Oracle is Friday expected to start laying off at least 500 staff, eliminating duplication across product engineering and management, following its $8.5bn acquisition of BEA Systems.

A Pittsburgh computer consultancy is paying $45,000 in civil penalties over claims it discriminated against legal US residents by advertising only for developers on H-1B visas.

Call it compassionate capitalism or a desire to do good in these darkening times, but one US manager has placed a "for hire" ad online touting his developers' skills just one day after being forced to axe them.

Jeff Raikes, head of Microsoft's Office software business is stepping down after 26 years with the company.

The IT skills shortage is like global warming - you either believe it exists or you don't. Either way, one thing's for certain - the debate refuses to lay down and die.

Mind the gap Saturday Mind the Gap Saturday is a feature every Saturday where Blognation China tells its readership the differences - the gap - in the tech, mobile and enterprise worlds between China and the Western world.

So you know what kind of a feared corporate animal the "fried squid" is, heard that your friend has fallen victim to yet another jiaban, laughed along to the rare Taiwanese laughathon between nine and five (you should have been crackin'!), and "sharpened your knives before a fight".

Mind the Gap Saturday Mind the Gap Saturday is a feature every Saturday where Blognation China tells its readership the differences - the gap - in the tech, mobile, and enterprise worlds between China and the Western World.

How does business - and corporate culture - work in a People's Republic of 1.3 billion? Whether it's a startup, small or medium enterprise (SME), or a long-established company, here's the start of Blognation China's two part look at the "biz of biz" in China.

Alcoholic workers could receive protection from the Disability Discrimination Act despite the fact that alcoholism is specifically barred from protection, employment experts have said. They say workers could claim protection for the disease's symptoms.

Employers must curb their demands for fixed amounts of experience from job applicants to avoid falling foul of discrimination legislation, an employment law specialist has warned.

In a victory for Reg readers, MPs have rejected Ofcom's proposal for a publicly-funded new media quango.

The Commons' select committee for Culture, Media and Sport rejects the idea that the creation of a "Public Service Publisher" gatekeeper would help the market.

Microsoft has fired its chief information officer (CIO) barely two years after he was appointed to the post.

Stuart Scott was cut loose following an investigation into a "violation of company policies". Microsoft is not saying anything more on the matter.

Open source and scripting technologies may be capturing the headlines lately, but Java and Microsoft language skills still put developers top in salary talks with bosses.

A company's claim for ownership of the copyright in a piece of software has failed because it was not explicitly stated in a contract. Meridian International Services had said that its ownership was an implied term of an agreement.

CSC is shifting more UK jobs offshore in an effort to control costs.

The latest round of redundancies will hit the Global Infrastructure Services (GIS) department. Initially, voluntary redundancies will be offered but compulsory job losses are likely if not enough volunteers are found.

MySpace will open up to third party developers within the next few months.

Facebook opened up its APIs in May this year and has been rewarded with a flood of applications written by third parties for the site.

Google and IBM want their future employees to have large-scale cluster computing chops, so they're investing several million to get them while they're young. The companies are teaming up to promote the study in academia.

IBM's Italian workforce is set to strike in Second Life tomorrow (27 September).

Organised by the UNI union, staff aim to hit the company’s virtual islands, as well as putting real life protesters on picket line duty outside its Italian facilities.

Mozilla plans to replicate the success of its Firefox web browser in the email and communication market with the creation of a new firm.

The as-yet-unnamed business will develop internet communications software based on the Thunderbird product, code, and brand. The new initiative aims to nurture an open source developer community, in the tradition of the Firefox web browser, but focused on email and communication clients. Whether this development work will include the creation of instant messaging software and the like isn't immediately clear.

You can never be too rich or too thin and it's hard not to be impressed by Pano Logic's arguments for a Size Zero desktop. Announced last week, the world's 'first truly virtualised desktop' has no software at all - operating across the network to a server-based instance of Microsoft Vista or XP. This makes it more secure (no local software to get corrupted), cheap (no local software to upgrade) and green (low power consumption). Pano Logic reckons it cuts total cost of ownership by 70 per cent - saving as much as $3,200 per desktop over three years.

Monster Worldwide, the owner of employment search site Monster.com, last week began notifying the estimated 1.3 million users affected by a breach that leaked résumé information and pledged to beef up network monitoring and defenses to prevent such a leak from happening again.