Stimulus for tech and telecom $3B, but jobs still guesswork

WASHINGTON - The U.S. government has spent about $700 million on IT and telecommunications products and services under its economic stimulus program, part of a total of $3 billion that's in the spending pipeline, according to a private analysis of this data. Congress approved $787 billion in February to promote job growth and the White House recently claimed that some 600,000 jobs have been created by the stimulus spending so far. But how many jobs have been created is not as clear.

But the government data, made available through Recovery.gov , provides no details about the types of jobs and salaries and uses formulas to estimate the job impact. It calculates spending, and planned spending, based on actual contracts, or parts of contracts, that have allocated funding for IT and telecommunications communications and services. Oniva Inc., which tracks government contract spending and has set up a separate site, Recovery.org , to look at stimulus spending specifically and has tallied the amount of technology spending. The companies receiving stimulus funds report the number of direct jobs created, but don't estimate the indirect help. IBM was awarded in September a Social Security Administration contract, worth about $8.5 million, to upgrade systems around the country. For instance, the U.S. Social Security Administration is upgrading some IT equipment with money from the stimulus, but according to reports on three projects underway in Maryland, which represent just a fraction of the agency's tech spending, only 17 jobs were created or saved on about $11 million in spending.

IBM put the number of jobs created or saved at 16.8 is based on a combination of formulas developed by IBM and the White House, according to the company's filing. Similarly, Hewlett-Packard Co., didn't report any jobs also for a $1.25 million computer equipment contract . Oniva estimates that the direct stimulus spending has created just under 8,000 tech and telecom jobs, but this is a calculation based on a White House formula that says for approximately every $92,000 in recovery dollars spent, one job is created or saved, said Michael Balsam, the chief solutions officer of Onvi. Oracle Corp. reported from the same agency a contract of $1.25 million that didn't cite any jobs created. The government's formula attempts to look at indirect job creation that stem from direct awards, but Balsam has questions about way the government is reporting its data. That may help explain why newspapers such as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel are reporting that that U.S. claims that 10,000 jobs were saved or created in Wisconsin "rife with errors, double counting and inflated numbers based more on satisfying federal formulas than creating real jobs." The newspaper came to this conclusion after looking at some of the local job creation reports. The U.S. job creation claims is not based on actual contract awards, said Balsam. "Only 25% of that [stimulus] money has actually left Washington," he said.

Other newspapers are turning up similar findings after examining local project spending.

Windows Marketplace reveals fragmentation

Microsoft is making its Windows Marketplace for Mobile available to phones running older versions of its mobile software, although not all of the apps may be available to all Windows Mobile users. The Marketplace was initially only accessible by users of Microsoft's most recent software, Windows Mobile 6.5. It also said that the store now has 800 apps, triple the number available at the launch of the store in October. On Monday, Microsoft said users of phones running Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 can now shop for and download apps from its Marketplace.

But not all of those are available to everyone. The discrepancy between the total number of apps and the number of apps in the online store demonstrates the downside to a business model like Microsoft's, with an OS that can be used on different kinds of phones. Microsoft's Web site that lets anyone browse through the Marketplace has just 376 applications. "People may not see all of them on the Marketplace website or smartphone catalogue, either because of regional access or because certain apps have specific device requirements such as GPS, screen sizes, etc.," Todd Brix, senior director of mobile services and platform product management for Microsoft, said in an e-mailed statement. The model allows end-users the luxury of choosing the phone design they prefer, but it comes with limitations in interoperability. The Android Market has 12,000 apps and so far doesn't seem to have significant issues with application interoperability.

However, Google's Android operating system is also running on phones with different form factors. Apple is on the other end of the spectrum, because it makes both the software and the hardware and also runs the app store. Microsoft says there are more than 18,000 commercial applications available for Windows Mobile. That vertical integration is at least part of the reason that there are now 100,000 applications in the iPhone App Store. Developers of those apps must submit them in order for them to appear in the new Marketplace.

Otherwise, they are only available through third-party sites. "Windows Marketplace for Mobile will not aggregate all available applications, but rather provide customers with a single source for purchasing quality tested applications backed by a money back guarantee," Microsoft said in a statement.

Google Voice Frees Your Voicemail, and Your Number

Until yesterday, signing up for a Google Voice account required you to pick a new phone number - not a pleasant option for those who have kept the same digits for years. When you sign up for Google Voice - which is still not widely available to the public (you need to get an invite or request one) - you can either choose Google one-stop phone number or keep your own for a more pared-down experience. Now Google has enabled users to keep their existing phone numbers and get (most of) the features Google Voice offers, including Google's excellent voicemail service. Keeping your old digits gives you: Online, searchable voicemail Free automated voicemail transcription Custom voicemail greetings for different callers Email and SMS notifications Low-priced international calling Going for the full-throttle Google experience gives you all of the above plus: One number that reaches you on all your phones SMS via email Call screening Listen In Call recording Conference calling Call blocking If you already have a Google Voice number, you can add the voicemail option to any mobile phone associated with the account.

Happily, Google circumvented this problem earlier this month. Some of the awesome benefits are explained in Google's YouTube explanation: Since voicemails are transcribed and placed online, even made publicly available for sharing purposes, there has been some danger of said voicemails appearing in search results. These new features are both freeing and limiting: you can keep your number but sacrifice some of the goodies that make Google Voice a powerful contender in the telephony business. Follow Brennon on Twitter: @neonmadman Full number portability is likely coming in the future, after, of course, Google deals with AT&T, Apple, and the FCC. But some have high hopes that eventually the opposition will grow to accept and embrace Google Voice.

Microsoft's new lab pushes social networking boundaries

DENVER - Microsoft's Lili Cheng's passion is making things that solve real problems, so as the leader of the company's new FUSE Labs she fully expects to blur the line between pure research and product development. Her rational is simple. "In some sense if you are building social software and you don't deploy, you have no idea if it works or not," she says. In fact, after only a month with its doors open, FUSE (Future Social Experiences) has done just that, helping Microsoft's Bing team release a marriage of the search engine and Twitter just two weeks ago. "The project was very experimental but once [the Bing team] saw the stuff we had they thought it would be great to try to ship it," she said of what she considers FUSE's first by-product. 10 Microsoft research projects  Cheng spoke with Network World at the annual Defrag Conference around social computing and the social Web. Cheng says FUSE will embed itself with Microsoft product teams from SharePoint to Xbox and whoever is "fun to work with."Cheng says the Bing/Twitter project is a great example of the concept. "We just ship with the product team," she says. "I like that model, especially for [version 1] stuff." She describes FUSE as an advanced development research group. "We are pretty good at it because we just go for it," she says.  Cheng is not some young maverick who thinks caution belongs in a stiff wind; she has an extensive and respected background in research, including director of the Creative Systems Group at Microsoft Research.

She started the Social Computing Group within Microsoft Research in 2001. The team built social networking prototypes including Wallop, which spun out as a separate company in 2004; Photostory, which shipped in Windows; and the Sapphire project, an early vision for redesigning Windows. The lab is one of three - the others being Microsoft's Rich Media Labs and Startup Labs - that were merged to create FUSE. She was appointed FUSE director last month by Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie, who told Microsoft staff in a memo: "I've known Lili for many years, and have long been impressed by her vision and ability to create; to engage yet to also inspire; to lead; to make tough choices; to deliver." Cheng joined Microsoft in 1995 in the virtual worlds research group and worked on social applications such as V-Chat and Comic Chat. From 2004 to 2006 she crossed over to the product side and was the director of user experience for Windows and helped get Vista out the door. Ray and I interact all the time and he is just all over this [social experiences]," she says. Before Microsoft she worked in Apple's Advanced Technology Group, on the user interface research team. "I think the move to the labs is very natural. While Cheng won't give concrete examples of current projects, she says there is ongoing work with the SharePoint and Outlook teams and there is fascination with Twitter.  "We are fascinated by the sharing of information in these systems and how you can make it more accessible," she says, mentioning Twitter's recent addition of a list capability. "If you add a little machine learning to lists and groups you could help people's experiences a lot more." She says as people consume more and more information the question becomes: "How do we make that easier and how do we help people manage their time?" Cheng says FUSE's focus won't be strictly enterprise, but a major goal will be to embed social activity into business process such as collaboration and where "social" meets real-time and entertainment.

Follow John on Twitter: twitter.com/johnfontana She says, however, the rapid rise of social computing and social networking makes it hard to think too far into the future. "If you look at young people and the way they communicate and socialize it is hard to say where it is going to go." Regardless of where everything ends up, Cheng hopes users have the new tools in their hands. "If people can use some great new cool social stuff from Microsoft that would be awesome," she says.

Appswell's looking for a few good app ideas

Television ads for the iPhone promise that "There's an app for that." And, if you're talking about to-do lists, tip calculators, and myriad other categories, that's likely true. And, assuming you have the programming chops to actually build such an app, how can you expect to garner any attention in an App Store that's jammed with 80,000 or so other programs also hoping to catch the eyes of users? But what if there's not an app to pull off the particular task you're hoping to perform on your iPhone?

Appswell thinks it has the answer to both problems-an iPhone app that lets you propose ideas for mobile applications and vote on which ones should ever see the light of day. "We really believe the next big iPhone app idea is bouncing around the head of users," said Daniel Sullivan, Appswell's president and founder. Other users, who've registered with Appswell, can offer their feedback on the idea, voting for the ones they like. The app-also called Appswell-allows users to submit ideas for iPhone and iPod touch applications. Every four weeks or so, Appswell picks a winner based on user votes. Appswell, along with its partner Bit Group will turn the app proposal into a finished product.

The prize? The user who came up with the idea gets $1,000 plus 10 percent of the profits from subsequent App Store sales. The idea has to be something that Appswell and Bit Group are able to build and it has to adhere to Apple's standards for iPhone apps-no porn, bandwidth hogging, privacy-compromising, malicious, or illegal apps, in other words. And then the contest kicks off again. (There are some general requirements for app ideas, Sullivan says. Which, sadly, eliminates, most of my app ideas right off the bat.) While Appswell is billing its crowd-sourced approach to app development as "The American Idol of iPhone apps, contest winners will be entirely chosen by other Appswell users, with no panel of judges weighing in with its opinions. By involving users early in the development process, Appswell believes, it can find out what consumers want before apps are even built.

So don't look for the App Store equivalent of a Simon Cowell making lemon faces while you describe your idea for the perfect iPhone app. "Right now, we really want to take this as the voice of the [Appswell] community," Sullivan said. "We don't want to put a filter on it." In addition to giving users the chance to propose ideas for would-be iPhone apps, Sullivan thinks Appswell's approach solves one of the major dilemmas facing developers-namely that it's hard to stand out in the App Store with so many apps arriving on any given day. And Appswell-developed apps will have a built-in fanbase of users who voted on the app from the get-go; that potentially gives the app an edge when it eventually arrives in the App Store. Mac users might remember My Dream App, a contest that generated several "winning" app ideas, but none of the apps ever saw the light of day. It remains to be seen, though, how successful the crowd-sourcing of app ideas can be.