Silicon Alley Insider has confirmed that Microsoft has established a hiring freeze in its Entertainment and Devices division. Microsoft has denied that this freeze is company-wide. There was reportedly a memo that was sent out so if any of you idiots happen to have that handy — you know who loves you.

Nothing too earth-shaking, nothing too bad, but it’s a company memo so I’m posting it dammit. In it, he discusses competing with Apple, Google, and the fallout from Yahoo!. Happy reading:
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Microsoft has just given Yahoo! shareholders that want the company to merge an ultimatum: fire the members of the Yahoo! board and buyout talks can resume. Yahoo’s annual meeting takes place on August 1st, so the timeline is rapidly approaching.

The full letter is available at Valleywag

Earlier this year, Microsoft agreed to pay a whopping $1.2 billion for a Norwegian enterprise search company called Fast. Now, TechCrunch has translated an article from a Dagens Næringsliv which details the accounting fraud that Fast engaged in. Apparently, Fast booked $50 million in fake revenue, $20 million in bogus contracts, and $6 million in fake payouts to companies controlled by Fast executives.

Alarm bells should be ringing at Microsoft. In their frenzy to buy search players to compete with Google, they were willing to look the other way with regards to massive fraud.