BALLMER TO INDIA: CUT PIRACY, CREATE JOBS
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says software piracy in India is so bad that it's holding back the country's economy. But if India can reduce piracy by just 10%, it would create 50,000 new jobs, he says. If Ballmer is implying that Microsoft may up its head count in India, would that come at the expense of programming jobs stateside? --Paul McDougall

There was an article in the Seattle Times that said 30% of Microsoft's employees are Indian. It didn't give a percentage for other nationalities. But given the large number from other Asian countries working at Microsoft, an easy 50% of Microsoft's employees are from outside the United States. If Microsoft reduced its head count in Redmond, then it's unlikely Americans would be the ones losing their jobs. --Chris V

I don't know why we bother listening to Microsoft executives most of the time. Ballmer may be keeping his comments intentionally vague, but my impression over the years is that there is very little detail or evidence behind these comments about non-Microsoft matters.

Craig Mundie said Linux was a "cancer" several years ago; Ballmer last year said Linux contained Microsoft intellectual property without giving any details about which aspects of Linux infringed its IP. Ballmer is pretty carefree about the speculative figures he plucks from the air.

Presumably, he's implying here that if Indians paid for more of their software, then that money would go to Indian ISVs and Indian resellers, and therefore create Indian jobs. But if the software is Microsoft software, then 90+% (and that's me making up a figure) will go to the USA. --Gavin

---

FREE AT LAST!
Tired of getting kicked off my computer when it's time to do homework, I just broke down and bought my daughter her own laptop. Now we're a well-oiled machine, communicating wirelessly and using Google Writely to work together on projects. There's a lot to be said for the value of Web collaboration tools. --Alice LaPlante

I have a guest writer for my blog who lives in Seattle, while I'm in Texas. I recently started working on a new feature that involves a spreadsheet database. Trying to work on it between the two of us seemed impossible, so I decided to give Google Spreadsheets a shot.

It's amazing. I only wanted it for the online sharing possibility but soon learned that we could both have the document open at the same time, and in near real time we could edit different parts. To me, this is invaluable, and free to boot. I'm excited if this is the future. --Ricky Cadden

I'd be more excited about these tools if I were sure that Google wasn't storing this information in its databases. Now, it may not matter if your daughter's report is stored by Google, but how about your company's documents? --Andrew