MIS Laboratory - Resources for Technology Faculty and Students

Microsoft Store – Scottsdale: High Tech and Very Cool

randguth — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:12:12 GMT

Randy Guthrie – Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist (US)
blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory

I have been giving guest lectures at various CS and CIS classes at Arizona State University this past week, and had an opportunity to visit the new Microsoft Store located at the very upscale Fashion Plaza Mall in Scottsdale, AZ. The store is located inside the mall, near the Louis Vuitton store. At other places inside the mall there is signage attracting people to the store.

Before I arrived at the store, I sort of had a mental image of walls full of boxes of software, with an XBox corner with consoles and accessories, sort of like the Microsoft Store on the Redmond campus. The store itself looks remarkably familiar its white clean motif. The walls have a continuous strip of video monitors where demo machines and XBoxes project their content. The main focus of the store seems to be to compete directly with Apple so hardware is very much evident ranging from Zune HD music players, Windows Mobile Phones, a wide range of netbooks and notebooks, desktop computers and very cool displays and monitors including the new HP touch screen monitors. While there are boxes of hardware and accessories in the store, they are at the back of the store and are relatively understated. There is a mini theater in the back where live demos can be given.

One thing that I thought was a great touch was the service counter where you can get advice or get a problem solved. I saw people dropping off and picking up, so I imagine a lot of those were upgrades from XP or Vista to Windows 7.

The employees in the store were bright, young, hip, and enthusiastic. They also seemed to know what they were talking about. Definitely not the “Chuck”/Best Buy crowd.

While I somehow expected more Microsoft hype (like Master Chief), I thought the store serves a basic need and definitely competes well in terms of getting out the message that Microsoft mean high performance coupled with great value.

Cheers!

Randy

Legally Getting the Latest Microsoft Software for [Practically] Nothing

randguth — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:17:12 GMT

by Randy Guthrie – Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist
blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory

If you are a student, particularly a college student taking a science, math,engineering, any kind of computer or IT, or design course, did you know you can get almost every title that Microsoft makes for free? And even if you aren’t a “STEM-D” (science, technology, engineering, math & design) student, you can get some of the core developer technologies for free. Thinking about starting a tech business? Then you might be able to qualify for free software as well. Following is a list of some of Microsoft’s biggest software access programs:

MSDNAA

The Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance (MSDNAA) is a subscription program similar to MSDN but for Higher Education students and faculty rather than IT professionals. The MSDNAA subscription is held by academic departments such as Computer Science, Information Systems, Electrical Engineering etc. While these are the departments that will typically have subscriptions, any STEM-D department can have one. A subscription typically costs a department about $350/per year to renew, but its not uncommon for the local Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist to give out an initial three-year complementary subscription for free.

MSDNAA provides Microsoft “developer” software to classrooms, labs, faculty and students all within the single subscription price. In other words, if a computer science department has a subscription, then they can use that single subscription to provide Microsoft’s software to all of their faculty, students, labs and classrooms. What software is included in MSDNAA? We jokingly say “everything but Office” because there are hundreds of titles. An very short sampling includes: Windows 7, Vista, XP, Server 2008, Visual Studio, Forefront Client Security, Expression Studio, Visio, Project, SQL Server, Robotic Studio, XNA Game Developer, MapPoint, Office Accounting, Streets and Trips to name a few.

There are two software distribution methods in MSDNAA. The administrator’s portal (nick-named “Gabby”) allows the department’s MSDNAA administrator to download software for manual distribution to faculty and students. Gabby also can generate product keys, including volume-license keys for creating computer lab images. The other distribution mechanism is the “E-Academy License Management Systems” or ELMS for short, and it the primary mechanism for providing the software to students. With ELMS, the department’s MSDNAA administrator selects the software titles to make available, then uploads the e-mail addresses of eligible students. The students receive an e-mail with a link to the department’s download portal and a password. From there the students are able to download a single copy of the software the administrator selected and generate a product key for its use.

DreamSpark

The DreamSpark program is similar to MSDNAA in that its purpose is to provide software to college students for free. Their are two key differences however. The first is that the DreamSpark program is open to any college student, and does not require that the student go through a college department. The list of available titles is much shorter, but does include the latest and most popular software developer applications including Visual Studio, Expression Studio, IT Academy Online, XNA Game Developer, Windows Server and SQL Server. Student’s have to verify their enrollment status by using a .edu e-mail address or through a third-party validation process accessed through the DreamSpark website.

The Ultimate Steal

The Ultimate Steal is a program where students can buy Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate for about 10% of retail ie: $59.95. Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, OneNote, Outlook, Groove, and InfoPath. To be eligible students must be currently registered in college taking at least .5 credit hours and must have a .edu e-mail address. The $59.95 price is for the download version (no DVD), but for an additional $15, you can order a hard copy on DVD in the clamshell case as a backup.

Windows 741

Windows 741 is a program where students can order Windows 7 Home Premium (assuming they can’t get Windows 7 Pro or Enterprise for free via MSDNAA – see above) for $29.99, that is about 25% of retail. This is a limited-time offer that expires on January 3, 2010.

Bizspark

Microsoft® BizSpark™ is a global program designed to help accelerate the success of early stage software development startups by providing key resources when they need it the most. The program provides software with no up-front cost (and the payment of $100 fee upon exit) and connection to a support network of incubators, investors, government agencies and hosters.

Microsoft’s goal in all of this is to give students (and new start-up companies) experience with our tools and platforms early in their career by providing legal enterprise-capable tools when cost is a factor and where they need all the help they can get. In return, we are hoping that they will consider using our tools and technologies when they are professionals. Most college students are unaware that they could get this software for free. Know a student? Pass this on!

Cheers!

Randy

US Imagine Cup Fall Registration Deadline is Tomorrow

randguth — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:30:33 GMT

Randy Guthrie – Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist
Blog: blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory

The deadline for registration and submission of a concept for the Fall round of Microsoft’s Imagine Cup technology competition is this Friday, October 9^th at midnight. There are two competition categories that have deadlines this Friday; the Software Design and Game Design categories. Last year, students from the United States did very well in the world-wide finals in Cairo, Egypt capturing two first place and two second place wins in nine events. Like last year, we are having our own “United States” competition that has two rounds from which winners will be selected. The first round is this fall; and the registration/concept milestone is this Friday. Ten winners will be selected this fall and another ten winners in the Spring. Teams that are not selected this fall can resubmit an improved project in the Spring that incorporates feedback received in the Fall rounds.

Microsoft’s Imagine Cup competition provides a unique opportunity for students to learn valuable entrepreneurial skills, while casting your department and schools programs in a very positive light. The University of Arkansas has seen a 20 percent jump in enrolment this Fall which they attribute to all of the positive press their last year’s team received competing both in the US and at the World Wide finals. We at Microsoft recognize the value this competition can add to your program, and if you are able to get students from your school to participate (either on their own or incorporating the competition as a class assignment) then we can help provide local PR, and even have a competition “kit” that you can use to host a local on-campus competition.

The theme for this year is the same as last year: “Imagine a World Where Technology Helps Solve Some of the World Toughest Problems”. Student projects have to have some bearing on education, eradicating hunger, health care, environment or “world peace” as described in the United Nations Millennium Development goals.

The process for participating is simple and straightforward:

1. Register as an individual competitor at http://www.imaginecup.us/Signup.aspx

2. Create a team (can be up to four individuals; cross disciplinary teams are welcome and encouraged)

3. Brainstorm and create round one documentation and submit

4. Refine your ideas and start to prepare for round 2

You do not have to have a fully-developed idea or technology for round one. It is primarily a registration milestone where you have to form a team and submit high-level concept documents that can be modified (or even replaced) before the next round. There are lots of online training and design resources to help you with your project. Register and get started today.

Cheers!

Randy

Installing Windows 7 on an older computer: a realistic scenario

randguth — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:03:00 GMT

Randy Guthrie – Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist
Blog: blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory

A family member recently started attending a large university and decided to use the school’s computer rental program rather than shell out a bunch of cash early in the semester. The computer turned about to be a 2005-vintage Dell Latitude 610 with a 1.6GHZ processor (single core) and 1GB of RAM. The operating system was Windows XP. This family member had prior experience at home using Vista and more recently Windows 7 beta and RTM, and found having to use XP again really frustrating. I was visiting her campus last week and offered to upgrade her machine for her. The bottom line: a pretty painless experience with only one minor hiccup, and a computer that now runs faster (yes, faster than XP), is more secure, and is much easier to use. Since this was a pretty standard configuration of what a lot of XP users are facing, I thought I’d share the experience.

Step 0: Update your computer’s BIOS to the latest version. When it starts up note the BIOS version then go to the manufacturer’s website and verify you have the latest version installed. If you don’t then follow the instructions on the website and update it. This is important since the BIOS version can determine if Windows Update will send you the latest drivers for your onboard devices. It can also prevent crashes and blue-screens due to incompatible device drivers (most notably video drivers). Do this before you start with the installation. You want Windows to install and update with only the latest drivers.

Step 1: Prep and backup. Since the fall semester has just started, the computer only had a hand full of folders and documents, and no music that couldn’t be reloaded, so I just copied and pasted the folders on the desktop to a USB flash drive and then did the same thing to the documents folder contents. No need to run Windows backup for such a simple file transfer.

Step 2: Install the OS. This family member qualified for MSDNAA (must be a STEM-D student currently enrolled in a STEM-D course or active in a technology club) so I used the Windows 7 Enterprise SKU available on the administrator’s portal (I have my own MSDNAA account). Since I do not recommend “upgrading” to Windows 7, we did a new install. This is easy to do if you know how. Just insert the installation DVD and when you get to the screen asking if you want to upgrade or do a new or “custom” installation, choose new/custom. Then when it shows you the directory window, click on “Advanced” (bottom right corner of screen) and delete all the partitions until you just have a single partition at location 0. If you don’t do this step you will end up with two versions of Windows with a dual-boot option, which will slow down your startup and take up a bunch of disk space. Once you have just a single partition at 0 click next and complete the rest of the installation normally.

Step 3. Apply all current updates, drivers and patches. Go to programs, then run Windows Update. This took me over an hour because you have to keep repeating this step five or six times since some updates have to be applied before the next one’s become available. Take a look at both optional and important updates. Some of the “optional” updates are really not since they frequently include device drivers for audio, video, networking, etc. One of the optional updates is Windows Live Essentials, which includes the new Windows Movie Maker (much improved from the XP/Vista version) and several other applications. When Windows Update said there were no more updates available, I checked and found out that the audio driver for the built-in speakers did not get installed. This was the minor hiccup. To fix it, I went out to Dell’s website and navigated to the Drivers and Downloads page. I entered the product tag number and found out that there are not special drivers for Windows 7 for the Dell Latitude 610, because it was too old. They didn’t even have the option to select Windows Vista as the OS. So I bit the bullet and downloaded the Windows XP audio driver, and voila! It worked just fine. Keep checking Windows Update every day for a few days; some drivers take a day or two to show up for some reason. Also visit Microsoft.com’s website. The first time you visit, it will prompt you to install Silverlight, and at the same time (you’ll be prompted to) sign up for Microsoft Update which will check more than just Windows; it will check every Microsoft product on your computer.

Step 4. Install anti-malware software. For this installation, we had the option of using a well-known anti-virus product that the university has a site license for, Forefront Client security that comes with MSDNAA, or the new Windows Security Essentials, that is free and replaced Windows One Care. We chose to go with Windows Security Essentials because I’ve always had problems with the third-party anti-malware programs, and Security Essentials has a really simple interface and was designed to work properly with Windows. The installation took only a few minutes and hasn’t made a noticeable negative performance impact. And did I say it was free?

Step 5. Install Office 2007. I had an extra seat remaining on an Office 2007 Home and Student edition DVD, but we decided to take advantage of the Ultimate Steal and downloaded Office Ultimate 2007 for $59.95. Validation took less than a minute and the download and installation 15 minutes. Then we started the update and patch process again, which took another hour or so because Service Pack 2 is huge (>300MB) and there are several patch cycles to go through to get it all updated.

Step 6. Install third-party applications. The highest priority here was Adobe Acrobat Reader and the flash player. Tech students will want to install MatLab or O-Matrix, Visual Studio, Zune Software (or other music management software),etc.

Step 7. Restore back-up files. Copy your files back to your document folders or desktop. Connect your Zune and synch your collection to your device to restore the music & video on your computer.

Step 8. Plug in and test peripherals. If your printer was plugged in when you did the install, most likely the drivers are installed but you’ll want to test it and potentially make sure it is set as the default. Plug in your webcam, Internet headset, headphones, etc. and make sure all of the devices are working. If you find something that isn’t working, leave it plugged in and run Windows Update to see if the driver can be found. If that doesn’t work, then go to the device manufacturer’s website and download and install the latest drivers that they have for the device.

Total time for the rebuild was about six hours, although most of that was download and installation. I usually do other work and just keep an eye on the screen so I can click to start the next step. The computer now boots up in about 60 seconds; 30 seconds to the log on screen and other 30 seconds before the desktop shows up. Overall performance is great, plus you get the much improved UI throughout. My family member is extremely happy with the new installation, and shows it off to anyone around, particularly if they have a similar rental running XP. I bet the campus tech support is going to start hearing from other students soon.

Cheers!

Randy

Live Resume Workshop on TechNet October 7th: Sign Up Today!

randguth — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:30:14 GMT

by Randy Guthrie – Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist
blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory

Microsoft Technet and Thrive, the resource to IT professionals who want to improve their skills and employment opportunities is giving me an opportunity to share my resume wisdom and experience via a live webcast on October 7, 2009 at 9:30am Mountain Time. This interactive one and half hour workshop will show viewers how to make a great resume that will stand out from the rest of the resumes in the “Big Pile” and greatly increase the chance you’ll be called for an interview. There are a limited number of slots available so register today!

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032426722&Culture=en-US

Cheers!

-Randy

Microsoft Releases FREE Anti-Virus Software

randguth — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:48:00 GMT

by Randy Guthrie – Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist
blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory

Microsoft has finally released its free anti-malware software. The suite is called Windows Security Essentials. After more than a decade of letting third-party vendors do a mediocre job of protecting computers from virii, trojan horses, worms, and spy-ware, Microsoft has finally decided that its time to once-and-for-all provide malware protection designed by people who know the Windows OS best. Providing it for free via Windows Live not only shows Microsoft’s commitment to providing the safest computing experiences, but still offers users the choice of platforms. Additionally, users on a budget need no longer worry about having to buy anti-virus software and then pay for annual renewals, nor do home users need to deal with free or trial versions of anti-virus software that hurt performance or application compatibility, or even worse, can’t be completely uninstalled. Give it a try!

Cheers!

Randy

US Teams Advance in Imagine Cup World Wide Finals

randguth — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:47:00 GMT

By Randy Guthrie – Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist (USA)
http://blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory

After a brutal day of presentations and eliminations, the Team PARV from Oklahoma State University and our one-man game-dev team juggernaut “E” McNeill from Dartmouth survived two elimination rounds to advance to the final rounds of their respective competitions. Team PARV designed and built a medical diagnostic kiosk for use in remote villages, and “E” has designed a game that is amazingly fun and teaches clean energy awareness. Our SDI team “Multi-touch Web” did an amazing job in the first round, but in the field of over 65 world-class competitors there were some truly amazing projects that will make anyone go “WOW!”. We have a total of ten teams competing this year, some of whom are still competing. Here are some details of some of these amazing competitions that are still in progress:

Photo: Rachel Asplund and Tara Fullmer from Brigham Young University have a taxi, body guard, and local site expert and they are driving around Cairo putting together a photo-essay that contrasts the collision of the ancient with technology

Design: Feixing Tuang and Yujia Zhao from Indiana University are designing resources to help an autistic child maintain a stable environment while on an International vacation with his parents

IT: Michael Burr from the University of Colorado -Boulder has been working 24 hours straight in a lab building a cloud-based IT infrastructure

Mashup: Kathy and Marc designed a popfly cube that measures the sentiment (degree of positive/negative) of online content relating to individual people, topics or issues

Tablet Accessibility: Casey Williams and Ryan Gentner from SUNY-Buffalo built a tablet application that provides PowerPoint-like presentation capabilities simple enough for young children or mentally-disabled persons to use

Suzanne Mubarak: the Special Child SDI team from UArk was selected to participate with their SDI project in this contest is sponsored by the first lady of Egypt

We are so proud of all our students and it’s been so fun to get to know them better.

Cheers!

Randy

Windows 7 Enterprise Rocks ASUS Eee PC 904 Netbook!

randguth — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:30:32 GMT

Randy Guthrie – Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist
http://blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory

I just received a new ASUS Eee PC 904HA from Amazon.com today. This ultra small laptop [netbook] retails for $311 US and comes with 1GB RAM and 160GB hard drive. The OEM operating system is Microsoft Windows XP Home edition, and the netbook also comes with some nice utility programs, but the inability of Windows XP Home edition to join a domain made my decision to upgrade to Windows 7 very easy. Within 5 minutes of powering up the netbook for the first time, I was wiping the hard drives in preparation for a clean installation of Windows 7 beta, build 7000. The Eee PC 904HA does not come with an internal DVD/CD drive, so I had to borrow a friend’s USB DVD drive for both the wiping software (PDWipe) and Win 7 installation DVD.

First I had to go into the BIOS and change the boot order so that the DVD loaded first. Then I was able to wipe the drives, which took about 30 minutes. The Windows 7 installation seemingly went without a hitch, as did the Office 2007. Only later did I discover a few things that were broke. The first is that Windows 7 did not have a native driver for the LAN adapter, which did not work. Fortunately the wireless adapter did work, so I was able to connect to the Internet that way. I was then able to locate a Vista 32 driver on the ASUS website, but the installation utility didn’t work. I finally got the LAN adapter working by going into the device manager and updating the network adapter driver and in the process pointing to the folder with the Vista 32 driver. The other thing that is broke are several function keys (the ones you have to press “function” and the key to work). The keys that are broken are the wireless radio toggle (important for us frequent fliers), and the mute and volume up/down keys. These all have work-arounds in Windows 7, but I’ll be contacting ASUS to see if they can suggest a way to fix the keys (hope its not a hardware problem!).

Since Windows 7 is beta software, I’m not too worried about these driver related problems. Some of these might have already been fixed since build 7000 was released. But here is the good news. I’m running Windows 7, Outlook 2007 and Office 2007 with no problems on this very light-weight, basic hardware platform. I ran the Windows Experience rating utility, and got a 2.2 overall for graphics and processor speed, which is the lowest rating I’ve seen on a relatively new PC, yet it runs just fine. Aero works, and I’ve played some sample video that came with the Media Center software, and the quality is great. What I believe this means is that Windows 7 will provide great experiences on older computers that were designed for Windows XP. I am still putting my ASUS Eee 904 through its paces, but so far it looks like I’ll have a great piece of hardware with an even better operating system than it was designed for. I’ll let you know how it goes next week.

Cheers!

Randy

Don’t Take It From Me: Another Resume Perspective

randguth — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:25:34 GMT

Randy Guthrie – Microsoft Academic Relations Manager
http://blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory

I just found a fantastic blog post on Guy Kawasaki’s blog by guest poster Glenn Kelman, who is the CEO of Redfin, an online brokerage firm for buying & selling houses. Gary has reviewed hundreds (if not thousands) of resumes in his career, and he shares his resume advice. I am always gratified to find someone with practical experience who agrees with me :) . I definitely recommend reading the entire blog post, but I’ll provide Gary’s main points here (and I’m quoting):

Here’s What I Like:

A direct style: use blunt, short words. Most resumes are scanned, not read.
Looks: like a middle-aged man’s apartment. Nice and tidy.
Objective: be direct; your objective is the job you’re applying for.
Verbs ending in “d”: shipped, launched, built, sold.
Results: not responsibilities or experience — but what responsibilities and experience helped you accomplish.
Bullets: 3 - 4 results per job.
Numbers: increased traffic from Google 230%, decreased ad spending 40%.
Grades: your GPA, even if it was ten years ago, if it’s over 3.5.
Reviews: ratings from your last review, especially useful if you worked for a tough grader like Microsoft
Honors: we’ll interview an employee-of-the-quarter, every time.
Promotions: if your role changes, highlight that as two jobs.
LinkedIn endorsements: persuasive, even from your friends; excerpted & linked.
A link to your blog: a blog gives you online street cred. For some, it is your resume .
Themes: whether you care about customer service or agile software, tell a consistent story from job to job.
Hobbies: I always want to meet people with fun hobbies. And that’s all a resume is: a request for a meeting. At Plumtree, we received a resume from a Playboy model. A colleague forwarded it to me with a note reading, “I’ve never asked you for anything before Ö” I feel the same way about cyclists.
Two pages, max: if you’re under 30, one page.
Anything you did that showed initiative or passion. Eagle Scout. Math Olympics.
Email to the CEO: it takes chutzpah & resourcefulness to go straight to the top. The email address is easy to guess.
Customization: tailor your resume & especially the cover letter to the job.
Completed degrees: I’ve hired plenty of folks a few credits shy of a degree. Some were great; many couldn’t finish what they started. If you have time now, finish your degree.
Gmail address: or your own domain. Nothing says “totally out of it” like an AOL address.

Here’s What I Don’t Like:

Churn: stints at two or more employers of less than two years.
List of generic skills: just show what you actually accomplished at each job.
Typos or misspellings: About half the resumes I get are addressed to “RedFin.” For the other words, spell-check!
Photos: my favorite was of a candidate in tennis whites with a racket.
“Proven”: as in “proven leadership.” We all still have something to prove.
Printed resumes: email a Word document, web page or PDF.
Buzzwords: search bots love it, actual people don’t.
Wordiness: yes, this is the pot calling the kettle black…

Read more: "How to Change the World: Guest Post: Memo from Kafka's Castle and What Employers Want to See on Your Resume" - http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2009/02/guest-post-memo.html#ixzz0897HuqPe

Cheers!

Randy

How to Get a Job at Microsoft: The Effective Cover Letter

randguth — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:45:08 GMT

The name “Cover Letter” implies a short explanatory note attached to a main, or at least more important document. In my contract management days, I would send contractual documents to my suppliers with a “transmittal letter”, that in very few words said what I was sending and what I needed them to do with it. Many people do the same with their resumes, which for the reader, is pretty much a waste of time. The cover letter for a resume can be just as important and influential as the resume. You can think about the cover letter and resume as a team delivering a “one-two punch”. Here is how they work:

Your Resume is an impassionate, mechanistic and highly-structure recitation of the relevant facts of your experience. Its focus is entirely about YOU. If your resume is written correctly, the reader will have a very clear picture of what your have done in the past, and of what you are capable of, but will have almost no information about your personality. So while the resume will tell the reader about your skills, it leaves out (on purpose) information about your communication skills. It also (except in a subtle way) does not attempt to sell the job candidate as a good fit for any particular job, even if you have customized your resume for a particular job.

Your Cover Letter should have a slightly different purpose. It is still attempting to convince the reader to invite you for an interview, but will do it by emphasizing the needs of the company you are applying to work for, and in so doing showcases your written communication skills, maturity, and business-savvy. How does it do that? By talking about what the reader needs and what you have to offer that will satisfy those needs. In other words, the focus of cover letter is about THEM. The purpose of the cover letter is make the case as to why you think you are a good fit for the organization. Sounds tough? It is! A good cover letter requires at least as much time, and in my opinion, more skill to write than a resume. But a great cover letter with a good resume can DOUBLE your chances to get invited for an interview.

Okay, I’m Sold. How do I Write a “Good” Cover Letter?

The first, and most critical step in writing a good cover letter is to get as much information information about the company, organization, department & job you are applying for. Company information is pretty easy to get, particularly if a company is “public” and trades its stock publically. Finding out about a particular job, or hiring department is much more difficult, but not completely impossible. Here are some ideas:

Check with your college campus career center (even if you have already graduated; most campuses allow alumni to use their career services) about informational sessions that companies may be having on campus. This is perhaps the easiest way to get the “inside scoop” on a particular job opportunity.
Company websites will have “investor relations” links that will give you access to their latest SEC filings. These filings often include announcements about new business or challenges that can give you insight into why a firm is hiring for a particular position.
Search CNN “Money” for current news about a company
Look on a company’s website at ALL of the job listings to see if there is a pattern in their current hiring. For example, if all of the tech openings are for web developers, you can guess they are either upgrading their IT infrastructure or planning to launch a major on-line presence.
Try to find a community or professional organization that employees are likely to work at. For example, Microphone is a great place to find out about any particular job at Microsoft. A local .net user group might put you in a touch with employees at other local companies
Contact your school’s alumni association and see if you can get the name of a current employee of the company you want to apply at.
Contact a firm’s HR department and see what they can tell you.
Talk to a recruiter. They make have insight into what is happening at a particular firm.

The next step is to brainstorm a little on some paper and list all the ways in which you think you are a good fit, and how you can help the organization. I suggest doing this using an Excel spreadsheet, with each reason on its own line.

Next rank-order each reason by putting a number “one” to the right of the most compelling reason why they need you, and “two” by the next, etc. Then sort your list. The first three or four are the ones you are going to want to mention in your cover letter.

Now comes the hard part. Start writing your letter. Here is the order I suggest:

Introduce yourself and mention the job you are applying for.
Talk about the key facts that you’ve learned about the company and what excites you about working for them
Mention your two or three top reasons and why you believe you are a good fit for their company
Ask for an interview, mention your resume has additional information.

Write and rewrite. Have other people proof-read your letter. College campus career centers are great for proofing. Use good quality white paper with a laserjet printer. Do not use anything other than the very best inkjet printers. If someone can tell you used an inkjet, then don’t use an inkjet.

Can you give me an example?

Here is a sample letter that I might have written for my current position at Microsoft (more about why I didn’t in a minute) that contains all the elements of a great cover letter. That’s not to say that it couldn’t benefit from some editing, but you’ll see why it is more than a transmittal letter. I’ll admit it might be border-line cheesy, but probably not as much as you might think at a first read. And while it might seem to talk a lot about me at first, its all about applying what I’ve done to what my boss is/was looking for. Its all an appeal to what Martin is interested in finding in a job candidate. Even if I’ve missed his top concern, I’m certainly in the ball park, and a letter like this is definitely going to get you in the “short pile” of potential interview candidates.

Does this still sound a bit too vague?

Probably the easiest way to get started with your letter is to look at several examples. There are a lot of books out there on resume writing and cover letters that have some good examples. There are also some that are really bad. How can you tell the difference? Look for examples that seem to be following these guidelines and you’ll be safe. Here are two that I liked: “Cover Letter Magic: Trade Secrets of Professional Resume Writers”, and “Dynamic Cover Letters Revised”. Each of these books have lots of examples that will really kick-start your writing. Each one costs under $12 on Amazon.com, so my recommendation is to just suck it up and buy them. Short on $$ ? Try your local library. That is where I found them the first time.

So Why Didn’t You Write a Cover Letter When You Applied at Microsoft?

I didn’t formally apply for my Microsoft job at first. My local Microsoft rep told me about a job opening in his organization, and offered to give my resume to his manager. So my friend (and now colleague) was my cover letter. A recruiter often acts in the same capacity. I had already been informally invited for an interview when I was asked to formally apply for the job so HR could schedule the interview. By then, the cover letter was unnecessary.

So When IS a Cover Letter a Good Idea?

A cover letter is a good idea any time someone who hasn’t talked to you or met you will be reading your resume. As you can see from my example, there really isn’t any such thing as a generic cover letter, although if you are applying for the same job with more than one company, there are certainly parts you can reuse.

Some Closing Thoughts

A well written cover letter is almost as good as a resume for getting you a job interview. The best example I’ve every heard of a great cover letter was someone who was invited for an interview without the reader every looking at the resume. Together with a good resume, a great cover letter hugely increases your chances of getting the interview invitation. Yes they are a lot of work, but if writing them means that 50% more of the places that you apply at will invite you for an interview, then its probably a matter of quality vs. quantity.

Cheers!

Randy

How to Get a Job At Microsoft Part II: Writing an Awesome Resume

randguth — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 01:26:16 GMT

by Randy Guthrie – Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist
http://blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory

Over the past few months I visited nine college campuses, attended three conferences and conducted a hand-full of job interviews, and in the process I’ve seen scores of resumes. One thing I’ve been impressed with is how awful most of them are. I realize that I am probably jaded by my experience as a career coach and service at a community career center, but still I find it amazing that something that is so critical for getting a job is so poorly understood; particularly by those who need jobs the most ie: students seeking internships and new college graduates. The good news is that if you do even a moderately good job of writing your resume you have a pretty good chance of standing out from your competitors. I’ve put off writing this post because it is a daunting task trying to write general guidance that will be useful to most readers, and I’ve struggled how to do this briefly, but I’ve given up and apologize in advance for the length of this post and hope most will find something useful in the next few thousand or so words. Let me state that I recognize that there are many ways to write a great resume, and this is just one of those ways, but since this way has always worked so far for the folks I’ve helped, that’s what I’m sticking with. I also recognize that a resume is very personal, and you need to be comfortable with how it looks, so deviation from this guidance is fine (and necessary) since everyone is different and some situations will need to be handled differently than shown below. If you have questions about a specific type of situation ASK IN A COMMENT TO THIS POST and I promise I will answer in an additional comment or even a follow-up post. Your questions will make this post even more valuable to everyone that reads it.

First, some useful links:

Resume Workshop Video : This is an animated PowerPoint presentation with my audio commentary that covers the content of this post and more
Interviewing Workshop Video: This is an animated PowerPoint presentation with audio commentary on how to prepare for a behavioral interview
MIS Laboratory Student Page: lots of useful career links

Now let’s dig in.

GENERAL FORMATTING & PAGE LENGTH

One Page Please! Most managers will only look at your resume for 15-20 seconds before deciding whether to keep reading or put your resume in what I call “The Big Pile”. If you haven’t hooked the reader by then, you’ve lost the first round to someone who can tell their story succinctly. Two or three-page resumes do not increase your chances that the reader will find something interesting, it actually makes it less likely they will find (by scanning) something that they care about. So try to keep it to a page. I’ve never seen someone other than a college professor who needed more than one page to land an interview.

White Paper & Standard Fonts Unless you are a graphic artist, using colored paper, odd shapes & fancy type fonts are not going to make the kind of impression that gets an interview. Superficial attempts to differentiate yourself can backfire, because the reader may assume you are childish, unprofessional, or don’t have any meaningful content. Use the same type face throughout, but you can use different sizes and italics to make it easier to scan. Don’t go smaller than 11 pt font or larger than13 pt font for the main text. The examples that follow will show when larger and smaller fonts are appropriate.

NAME & CONTACT INFO

There are two approaches that I like to use. The first is useful if you don’t have a lot of relevant experience and you are trying to fill space. While one of the examples show the hyperlink in blue, do not use colored ink when printing a paper copy of your resume. Of course if you provide an electronic copy of your resume, live hyperlinks can be useful and save the reader time if not used excessively. Your name and contact information should be grouped together. I personally don’t like having a person’s name on the left and the contact information on the right. In the example my name is 28pt and contact info is 11pt. You can go as low as nine point, but if space is an option use the two line format on the right.

Two additional pieces of advice: (1) use only one phone number, and make sure it is one where you can get a message (change the recorded greeting if necessary so as to project a professional image) and (2) avoid cryptic or childish e-mail addresses, and use only one of those as well.

OBJECTIVE STATEMENT

Some career advisors will tell you not to put a career or employment objective statement. My advice is to use one. My reason is simple: I debriefed a recruiter from a major aerospace company after a job fair and he told me that he put any resume he received without a [clear] objective statement in the trash, because his HR department would not know where to route it. So my advice is to use one and make it count. Here’s how:

One Line Long

Your objective statement should say in under ten words the kind of job you are looking for. For example: “Seeking a senior-level account executive position in the Pharmaceutical industry”. Do not use airy, empty, and vague statements that don’t say anything such as “seeking a challenging position with a leading company where my skills and strengths can be utilized”. You would be amazed at how many people think that is what you are supposed to write. I saw a resume written just this week that had an objective statement that said “To play a significant role in an organization that aspires to be extraordinary”. These kinds of statements don’t help and can actually delay the reader from learning anything of value about you.

But What If I’m Qualified for More Than One Kind of Job?

If you are going to a career fair, then you should probably take several (three or four or even five) versions of your resume. Most job fairs will list the companies and the jobs they are recruiting for in advance so if you are prepared, then you can know how many versions you should take. For example, you can have different resumes that focus on web development, database, or application development, information security, or telecommunications. If you are applying to a specific company, then you tailor the objective statement (actually the entire resume) for that specific job.

EDUCATION

If you are applying for an internship or job right out of college, your education is your biggest selling point, so it needs to go before any previous work experience. Since most recruiters will know what school they are recruiting from, and name of the school is less important and the college major / minor and date of completion. Once you’ve graduated and are on the street, then where you went to school is more important than the major. Here is how I would handle both situations:

In these examples, I put the degree major first, because that is the first thing a recruiter will care about. I also put my my recent (and most impressive!) degree first. Notice I don’t put GPA. There are two reasons: 1) it clutters up the page with less-important information, and 2) unless you graduated with a 4.0, most people won’t think there is much difference between a 3.5 and a 3.8. If your GPA is less than a 3.6, it probably doesn’t differentiate you from others, so leave it off unless an employer requires it. If your GPA is under 3.0, then I don’t have to explain why you would leave it off. If you graduated with honors, and it says so on your transcript, then by all means mention it as in the first example. If you college doesn’t award honors, do not make it up, even if your 3.9 GPA would have gotten you honors at a college that awards them. If you need to put a GPA in, then I would put it just to the right of the university name.

What should I put if I have not graduated yet?

This is one of my favorite resume techniques. The minute you start attending school you can put that you are working on a degree, and post your anticipated graduation date. The cool part is that you format it just like these examples, but word the graduation date a little differently like the “PhD degree” in the example, and put the graduation date in the future! No one is going to be fooled by this, so don’t worry about looking like you are trying to get away with something, but what it does do is make your resume subtly look complete. Plus it does answer the question about what you might be good at.

What about other school accomplishments? Where should they go?

Great question! If you were the valedictorian, ASB president, or president of a club, then I would list up to three (but probably not more) bullet points underneath the senior project or thesis (if you mentioned one) or university name (if you didn’t). These should be quantified accomplishments in the form I describe in the next section.

WORK EXPERIENCE

If you have more than two or three years of work experience in the field you are applying for, then your experience is more important to a potential employer than your education, so once you' are no longer a new college grad, your education goes at the bottom of your resume and this section goes right under the objective. Why? Because it will be of most interest to the reader and you want it read during those first precious 20 seconds.

Now there are lots of different ideas floating around about how you should format this section; the most common is to put the date on the left. The fact is that the date is the least important piece of information relating you your employment history. Far more important is what you did, and then for whom you did it. When you did it is last. The order that I recommend you present the facts about each job is:

Job Title
Company Name
Employment duration
One sentence job description
Two - Four Quantified Accomplishments

Most of the resumes I have seen (and written) were based on an old formula of describing the job in terms of the formal job description. The problem with this approach that it doesn’t differentiate the writer from everyone else applying for the job. Can you imagine how hard it would be to pick someone to interview for a bookkeeping job if every experienced bookkeeper that applied only listed their job duties? Every resume would say almost the exact same thing! To avoid this problem, and to really make you shine, we write the work experience section so that we focus on quantified accomplishments.

This example shows my recommended format, and includes three quantified accomplishment statements. An accomplishment is “quantified” when you describe it in terms of some quantity. I like to try to get two numbers in each accomplishment if possible. Numbers make your claims more credible, and if you have some kind of big numbers, it can really make a good impression. Don’t over sell; let the numbers speak for you. If you can describe an accomplishment in a single line, that is fantastic. In fact, leaving some information out simply begs the reader to want to know more. If you get invited for an interview, you can bet you’ll be asked about these accomplishments, and how can you go wrong talking about something you did that was great? Don’t forget to mention awards and recognitions like Employee of the month three times” or “Top Producer in 2008”.

Notice also that I have my job title in bold and in a larger font. I do that so that it is easier for the reader to visually scan. Notice also that the company name is in italics. That helps set the different facts apart. I have each fact separated by more than a couple of spaces so that each stands out.

Now a bit more about job titles. Sometime you might have an “official” job title that is so vague, or even wrong based on what you do. For example, I had three lateral job changes at an aerospace company that did not change my payroll classification, so my managers never bothered to updated my “requisition” to reflect the changes in my job title. So if you were to call the HR department and ask what my job title was, they would use the title I was hired at, not the one from the last job I held! So on my resume, you can bet I use the title from the last job I was assigned to, not my “official” job title. The moral of the story is that if your “real” job title is too vague, or even deceptive, do not be afraid to put a more accurate, clear job title on the resume. Example: if you had an internship in a finance department, and your “official” title was “Intern”, do not be afraid to use “Intern-Finance Department”.

TOOLS AND SKILLS

I try to avoid this section if possible. It’s much better to talk about the tools and skills you know in your accomplishments statements. But if you learned how to do something in class, but haven’t used it on the job, and the job you are applying for wants candidates who have this skill, you need to use this section. But be careful. Here are some recommendations:

Do not list skills and knowledge that almost everyone has. The most common offender here is that you know Microsoft Office. As a recent college graduate, we assume you learned the basic programs. Stating it here does not differentiate you.
Avoid huge long lists using every acronym you can think of ie: ASP.net, C#, C++, PHP, etc. Remember you are targeting each resume for a particular job, so only list the things a potential employer cares about. Huge list casts doubt on which of those you really know. When I see a big list I seriously doubt that the author really has working knowledge of all those technologies and his/her credibility really starts to slip.
Be accurate in describing your knowledge. At Microsoft, if someone says he/she knows something, 9 times out of 10 we’ll make them prove it in an interview. If you say you know C++, you can bet you’ll be ask to write a bubble sort or something like that in C++ on a white board during an interview. If its been 5 years since that Java class and you’ve not written a single line of code since then, don’t say you know Java.

SOME CLOSING THOUGHTS

Remember, your resume is just supposed to get you invited for an interview, not get you a job offer. That is what the interview is for. Keep your resume simple and focused on a single job. Keep it to a single page. Catch-all, general-purpose resumes DO NOT WORK. You can send out hundreds of these and you will never get a single response (I know â€“ I tried it when I was young and inexperienced). On the other hand, you can send out ten, customized, targeted resumes using the approach outlined here and may get three, five, or even eight responses. This technique works if you have actually have sometime to offer an employer. Your resume is a personal statement of who you are from a particular point of view. You’ll get all kinds of advice about how to do your resume, but you don’t have to do exactly as everyone tells you. If you feel like you know better, then go with your gut feeling. Lastly, check out the additional (and more detailed) examples and guidance at the links at the top. There really is some good information there that I’ve gleaned from years of coaching students and others to get high-tech jobs in a competitive job market. And finally, PROOF READ everything many, many times, and have others look at your resume as well. (career center people are invaluable for this). Good luck and good job hunting!

Cheers!

Randy

[Note: an earlier version of this post mysterious lost most of its content, hence this repost]

Detailed Look at Life at Microsoft

randguth — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:43:47 GMT

by Randy Guthrie – Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist
http://blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory

Microsoft has put together an interesting website to give potential job applicants a detailed look at some of our people and widely differing roles they have at Microsoft. Check out the website “View My World” at http://www.viewmyworld.com . A couple of my favorites: the video made by our interns titled “how many benefits can you use in one day” and the profile of Angela, a tester on the XBox Live team that has a gamer score of over 40,000 points.

Cheers!

Randy

XBox 360 Halloween Pumpkin Carving

randguth — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:09:06 GMT

by Randy Guthrie – Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist
http://blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory

I participated in a high school recruiting event at the University of Colorado – Fort Collins on October 31st. In keeping with the Halloween observance, I wore my Halloween shirt and carved a pumpkin that looked like an XBox console. I got the pattern from XBox Live at http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/events/trixandtreats/1022-pumpkins.htm . It took about 3 hours to complete. I have almost no experience doing this, but I used a simple wood carving set from Hobby Lobby . The results were pretty good and lots of the kids at the event took pictures with their phones. It looked pretty good on the porch that night with companion pumpkins carved by other family members.

Here is a short video of our porch special effects.

Tech Firms and the Economy

randguth — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 21:44:26 GMT

by Randy Guthrie – Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist
http://blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory

The following are statements made by some of the leading technology firms. All four recently reported record growth, and cautiously project continued growth despite economic conditions. When the .com bubble burst in 2001, Microsoft experienced one of the best sales periods of the decade, and we are poised to take advantage of the current situation in a similar manner. Why? Because Microsoft products perform very well but are generally priced lower than competing technologies. The message: Students can expect the demand for knowledge of Microsoft tools and technologies to increase over the next 24 months, and the market for those skills to stay strong. Given the size of the current gap between tech jobs and qualified people, there is no expectation that IT workers will experience any kind of job contraction, although job growth will probably be somewhat lower than last year’s Dept. of Labor forecasts. As always, possessing knowledge of the latest technologies is the best insurance against job loss.

MICROSOFT

REDMOND, Wash. — October 23, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $15.06 billion for the fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30, 2008, a 9% increase over the same period of the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $6.00 billion, $4.37 billion and $0.48, respectively.

Microsoft showed particular strength in multiyear annuity sales, which grew more than 20% during the quarter from the combined businesses of Client, Microsoft Business Division and Server and Tools.

"Our customers are asking how they can save money and do more with less," said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. "Microsoft is uniquely positioned to help our customers save money through supplier consolidation, increased productivity, and a low total cost of ownership through the depth and breadth of our product portfolio and solutions."

Microsoft continued to add to its product and services portfolio with innovative offerings such as Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 and the first service update to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

"In a challenging economic environment, the first-quarter results exhibit the strength and diversity of our business model," said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer of Microsoft.

Business Outlook

Microsoft’s business outlook reflects a balance of risks and the likelihood of a continued economic slowdown. The trends seen late in the first-quarter are now forecasted to continue, whereas previous expectations were for the economy to improve in the second half of the fiscal year. In this economic environment, the company is focused on three main actions; working with customers to provide high value products at the lowest total overall cost of ownership, increasing focus on expense management and targeting investment into the highest priority strategic opportunities.

Microsoft management offers the following guidance for the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2008:

Revenue is expected to be in the range of $17.3 billion to $17.8 billion.

Operating income is expected to be in the range of $6.1 billion to $6.4 billion.

Diluted earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $0.51 to $0.53.

Management offers the following guidance for the full fiscal year ending June 30, 2009:

Revenue is expected to be in the range of $64.9 billion to $66.4 billion.

Operating income is expected to be in the range of $24.4 billion to $25.5 billion.

Diluted earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $2.00 to $2.10.

Liddell noted that "we feel extremely good about our relative competitive position and our ability to continue outgrowing IT spend. We believe our exceptionally strong cash flow, product pipeline and financial strength will allow us to weather economic conditions well."

APPLE

CUPERTINO, California—October 21, 2008—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2008 fourth quarter ended September 27, 2008. The Company posted revenue of $7.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $6.22 billion and net quarterly profit of $904 million, or $1.01 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 34.7 percent, up from 33.6 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 41 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

In accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, the Company recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for iPhone™ and Apple TV® over their economic lives. Adjusting GAAP sales and product costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting, the corresponding non-GAAP measures* for the quarter are $11.68 billion of “Adjusted Sales” and $2.44 billion of “Adjusted Net Income.”

Apple shipped 2,611,000 Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing 21 percent unit growth and 17 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 11,052,000 iPods during the quarter, representing eight percent unit growth and three percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone units sold were 6,892,000 compared to 1,119,000 in the year-ago-quarter.

“Apple just reported one of the best quarters in its history, with a spectacular performance by the iPhone—we sold more phones than RIM,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We don’t yet know how this economic downturn will affect Apple. But we’re armed with the strongest product line in our history, the most talented employees and the best customers in our industry. And $25 billion of cash safely in the bank with zero debt.”

“We’re very pleased to have grown revenue 35 percent and to have generated $9.1 billion in cash in fiscal 2008,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead, visibility is low and forecasting is challenging, and as a result we are going to be prudent in predicting the December quarter. We are providing a wide range for our guidance, targeting revenue of $9.0 to $10.0 billion and earnings per diluted share between $1.06 and $1.35.”

GOOGLE

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - October 16, 2008 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2008.

"We had a good third quarter with strong traffic and revenue growth across all of our major geographies thanks to the underlying strength of our core search and ads business. The measurability and ROI of search-based advertising remain key assets for Google," said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. "While we are realistic about the poor state of the global economy, we will continue to manage Google for the long term, driving improvements to search and ads, while also investing in future growth areas such as enterprise, mobile, and display."
Q3 Financial Summary
Google reported revenues of $5.54 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2008, an increase of 31% compared to the third quarter of 2007 and an increase of 3% compared to the second quarter of 2008. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting traffic acquisition costs (TAC). In the third quarter of 2008, TAC totaled $1.50 billion, or 28% of advertising revenues.

IBM

ARMONK, N.Y., October 16, 2008 . . . IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced third-quarter 2008 diluted earnings of $2.05 per share from continuing operations compared with diluted earnings of $1.68 per share in the third quarter of 2007, an increase of 22 percent. Third-quarter income from continuing operations was $2.8 billion compared with $2.4 billion in the third quarter of 2007, an increase of 20 percent. Total revenues for the third quarter of 2008 of $25.3 billion increased 5 percent (2 percent, adjusting for currency) from the third quarter of 2007.

"Our results demonstrate that the combination of a steady base of recurring revenue and profits, a range of products and services that deliver value to clients worldwide, and a strong and flexible financial foundation give IBM a competitive edge in good times and tough times," said Samuel J. Palmisano, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer.

"These strengths along with our strategy to manage for productivity in major markets and to invest for growth in emerging countries have enabled IBM to thrive despite an economic environment that no one could have predicted. We remain confident in our full-year 2008 outlook."

From a geographic perspective, the Americas' third-quarter revenues were $10.5 billion, an increase of 3 percent as reported (2 percent, adjusting for currency) from the 2007 period. Revenues from Europe/Middle East/Africa were $8.9 billion, up 10 percent (4 percent, adjusting for currency). Asia-Pacific revenues increased 6 percent (1 percent, adjusting for currency) to $5.2 billion. OEM revenues were $673 million, down 24 percent compared with the 2007 third quarter. Revenues from the company's growth markets organization increased 13 percent (10 percent, adjusting for currency) and represented 19 percent of geographic revenues.

Total Global Services revenues grew 8 percent (4 percent, adjusting for currency). Global Technology Services segment revenues increased 8 percent (5 percent, adjusting for currency) to $9.9 billion, with strong growth in Integrated Technology Services. Global Business Services segment revenues increased 7 percent (3 percent, adjusting for currency) to $4.9 billion. IBM signed services contracts totaling $12.7 billion, at actual rates, a decrease of 4 percent ($11.1 billion, adjusting for currency, down 5 percent). Short-term signings increased 13 percent, at actual rates, to $6.1 billion (up 8 percent to $5.2 billion, adjusting for currency). The company ended the third quarter with an estimated services backlog, including Strategic Outsourcing, Business Transformation Outsourcing, Integrated Technology Services, Global Business Services and Maintenance, of $114 billion, adjusting for currency.

Cheers!

Randy

Financial Crisis May Be Boost for Computer Science/IT Education

randguth — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 22:35:59 GMT

By Randy Guthrie, Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist
http://blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory

Since the .com crash in the year 2001, many students with quantitative skills decided (with a lot of urging from their parents and teachers) against pursuing their heart’s dream of working in the computer field. According to an article in ComputerWorld by Patrick Thibodeaux and Todd Weiss (citing William Daly, Computer Science Chair at Stanford University) many students left computer science majors because they thought they could make more money in the financial markets. There was also a lot of press about outsourcing and the potential loss of programming jobs to lower cost labor markets in India, China and Indonesia, that many thought would be the end of lucrative IT jobs in the US. With the current market crisis, computer science educators and practitioners alike speculate that with the tarnish now on jobs in the finance sector, that some of these students with good quantitative skills and a passion for technology will return to the IT workforce. The reason is two-fold: One, the demand for skilled IT workers in the United States has never been greater, and exceeds the demand before the .com crash. The expectation that most IT jobs would be outsourced has never materialized, and in fact, Microsoft recently closed a call center in India and brought it back to the US because of better service and it was less costly to operate in the US. Two, IT careers are rated as some of the best jobs in the world in terms of the total package of pay, job satisfaction, benefits and quality of life (think flexible hours, work from home, and hours per week).

What does the Wall Street crisis mean in terms of IT jobs? No one really knows, but as large and small investors pull their money out of the capital markets, even firms that are not involved in real estate will have less real dollars to spend on infrastructure, so it is reasonable to expect that the pace of system upgrades will be reduced somewhat, particularly for firms that don’t have a lot of cash laying around. However, more than ever computer technologies are considered strategic assets, and very few businesses can afford not to invest in IT, so while the demand for IT workers will probably slow down a little, there will still be growth in overall IT jobs, but not at the rate projected by the US Department of Labor last year. Likewise, it remains to be seen what exactly the impact to college enrollments in computer science will be in terms of numbers, but many agree that the current situation in Wall Street will level the playing field in terms of career choice for students with good quantitative skills, which is good news for computer science programs on campus, industry, and the US economy as well.