Bridget Carey: The Digital Dish

Citrix to cut jobs by 10 percent; employees find out Friday

If you haven't already heard, Fort Lauderdale-based Citrix cutting 10 percent of its staff. Out of the roughly 5,000 employees, about 1,800 are in South Florida. And most U.S. employees will find out by Friday if they still have a job. Employees are finding out through private meetings with human resources staff about their severance and benefits.

I had a convo over a few e-mails with Citrix spokesman Eric Armstrong. He said this was only the second time in the company's 20-year history that they've had to take action like this.

"Our goal is to ensure that we reduce our expense structure enough through this single event that we only have to do it once," he wrote.

I also asked if this is going to impact the company's new virtualization product that was part of a collaboration with Intel that was just announced last week. He said each of their virtualization solution areas (application, desktop and server) will obviously be impacted by job cuts, but "decisions will be made to keep the right level of strategic investment on these products.  We are not divesting of any product."

There have been speculations in the past about how Citrix was thinking of moving headquarters out of South Florida. Armstrong said there were no plans to move. But the company is doing a few other things to cut costs. He wrote:

"When it comes to cost reductions, eliminating any employee’s position is always a last resort. This restructuring is part of a much broader plan to streamline operations across the entire company. We are rationalizing the use of temporary and contract workers; cutting travel expenses with a stronger focus on holding virtual meetings and events; delaying non-strategic projects; changing the way we conduct corporate events by eliminating or replacing them with lower cost alternatives; delaying or eliminating lower priority capital spending; and asking everyone to re-consider every discretionary dollar they spend. We are also centralizing all of our procurement processes to gain additional leverage and economies of scale with all our suppliers worldwide."

He added that global IT spending is expected to decline by 4 to 6 percent in 2009, meaning less companies buying from software, hardware and services vendors.

Product Review: How can you not love Road Mice?

It's a wireless mouse designed as a car! Headlights light up when you click! Comes in more than 40 designs! YES! YES! YES!

I don't think I'll ever review a mouse as awesome as the Road Mice. I'm a toy-loving geek and I just couldn't get enough of these. (They even have the concept Camaro! But sadly, they don't have one painted like Bumblebee from Transformers.)

The only downside (and it's a minor one) is that when it goes idle for several minutes, the only way to wake it back up is to click it or move the scroll wheel -- you can't just move it to turn it back on. It's a way for it to save battery life, but some may see it as annoying.

But one reader wrote to me this morning with a word of caution about the Road Mice...

Bridget, Beware! the "Road Mouse" maybe cute, but do not be fooled it is extremely dangerous and could lead to "Desk Rage." Imagine a office full of "Road Mice." It would be so tempting, when your computer "freezes" to just hit the accelerator and drive your "Road Mouse" right into the monitor and chortle at the ensuing fireball. "Road Mouse" envy is also dangerous. Suppose you have the "Yugo" road mouse, while the guy next to your has the "Masserratti" road mouse, and gets all the women. It would be so easy to sneak up on him, using the cord on the "Road Mouse" as a garrotte strangle him, and feed his remains into the paper shredder.  

-- Deeply Disturbed Dean

Thank you for the warning, Dean.

Watch the video below to see the mouse in action. This week I've moved my review out of my bedroom to our brand new TV studio: Studio H! What do you think of the change?

BYOC - Bring Your Own Computer - to work?

In today's Miami Herald, I have a story about how Citrix and Intel are pooling their talent to improve virtualization technology and change the way we think of computers at work.

The grand idea behind virtualization is that you can access your work desktop from anywhere (with the right technology, of course). So on your personal home laptop you could access work software and files without having to download anything.

Virtualization already is around, but this new product they are working on will be built into new computers -- and the two companies say that the new product makes it much more secure and will help the technology be adopted on a much wider scale.

About 300 Citrix employees are already doing BYOC -- bring your own computer -- to work. They got vouchers of $2,100 to each go out and get a laptop (that has the new product in it) -- and it would be their own personal laptop. They don't have a computer at work anymore, meaning IT employees don't have to manage their computers anymore. Rather, they oversee the virtual "image" of your desktop. And any malware or non-work-related programs on your personal computer wouldn't effect the corporate desktop because it exists separately.

Does it sound like something you would want your workplace to incorporate? It's a nice perk for work/life balance since it encourages bosses to let more employees work from home (or anywhere). Or do you think something like this would just be a hassle?

Free HBO (for some of you) in honor of Obama Inauguration

If you have digital cable, you'll be able to watch the Sunday Inaugural celebrations for free on HBO. Here are the details on what is offered from South Florida's cable providers:

COMCAST:

• Comcast digital and online customers get free HBO from 2:25 p.m. until 9 p.m. to watch the Inaugural Celebration Concert on Sunday, January 18th. At 2:30 p.m. HBO is showing the "We Are One" Concert, at 4:30 there's the documentary "Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House," followed by "Blades of Glory" (Nothing says inauguration party like Blades of Glory??) and then a repeat of the Inaugural Concert at 7 p.m.
• Comcast's On Demand programming will include: Barack Obama's inaugural address, his most famous speeches, his biography, Michelle Obama's DNC speech, a tour of the White House and The history of Air Force One.

DIRECTV:

• Free HBO Preview going on now until January 18th.
• Between 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 20th, the DIRECTV Mix Channel will display eight channels on one screen to showcase the best live coverage from broadcast and cable news networks. The Inauguration Mix will replace the News Mix on viewer channel 102 and 352. There will also be a "blog ticker" on the bottom of the screen.

AT&T U-VERSE:

• Free HBO during the Obama Inaugural Celebration Concert at 2:30 on Sunday. HBO will be free all night until Midnight.

ATLANTIC BROADBAND:

• All customers who have a digital box will also be able to watch the concert for free, according to an e-mail from an Atlantic Broadband spokeswoman.

Product Review: The LG Lotus is the ultimate girly phone

So when Sprint sends me a phone that is purple with a flower design printed on it... shaped like a make-up compact... and has a full QWERTY keyboard... how can I not fall in love with it?

The keyboard of the LG Lotus is a little too squished for my liking, but as I said in today's review, women are used to suffering a little for the price of beauty. And at $99.99, it's not a bad price at all.

Check out my video review below or read the full review in today's Miami Herald.

Product Review: Logio Secure Password Organizer

Hello readers! I'm back from vacation with a new review video for you. This week I have a credit-card sized diddy called the Logio Secure Password Organizer by Atek. It stores all your passwords in life. Using it reminded me of one of those really old-school cheap calculators, cause it doesn't have buttons -- it's just a flat membrane keypad you have to smack.

While first using it, I was going to scream. There are several steps in setting it up (such as creating a master password), and if you pause for a minute or two between steps, it turns off and you have to start over again. I didn't realize this until it shut off on me twice. Plus, filling all your passwords out on this thing will take some time since typing isn't fast, so you better have patience.

It has tons of potential -- you can create more complicated passwords and you can just throw it in your wallet. If you think this is something that could be useful for you, you better not forget the master password to use it, or you might as well throw this thing in a blender. There's no resetting it.