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Is Yahoo causing Windows Phone 7 data-upload concerns (and more Microsoft news from the week)

More Microsoft news from around the Web, including the latest on data-uploading issues with WP7, continuing brain drain and a Seattle SaaS startup with deep Microsoft roots.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

It's been a long short week here in snowy New York. Here are a few additional Microsoft news bits about which I didn't have a chance to blog earlier this week.

Microsoft acknowledges third-party causing data-uploading problems on Windows Phone 7 devices: Microsoft officials said this week that the excessive data uploading experienced by some WP7 users is due to a third-party application. Microsoft declined to name the company or application, but did say company officials were working with the company in question to fix the application. Microsoft may possibly provide a workaround, officials said. I've seen two credible reports that are pointing fingers at Yahoo Mail as the possible culprit. I didn't receive a response from Yahoo when I asked, and Microsoft execs also declined to comment specifically on Yahoo Mail being possibly at fault.

Speaking of Windows Phone 7, MobileTechWorld.com posted this week its very in-depth WP7 review -- complete with a section on missing features and updates -- that's worth checking out.

The Microsoft brain-drain train chugs along: At the risk of turning my "All About Microsoft" blog into a "No longer at Microsoft" one, I'm continuing to post information about some of the more public folks leaving the company. In addition to posts I did this week on Microsoft's head of consumer marketing for Windows and one of its Kinect contributors and researchers leaving the company, there are others who made headlines this week. Julien Codorniou, who managed the Microsoft BizSpark program for startups, is going to Facebook. (Thanks to @pradeepviswav for the heads up on that one.) And Emilio Umeoka, the Microsoft president of Asia Pacific, is going to Juniper Networks to run the company's worldwide channel program. Hmm. Maybe it's time for Microsoft to start touting publicly its new hires via some tweets and Facebook updates.....

Can you have HTML compliance without agreement on what "HTML" is? A day after the W3C (and Microsoft) put their muscle behind a new HTML5 marketing campaign and logo, the editor of the Hypertext Markup Language standard (among others) said the W3C's definition of HTML5 is basically meaningless. (The HTML editor is Google employee Ian Hickson.) The Web Hypertext Applications Technology Working Group (WHATWG) is advocating that HTML with no version number -- and no related technologies, such as CSS or font formats -- be considered the "real" HTML standard. (WHATWG members include Apple, Mozilla and Opera.) In any case, Microsoft is firmly in the W3C/HTML5 camp with IE 9.

Update (January 24): The W3C has pared back the list of technologies covered by the HTML5 logo to just HTML5 (not HTML5 plus SVG, plus CSS, plus Web Sockets, etc.).

Former Softies get SaaSy:A bunch of former Microsoft execs have launched a Seattle-based startup called buuteeq. The new venture is offering independent hotels a software-as-a-service (SaaS) digital-marketing system to create web sites, mobile phone content, a Facebook presence and direct-to-hotel online reservations. Among buuteeq's management are CEO Adam Brownstein, former Director of Business Development in the Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division; Chief Marketing Officer Forest Key, former Senior Director in the Microsoft Server & Tools Division; Brian Saab, fomer head of the worldwide marketing team for the Microsoft Expression tools; and board member Charles Fitzgerald, who was previously General Manager of Platform Strategy at Microsoft.

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