Baby Bills, Windows 8 and a Microsoft 'Zynga' stealth project?

Nerds on the rise in a Redmond revolution

By Mary-Jo Foley and Gavin Clarke • Get more from this author

Posted in Developer, 31st January 2012 16:28 GMT

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MicroBite 33 A cultural revolution is creeping through Microsoft. With a reorganisation in full swing and job cuts rumoured, the future looks uncertain for an entire class of marketing types and MBAs at Redmond: the software giant's officers seem intent on resetting the corporate clock to year zero to recapture the spirit of Bill Gates.

The change comes as a slump in Christmas PC sales bodes ill for the forthcoming Windows 8. Is 2012 the wrong time to launch a PC operating system, and will it be a locked-down Windows on ARM tablets and readers, instead, that really comes to Microsoft's rescue?

And with Xbox and Kinect flying off the shelves, Microsoft's games operation has been attracting some of the biggest and deepest brains from other parts of the operation – hardcore server engineering and software architecture guys.

Join All-about-Microsoft blogger Mary-Jo Foley and Reg software editor Gavin Clarke on MicroBite, where they assess the "Sinofskisation" of Microsoft, whether Windows 8 can revive the PC market and whether the next big thing in the Xbox franchise is a Zynga clone. You can listen using our player, below, or enjoy using MP3 and Ogg Vorbis here.

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