Microsoft makes it too easy?

A few days ago, Netflix announced they'd be laying off fifty employees. Was it because of the floundering economy? Nope. Are they losing customers? Nope. Was it because their movie streaming solution is easy to use? Yup. Wait, what?

Netflix adopted Microsoft's Silverlight technology for use in streaming movies to customers watching on computers. The software has been so easy for their customers to use that they have far fewer support calls than they expected. As such, some of the support engineers they hired specifically for customers streaming movies will be moved to their standard support lines and the rest will be laid off in January.

For those of you what don't know what Silverlight is, it's a Flash competitor that aims to easily allow software programmers to manage the user interface of their programs. (It makes it easy to make software purdy.)

I'm happy the software has helped improve the product they offer but it's unfortunate that they couldn't take advantage of the increased productivity by moving all of the staff to other projects that need the help.

Link: Netflix

You wouldn't buy our cars, so we're taking your money anyway

A parody ad from Treehugger.com:



I guess they're not fans of the proposed auto bailout. The discussion in the comments below the ad is interesting as well. I'm curious to know how many jobs are outsourced by the big three buying parts from other countries and how many jobs have been created by foreign automobile companies opening assembly plants here in the US.

Back when congress was forcing hearings on the Air Force's refueling tanker bidding process the focus was on their decision not to go with Boeing, an American company. There was a lot of outrage focused on this issue and the perceived loss of American jobs. However, Boeing's competitor, Airbus, was part of a consortium of companies working together to build the planes. Several of the other members were large American companies such as Northrop Grumman and the result was a negligible difference in American jobs regardless of who got the contract.

This isn't to say all jobs are equal. I'm sure car and airplane designers are paid far more than the blue collar workers on assembly lines, but it's important to think about the big picture in this time of multi-national corporations.

Link: TreeHugger.com

What if Steve Jobs ran one of the auto big three?

Steve Cringely has an interesting piece on his blog in which he imagines what Steve Jobs would do were he to take over GM, Chrysler or Ford. I don't know much about the auto industry but it was still a fun read.

Link: Insanely Great: What if Steve Jobs ran one of the Big Three auto companies?