At most companies, the post of chief information officer is a humdrum administrative job, making sure that the servers running the CEO’s BlackBerry don’t go down. At Microsoft, add to that this burden: Serving as a part-time shill for the company’s products. If anyone could change that, it may be Tony Scott, freshly hired as the software company’s fourth CIO in as many years. Scott, Tony, replaces Scott, Stuart, who left in scandal.

So why does Tony Scott stand a chance at shaking things up? As CTO of General Motors, he was a big customer of both Microsoft and Sun. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, and Scott McNealy of Sun had been carrying on a war of words. Scott, with his big budget, brought the two to the negotiating table and forced them to make their competing software offerings more compatible.

Ah, but there’s the rub. As Microsoft’s CIO, Ballmer will control Scott’s budget, not the other way around. And Scott will feel pressured to run an all-Microsoft shop. Will Scott, with those shackles, be as effective a force for change within Microsoft as he was on the outside? What I’d like to see is Scott declare a piece of Microsoft software unfit even for internal use, and replace it with a better alternative, as so many of Microsoft’s customers have done. But that’s unlikely.

Are Microsoft’s second-tier executives all second-rate? Apparently. Microsoft has just tapped Stephen Elop, the COO of Juniper Networks, to run its Business division, which includes the highly profitable Office suite. Elop, the former CEO of Macromedia, is a good fit. But his hire sends an unwelcome message to up-and-comers within Redmond: Keep toiling away, but don’t aspire to run one of Microsoft’s great franchises. Bill Gates can find someone better than you elsewhere. Which should be as good a signal as any for them to start leaving.

Drew Schutte, the longtime publisher of Conde Nast’s Wired, will now run the sales side of The New Yorker and its website. David Carey, publisher of Portfolio, is adding Wired to his responsibilities. [BusinessWeek]

Think you need capital to become a venture capitalist? Not at Battery Ventures. There, you just need a working knowledge of how Google works. “Google arguably is at the center of the online advertising ecosystem,” Battery Ventures partner Roger Lee told the New York Times. “If you understand how Google works and how associated business models work, it gives you a great lens to understand other advertising companies,” Lee said, explaining why he recruited former Google advertising exec Satya Patel to the firm. Sounds good. When does Scoble start?

Google is cracking down on copyright-infringing videos uploaded to its site. Sort of. Click through to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire ” on YouTube and you’ll see a yellow box which reads, “This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by all copyright holders. The audio has been disabled.” This is bad news for Songza, the Web jukebox which rips the audio track from YouTube videos.

If there’s no audio track to rip, Songza will go silent. But after so many obnoxious parodies using BIlly Joel’s song in the past few weeks, we’re not so sure that, in this particular instance, Google’s ban isn’t actually good news for the rest of us.

Source:Valleywag

Larry Ellison’s likely too busy counting all the money he made today to ask this question, but we will: Why did NetSuite’s shares rocket upwards in the final hours of trading today? The company went public with a Dutch auction, a process meant to get the best and fairest price for the company shares. This morning, it seemed like it had gone off flawlessly: The stock opened at $26, the auction-set price, and traded near there all morning. Then it suddenly raced upwards to close at $35.50, making the whole company worth $2.1 billion, and Ellison’s stake $1.3 billion.

One theory: Avaricious day traders, hoping that the stock might drop from its IPO price, may have sold it short. As the price slowly rose, they would have found themselves losing money, a position known as a “short squeeze.” To get out, they’d have to buy shares of a thinly traded stock, in a rising market — a formula guaranteed to push shares sky-high. Note that NetSuite only sold 6.2 million shared on the market, but 15.9 million shares changed hands today. That’s a lot of buying and selling. Any other theories? Let me know.

Source:Valleywag

Matthew Szulik is out as Red Hat’s CEO. CNET reports that the widely admired Szulik is stepping down because of his wife’s health problems. But don’t worry, open source cultists, the man replacing Szulik, Jim Whitehurst, has years of experience … in the airline industry. As Delta Airlines’ former COO, Whitehurst carefully guided the airline back from bankruptcy. Which is just like running a company with 28 percent revenue growth.

Think TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington has a problem with women? Boston blogger Ryan Barrett got into “virtual journalism” in part due to her admiration for “Michael Arrington’s razor-sharp sarcasm.” But that admiration didn’t survive an in-person meeting, according to a November post to Barrett’s blog. My favorite part is when she scolds Arrington on when it’s appropriate to “bring out a little prick.”

After a painstakingly awkward exchange where it became increasingly clear that I was being mocked by Arrington and his pals, we took a quick photo together. I smiled and was just about to thank him when he snickered this out of the side of his mouth, “Whatever. It was certainly a pleasure meeting you too.” Then he turned his back to me and laughed with his friends.

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Source:Valleywag

As his three-year legal battle with Apple reaches a settled end, Nick Ciarelli, the writer behind Think Secret, states that shutting down the Mac rumor site while not revealing his sources is a “positive solution for both sides.” Most people aren’t buying it, blaming Apple for shutting down Think Secret. Which is exactly why it is a positive result for Ciarelli.

Mac fanatics don’t let you walk away from the life of Apple rumors easily — like a gang, you’re expected to be in it for life. But let’s be honest: Think Secret hasn’t been the same since Apple threatened the blog three years ago. The rumors haven’t been as sharp, and the competition now comes from professional publications and Wall Street stock analysts, all of whom have come to see the Mac rumor mill as a value generator, not a fun hobby. As a 13 year old compiling rumors under the alias Nick de Plume from his parents’ home, Ciarelli was living his dream. In the passing years, I suspect Ciarelli’s dream turned into a nightmare.

As a Harvard senior and an editor at the Crimson, Ciarelli must realize it’s time to grow up and begin what is surely a promising professional career. He can add to his resume a successful defense of his sources against a big, bad corporation — a feather in de Plume’s cap as he enters the job market. Is Think Secret’s demise a crying shame, a travesty, an offense against the First Amendment? No. It’s just about time.

Source:Valleywag

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Online video startup Roo.com, based in New York, just laid off a fifth of its workforce and lost four board members. Earlier this month, an executive was indicted for money laundering and felony grand larceny. So who’s the man to turn this ship around?

Try Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, former CEO of Web 1.0 bust GovWorks.com and subject of the documentary Startup.com.

PaidContent has a typically thorough if dull take on the story, but my favorite coverage so far comes from Silicon Alley Insider. Of Roo’s choice, SAI’s Peter Kafka writes, “No need to roast Kaleil for his past failure — who doesn’t have some egg on their face from Bubble 1.0?”

What’s this we hear about Google executive Marissa Mayer’s holiday party, held in San Francisco at her ritzy condo in the Four Seasons this Saturday? A hot Santa with a lump not made of coal? Scandalous! Does her Facebook profile still say she’s looking for “random play”?

Source:Valleywag

The New York Times reports that Valleywag emeritus Nick Denton, founder of Gawker Media and my boss, will take over as editor of Gawker.com, his flagship and our sister site, on January 2. My first reaction to the news: Well, good. This should keep him busy.

Gawker listed the job two weeks ago:

It’s no longer enough to take stories from the New York Times, and add a dash of snark. Gawker needs to break and develop more stories. And the new managing editor will need to hire and manage reporters, as well as bloggers. Gawker.com receives more than 10m pageviews per month. Think of Gawker less as a blog than as a full-blown news site. The right candidate will oversee Gawker’s evolution.

A later post puts out a call for experienced print reporters to focus on original items. Denton fits the bill: When I first met him, he was covering Silicon Valley for the Financial Times.

Gawker likes to say the New York Times is just a fancy blog. With this change, is Gawker to become just a bilious newspaper? Whatever. Denton roughly doubled Valleywag’s traffic before he handed this site to me. Maybe he’s just eager to prove that wasn’t a fluke.

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Rep. John Conyers, D-MI, said he was “dismayed to learn” that the head of the Department of Justice’s antitrust division may approve the XM-Sirius merger “over the objections of department staff.” [AP]

Source:Valleywag

We’d heard rumors Jobster was close to replacing Jason Goldberg as its CEO, and the Seattle P-I now confirms them. Jeff Seely, another Seattle entrepreneur who just sold online stock-buying site ShareBuilder for $220 million to ING Direct, will take over the online job board on January 7. His first order of business: Raising more money, I suspect.

In June, a commenter claimed the company only had $7 million left of its $48 million in funding from Mayfield, Ignition, and other VCs. Goldberg conceded to the P-I that the company was still not profitable, but a company spokesman wouldn’t confirm the commenter’s figures.

Whatever the number was in June, this much is certain: Six months later, Jobster has even less money now. Almost as certain: John Connors, the former Microsoft CFO on Jobster’s board, has too much of his reputation at stake to allow Jobster to fail.

I was a bit surprised when Surya Yalamanchili, the former reality-TV star fired by Donald Trump from The Apprentice, told me he’d landed at LinkedIn. One would think his broadcast-TV star turn would afford him more than enough introductions in the Valley. Perhaps he likes a challenge. Yalamanchili, who previously worked for Procter & Gamble and started this week as LinkedIn’s director of marketing, has traded packaged goods for social networks. His first task: Figuring out how to brand LinkedIn as new and improved. Despite the differences between the two sites, people won’t stop talking about how Facebook will soon move in on LinkedIn’s turf.