New Year Woes For Microsoft

THE ZUNE PROBLEM:

For most of the people this night were enjoying and taking pleasure of the new year eve,some nerds may have been found working with their slogged heads infront of their LCD's!!  :P

I am talking about the Microsoft ZUNE team. A Y2K like bug seems to have hit 30GB Zune users all over the world. It seems that the users were quiet frustrated as they reported a huge number of complaints at zune.net.Let us take a look at the issue.

What the problem was???

The 30 GB Zune experienced a Y2K-like mass failure at around 6:00 am on the 31st, where the portable media player goes to the loading screen and freezes permanently. Zune.net's service status today warns: "Customers with 30gb Zune devices may experience issues when booting their Zune hardware.  We're aware of the problem and are working to correct it.  The Zune Social might be slow or inaccessible. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience." 

Microsoft's Zune support forum has been hit with a mass of complaints, but the problem has yet to receive a public diagnosis from the Zune team. Hundreds of users have each reported the identical problem.

The solution..........

This evening, Microsoft posted an official explanation on Zune.net detailing why all 30GB Zunes suddenly froze up this morning.

"The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year. The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on. If you're a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device. "

THE LAYOFFS:

The layoffs, if true, are part of a pattern in the technology industry and certainly not isolated to Microsoft. Just last month, Adobe laid off 8 percent of its workforce (or about 600 people). Rumors have it that Google has let go thousands of contractors (although it's really hard to confirm this story and Google has not been forthcoming about it). So that Microsoft could be laying off 17 percent of its workforce (or about 15,000 people) is hardly a surprise. The economic slow down means people are buying less software, certainly waiting to upgrade and with Microsoft's issues around Vista, it's all coming together at a bad time. (At least Microsoft waited until after the holidays; give them credit for that.)

Well,another big release for Microsoft is round the corner.Yes,Windows 7 may be released by the end of this year(according to CNET) and Microsoft wants to put Vista behind. The last thing everyone would want is another Vista.

Chalo,best of luck to the oldbees!!!!