I have been a hardcore Outlook user for a long time.  I grimaced with empathy as I read through Stan James 67 Reasons That Outlook Sucks.  If you are having a frustrating Outlook day, Stan’s rant will make you feel better.

Brilliant strategic move by Microsoft today – offering a price for Yahoo that is both well above the market clearing price and done out in the open.  Microsoft’s Letter to Yahoo is great.  It coincides with Terry Semel leaving the Yahoo board, which is a small irony.

In other news, Microsoft is now the rumored buyer of the 432-acre Sun (Storagetek) campus just outside of Boulder.  And apparently the bloom is finally coming off of the Google rose.

I love this industry.  It is so endlessly entertaining.  I don’t have to watch the E! Channel or read People Magazine anymore to get my daily dose of drama.

Great advice from Julie Alexandria on WallStrip to all the big thinkers in Davos who are Scornful of US Policies and worried about the impact of the fall of the “wounded giant.”  To you, Julie says “Eh screw it.  Let’s dance.”

I loved George Soros’ quote: ““The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom. It’s basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency.”  Is the US finally having it’s post-Edwardian England moment?

I’m not a macroeconomics guy – never have been, never will be.  I don’t watch CNBC, Bloomberg, CNN, or even Fox News.  When I was on the board of several public companies, I used to hit refresh on my My.Yahoo home page about 371 times a day – I no longer have a My.Yahoo home page (or any public company board seats – never again.)

I’ve learned that the day to day macro stuff doesn’t impact what I do.  It’s just noise.  And I have more than enough things that I chose to focus on, so I do my best to consciously filter out the noise.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of listening to CNBC (or Bloomberg – how’s that – I’m not even sure which one it was) while I squeezed in a run on a treadmill before dinner tonight in Boston.  Here’s the great insight that I heard from an "interest rate expert economist dude."

"I was expecting the 0.75% rate cut next week at the FOMC meeting.  It’s great that the Fed stepped up and did the emergency rate cut today.  Now we need to see what next week brings.  I think the market has already priced in another 0.25% to 0.50% rate cut next week at the FOMC meeting."

So what’s he’s really saying is "thanks Mr. Fed – can you now give me some more crack next week when the crack you just gave me gets used up?"

Yes – more Feld Job board.  I just finished up a board meeting in San Francisco for a new company that I’ve invested in (they are launching next week – you’ll hear more on Monday.) 

We’re looking for two rock star software product managers.  The company is releasing products at a torrid pace (multiple times a month) and is iterating rapidly as it builds an aggressive leadership position in its segment.  Yeah – I know – all happy talk – but it’s wild and amazing stuff.

The company is currently about 20 people going to 40, and has a huge vision.  The CEO is a star who has co-founded several successful companies.  Everyone I’ve spent time with in the company is great.

If you are in the bay area, have lots of experience as a software product manager, and are ready for a new startup, send me a note, a resume, and a list of products you’ve been involved in and I’ll forward it on.

The Feld Job board is about to kick into high gear.  Look for a handful of posts in January. 

The Silicon Flatirons program at CU Law School is looking for two research fellows.  The first one is described on their web site.  They are looking for an aspiring entrepreneur or VC who would work with the New Technology Meetup, the new Entrepreneurs Unplugged series, co-teach a class with Jason Mendelson, work with the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic, and get to know who is who in the front range entrepreneurial community. 

The second is a position that I’m planning on underwriting to do real research on software patents in part of my quest to abolish software patents.  Over the past two months I’ve been reading the academic research on software patents and it is remarkably lame.  I’ve decided to fund a Silicon Flatiron Fellow to coordinate a real research program – headquartered at CU but involving anyone in the world that is doing research on software patents. 

In both cases, the fellow will be an employee of CU and the pay will be around 60K.  For the first position, please follow the directions on the CU web site.  For the second (patent) position, please email me your resume and an overview of your interest in and historical work around this area.

Today the news started emerging that Office 2003 SP3 no longer supports older Microsoft Office file formats.  When I first read this, I figured it only referred to really obscure formats.  But I was wrong – it’s step 7 in trying to get everyone to use Microsoft’s OpenXML format.  WTF?  Has someone lost their mind?

You are an experienced software sales person.  You just drained your 2007 sales pipeline and are frustrated with the lack of growth of your existing company.  You want to join a well funded company with great products, loads of referenceable customers, in a market that is exploding.  Plus – you want to hang with people that know how to have fun.

If you fit any of the following parameters, NewsGator is looking for you.

• Experienced field sales candidates
  • NYC/NJ with Wall Street experience
  • NYC/NJ with Pharma experience
  • Bay Area with IT
  • Chicago or Dallas
• Inside sales candidates in Denver
• Pre-Sales candidates in NYC
• Demand Generation specialist – Denver

You can email me or jobs@newsgator.com.

My friend Ben Casnocha recently wrote a paper for school – he’s got an adapted version up on his website titled Analysis: H-1B Visa Issue in America.  He dug up a deliciously moronic quote and summary from a CRS Report for Congress titled Immigration Reform: Brief Synthesis of Issue. 

"Those opposing increases in temporary workers assert that there is no compelling evidence of labor shortages."  Norman Matloff of UC Davis, a forceful critic of H-1B expansion, says that U.S. companies do not import foreign workers to fill a labor shortage. If there were truly a shortage, starting salaries for grads with bachelor’s degrees in computer science or engineering would be rising (they are not), and technology companies wouldn’t hire only 2% of their job applicants as they wouldn’t have the luxury to be so picky.  And they don’t want more foreign workers in hopes of recruiting the best and brightest, according to Matloff. The average H-1B visa employee earns in the $65,000/yr range, far below what top talent commands. Rather, they want more foreign workers because they can pay them less to do the tasks currently done by domestic workers. (The law requiring employers to pay the "prevailing wage" is largely ignored in the industry.) In short, an increase in cheap H-1B talent would probably displace the American IT worker.

Aha – I’ve got it.  Let’s make sure we only hire American’s and keep everyone else out of the country.  And technology companies – stop being so damn picky with your hiring.  If you’d just hire people that weren’t as smart, you wouldn’t need non-Americans. 

Gross.

And – if you need more for your inner cynic, how about the article in today’s Rocky Mountain News titled Clouds hover in ethanol sky.  E85 (assuming you can find it) apparently costs 78% less than regular unleaded gas but gets 71% less per gallon.  Since it’s 85% ethanol, it presumably is less polluting (assuming that the total ethanol lifecycle consumes less energy than gasoline) but doesn’t save the consumer any short term money.