The folks who brought us Zillow and Expedia today unveil Glassdoor — a site that could have a powerful effect on the business landscape. Rich Barton, Zillow’s CEO and co-founder of Glassdoor, calls the new venture a TripAdvisor for companies.

Glassdoor sets up a way for people to rate the companies they work for — anonymously, of course. A Microsoft employee can respond to a survey of 16 questions about job satisfaction, enter information about his or her salary, reply to essay-style questions, and give CEO Steve Ballmer an approval rating. In exchange, the employee would get full access to the site — a “give to get” formula intended to convince people to participate.

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Originally posted here.

The machine’s storage component, which is made by Toshiba, is the highest capacity SSD available for notebooks, the company said.
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Originally posted here.

How to take how Google treats its employees and use it to your advantage.

I had an opportunity to visit a friend of mine who works at one of Google’s satellite offices (not the main GooglePlex in Mountain View, Calif.). It was an eye-opening experience on several levels: the number of people still working late at night, the numerous perks, the free food, a fleet of bicycles that anyone could use for their errands, the evening exercise classes and the on-staff masseuse.

What, you don’t have an on-staff masseuse? Well, that might be a bit much. But it got me thinking about ways that you can make your own shop more desirable and your staff more willing, and most of these don’t cost a lot, either. Here are some suggestions.
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Originally posted here.

Posted by Matt Asay

And to think Microsoft used to be popular with the developer crowd…Not anymore. A recent report from Evans Data shows fewer than one in 10 software developers writing applications for Windows Vista this year. Eight percent. This is perhaps made even worse by the corresponding data that shows 49 percent of developers writing applications for Windows XP.
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The Federal Trade Commission, under new leadership, reverses course and begins a formal investigation of Intel and alleged anti-competitive practices. Intel says it’s been cooperating with the FTC for years and that its business practices “are well within U.S. law.”