Oops. Not the kind of PR MSFT needs..

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Microsoft on Monday said it goofed in trying to get back money it overpaid departing employees in severance packages and sent word to the former workers to keep the cash.

The US software giant said that last week it told 25 recently-departed employees they had accidentally been paid too much in severance and that the overages should be returned to the company.

"This was a mistake on our part," a Microsoft spokesman said Monday in response to an AFP inquiry.

"We should have handled this situation in a more thoughtful manner. We are reaching out to those impacted to relay that we will not seek any payment from those individuals."

Interesting comments and perspective from Brad Brooks. I like the "i" way vs. the "you" way juxtaposition. Windows "without walls" is an effective campaign against the walled garden Apple offers. Still, it's hard to compete in certain scenarios with the elegant, reliable and deterministic Apple experience.

Quoted: Ahead of what many expect to be the introduction of cheaper Macs, a top Windows exec says Apple users pay hidden costs.

Quoted: There really is a tax around there for people that are evaluating their choices going into this holiday season and going forward. There's a choice tax that we talked about, which is, hey, you want to buy a machine that's other than black, white, or silver, and if you want to get it in multiple different configurations or price points, you're going to be paying a tax if you go the Apple way.

This guy is an idtiot. Apparently he missed the whole idea that "PC" means "personal connection". So yeah Dvorak, these people don't really think they are pieces of plastic with chips and circuitry.

Quoted: These dingbat Microsoft ads kind of miss the point. The people don't symbolize anything. They say who they are and that they are a PC, which makes no sense whatsoever because they are not PCs. They are people. They use a PC, but they are NOT a PC, unless they are mentally deranged.

Here is a pretty positive take on the latest Microsoft ad starring Gates and Seinfeld...

Quoted: The second installment of Microsoft's Seinfeld campaign launched Thursday night during the reality TV series Big Brother. Like the first commercial in the $300 million campaign staring the well-known comedian Jerry Seinfeld, the spot didn't discuss Windows.

Quoted: While some are still confused, others are giving Gates two thumbs up. Dave Racine of MindSpike Design loved the new spots. He called them offbeat and irreverently fresh as Gates and Seinfeld are obviously "connecting" with real people.

Quoted: "Finally, a commercial that actually entertains me -- and keeps me engaged for longer than a blip. The weirdness about it is what is compelling, along with the talent of Seinfeld and the unexpectedly good acting of Gates," said McVey, president of S3. "Happy to see someone doing something different and effective in the TV ad-spot world."

Quoted: The commercials give Microsoft and Bill Gates humor and some personality, according to Jason Mudd of Axia. The past public perception was of Microsoft as a cutthroat company seeking to destroy or buy out any competition, he noted, but business executives are talking positively about the commercial, and that's what Microsoft wants.

All you can say is, wow. They actually tried and achived the worst web site design ever...

Quoted: News Haven, Information Reference Sources, Facts

Nice collection of infographics.

Quoted: Data presentation can be beautiful, elegant and descriptive. There is a variety of conventional ways to visualize data - tables, histograms, pie charts bar graphs are being used every day, in project on possible occasion.

I wouldn't say 'Annoying' users is what MS is trying to do. It's not something they can afford.

Quoted: According to Microsoft, the more annoyed you are, the more pressure is on developers to clean up their act... More cynical observers will note that this is a longstanding Microsoft business strategy. But in this case, believe it or not, it actually makes some sense.

Quoted: Microsoft is onto a whole new paradigm here: modifying user behavior via reverse psychology. By making users click "OK" in a bunch of security dialogs, Microsoft is actually discouraging them from continuing... Of course, so far this strategy has only met with limited success. Many users have preferred to disable UAC, rather than participate in Microsoft's social-engineering experiment. But isn't it nice to know that the good folks in Redmond are thinking outside the box?

Oh, I guess E&D is special and they get the cool new buildings. Huh. ;-)

Quoted: Microsoft Corp. plans to develop an upscale campus for its Entertainment and Devices Division, including its Xbox business, on a large swath of land on the western half of its Redmond headquarters. It might even have its own bar.

Wow. And how much revenue will it take to fund all these new employees? What is the employee-addition-to-revenue-ratio?

Quoted: Overall, Microsoft said last year that it would spend $1 billion to add 14 buildings and 3.1 million square feet of office space to the campus over three years -- trying to keep up with its relatively steady rate of hiring

Nice article on Windows Live...

Quoted: It is welcome recognition that consumers prefer choice, that Microsoft's old approach of building fences around its systems, chaining them together and locking people inside ...

Quoted: One of the goals of the Windows Live package, which includes e-mail, messenger, blogging and photo-sharing services, is to link desktop computer software running on Microsoft's mainstay computer operating system to the "cloud" of computing available on the Internet.