section of the All Things Digital Web site featuring posts from around the Web, from other Dow Jones properties and also original pieces we solicit. The section is now explicitly labeled that it comes "from other Web sites."
We are fully aware of the controversies around how linking and aggregating is done on the Web and we, in no way, are attempting to "scrape" original content created by others. Instead, regarding third-party posts, we are trying to point readers of this site to other posts from around the Web that we admire and are trying to do so in the quickest manner possible.
The Internet is full of terrific content that is not ours and we want to help our readers find it by making editorial suggestions--Look, Mom, no algorithm!--of posts we think are worth their time.
That is why we have made even more changes to Voices to ensure we do this in the most transparent and timely way. While we don't expect that everyone will agree with our policies, we have made changes that reflect our intent in pointing to content outside our site.
Because the site is wholly owned by Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, we aim to adhere to the journalistic standards of the best of the mainstream media. But, because it is run autonomously as a small online startup, we aim to exhibit the fresh thinking and nimbleness of the best of the new media. We want to be first, and sassy, but also well sourced and accurate. We will offer lots of opinion and analysis, but plenty of fact as well.
