Justin Bieber Brings His Mom to the American Music Awards

By Maggie Coughlan

11/18/2012 at 09:35 PM EST

Pattie Mallette and Justin Bieber

Jonathan Alcorn/Reuters/Landov

Mother knows best!

Despite his recent split from Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber still had a date for the 40th American Music Awards on Sunday: his mother, Pattie Mallette.

Malette – who recently penned Nowhere But Up: The Story of Justin Bieber's Mom – looked thrilled to pose for photographs with her son.

When Bieber won the first award of the night, for favorite pop/rock male artist, his proud mother, 38, beamed.

"I want to say this is for all the haters who thought I was just here for one or two years. I feel like I'm going to be here for a very long time," the singer said as he accepted the award.

The award was a highlight during a rocky week for Bieber, who on Friday reunited with Gomez, 20, for dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Los Angeles. But just five minutes after entering the restaurant, the couple emerged with Gomez looking visibly "mad," says a source.

Later that night, Bieber Tweeted "Things aren't always easy. there is a lot of pressure. im figuring it all out. im trying. but i care, i notice, i still hear u. #Beliebers."

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Global shares rally on U.S. fiscal hopes

LONDON (Reuters) - World shares rose and German government bond prices fell on Monday as investors were encouraged by an improving outlook for talks to resolve an imminent fiscal crunch in the United States.

U.S. lawmakers expressed confidence on Sunday that they could reach a deal to avert the $600 billion "fiscal cliff", which threatened to send the giant economy back into recession.

"If we don't get any deal, and the automatic provisions kick in, it will be a massive blow to economic confidence globally," said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.

"And any attempt to just kick this down the road for a later date is also going to have negative implications for the global economy, not just the United States."

However, the rally in share markets only erased part of the losses seen last week with investors still concerned about the ongoing battle to find a long-term funding solution for Greece and the rising tension in the Middle East.

The MSCI world equity index <.miwd00000pus> was up 0.5 percent at 318.94, recovering from a 2.7 percent loss last week, its biggest five-day fall since early June. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> also rose 0.5 percent, recovering from Friday's nine-week low.

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> of top European shares was up 0.7 percent in early trading with London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> as much as 1.0 percent higher. <.l><.eu/>

In the bond market German Bund futures fell 14 ticks to 143.17, although they remain firmly within the 142.83 to 143.48 range that held throughout last week's trading, while U.S. debt futures also dipped.

DOLLAR STRENGTH

In the currency market the dollar rose on growing expectations that a new Japanese government, after the elections to be held next month, will push the Bank of Japan into taking aggressive monetary stimulus measures to boost economic growth.

The dollar rose to as high as 81.59 yen, its highest level since April 25, before settling to trade around 81.25 yen, down 0.2 percent from late U.S. trade on Friday.

The BOJ begins a two-day policy meeting on Monday, and is not expect to take fresh policy steps ahead of the December 16 vote.

The euro rose about 0.1 percent to $1.2755 as the market waits to see how euro zone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund will resolve their differing views on managing Greece's debt mountain.

European officials are due to meet on Tuesday and are expected to discuss a two-year funding deal for Greece deal which would postpone any longer-term solution until after a September 2013 German general election.

"As the EU prepares a bundled aid package to avert a Greek default, headlines coming out of the meeting may fuel a relief rally in the euro, but we will maintain our bearish forecast for the single currency as the region faces a deepening recession," said David Song, currency analyst at DailyFX.

In oil markets, Brent crude rose to almost $110 a barrel as escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians fuelled concerns about supplies from the Middle East.

Brent crude for January delivery was up $1 to $109.95 and U.S. crude futures gained 80 cents to $87.72 a barrel.

(Reporting by Richard Hubbard; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Israel, Gaza fighting rages on as Egypt seeks truce

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel bombed Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip from air and sea for a fifth straight day on Sunday, preparing for a possible ground invasion while also spelling out its conditions for a truce.

Palestinian fire into Israel subsided during the night but resumed in the morning, with two rockets targeting Tel Aviv. Both were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome air shield.

"As of now we have struck more than 1,000 targets, so Hamas should do the math over whether it is worth or not to cease fire," said Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon.

"If there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack," he wrote on Twitter.

Fifty Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 14 children, have been killed since the Israeli offensive began, Palestinian officials said. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three civilians.

Israel unleashed intensive air strikes on Wednesday, killing the military commander of the Hamas Islamist group that governs Gaza and spurns peace with the Jewish state.

Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has plagued Israeli border towns for years and which has now targeted Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Air raids continued past midnight into Sunday, with warships shelling from the sea. Two Gaza City media buildings were hit, witnesses said, wounding six journalists and damaging facilities belonging to Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain's Sky News.

An employee of Beirut-based al Quds television station lost his leg in the attack, medics said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the strike had targeted a rooftop "transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity". International media organizations demanded further clarification.

Three other attacks killed three children and wounded 14 other people, medical officials said.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo, as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that "there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees".

Egypt has mediated previous ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, the latest of which unraveled with recent violence.

A Palestinian official told Reuters the truce discussions would continue in Cairo on Sunday, saying "there is hope", but that it was too early to say whether the efforts would succeed.

At a Gaza news conference, Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida voiced defiance, saying: "This round of confrontation will not be the last against the Zionist enemy and it is only the beginning."

SYRIAN FRONT

Israel's military also saw action along the northern frontier, firing into Syria on Saturday in what it said was a response to shooting aimed at its troops in the occupied Golan Heights. Israel's chief military spokesman, citing Arab media, said it appeared Syrian soldiers were killed in the incident.

There were no reported casualties on the Israeli side from the shootings, the third case this month of violence seen as a spillover of battles between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebels.

With Israeli tanks and artillery poised along the Gaza frontier for a possible ground operation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his cabinet in Jerusalem on Sunday for its weekly meeting.

On Friday, ministers decided to double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000 and 30,000 soldiers have already been called up.

Israel's operation so far has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called its right to self-defense, but there was also a growing number of calls from world leaders to seek an end to the hostilities.

British Prime Minister David Cameron "expressed concern over the risk of the conflict escalating further and the danger of further civilian casualties on both sides", in a conversation with Netanyahu, a spokesperson for Cameron said.

London was "putting pressure on both sides to de-escalate," the spokesman said, adding that Cameron had urged Netanyahu "to do everything possible to bring the conflict to an end."

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said the United States would like to see the conflict resolved through "de-escalation" and diplomacy, but also believed Israel had the right to self-defense.

Diplomats at the United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was expected to visit Israel and Egypt in the coming week to push for an end to the fighting.

A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Netanyahu, favored to win a January election.

The last Gaza war, a three-week Israeli blitz and invasion over the New Year of 2008-09, killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died in the conflict.

The current conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

One major change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, potentially narrowing Israel's maneuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

In attacks on Saturday, Israel destroyed the house of a Hamas commander near the Egyptian border.

Casualties there were averted however, because Israel had fired non-exploding missiles at the building beforehand from a drone, which the militant's family understood as a warning to flee, witnesses said.

Israeli aircraft also bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a police headquarters.

Israel's "Iron Dome" missile interceptor system has destroyed more than 200 incoming rockets from Gaza in mid-air since Wednesday, saving Israeli towns and cities from potentially significant damage.

However, one salvo fired on Sunday evaded Iron Dome and wounded two people after hitting a house in the coastal city of Ashkelon, police said.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Crispian Balmer)

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Kansas robber recognizes victim from prison, gives wallet back

KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) – A Kansas robber who helped seize a man’s cell phone and wallet at gunpoint recognized the victim as an ex-convict he had served time with and gave the possessions back, police said on Thursday.

A Wichita, Kansas man reported that two young men approached him on the street late on Wednesday, one of them brandishing a large semi-automatic handgun, Wichita police Sergeant Joe Schroeder said.

The gunman demanded the victim’s phone and took his wallet while the second man searched his pockets, Schroeder said.

“Then, he (the second man) realized he spent some time in prison with him. He apologized, shook hands and walked away,” Schroeder said.

Although the victim went to police and said he knew one of the robbers in prison, the man said he did not think he could identify them in a suspect line-up, Schroeder said.

(Editing by Greg McCune and Eric Walsh)

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Going off "cliff" with a bungee cord

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The 1987 crash. The Y2K bug. The debt ceiling debacle of 2011.

All these events, in the end, turned out to be buying opportunities for stocks. So will the "fiscal cliff," some investors say as they watch favorite stocks tumble during the political give-and-take happening in Washington.

The first round of talks aimed at avoiding the "fiscal cliff" caused a temporary rise in equities on Friday, signaling Wall Street's recent declines could be a buying opportunity. The gains were small and sentiment remains weak, but it suggests hope for market bulls.

Though shares ended moderately higher on Friday, it was not enough to offset losses for the week. The S&P was down 1.5 percent, while both the Dow and the Nasdaq fell 1.8 percent.

The S&P 500 is down more than 5 percent in the seven sessions that followed President Barack Obama's re-election. Uncertainty arose as attention turned to Washington's task of dealing with mandated tax hikes and spending cuts that could take the U.S. economy back into recession.

Some see the market's move as an overreaction to hyperbolic headlines about policy gridlock in Washington, believing stocks may start to rebound in what should be a quiet few days ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday next Thursday.

"It just doesn't seem to make any sense that you suddenly wake up the day after the election and realize we've got a fiscal cliff," said Krishna Kumar, partner at New York hedge fund Goose Hollow Alpha Advisors.

Not long ago the S&P was on target for its second-best year in the last 10, riding a 17 percent advance in 2012. That's been halved to about 8 percent, which isn't bad but disappointing compared with just a month ago.

Investors have been selling the year's winners. Apple is down 25 percent from its peak above $700. General Electric is down 14 percent; Google has lost 16 percent. Overall, the stocks that make up the top 10 percent of performers in the month prior to Election Day have been the worst performers since, according to Bespoke Investment Group of Harrison, New York.

"I think it's a good opportunity to be long stocks at these levels," said Kumar.

Hikes on capital gains and dividend taxes are on the line, and Obama has dug in his heels on what he sees as a mandate to make the tax code more progressive.

He seems to have the upper hand in dealings with Congress because Republican lawmakers don't want to see tax rates increase, which is what will happen if no solution is found by the beginning of 2013. Republicans don't want to take the blame for driving the economy over the cliff.

The current crisis is similar to last year's fight to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, which led to the downgrade of the United States' top credit rating in early August 2011.

During the dealings, the S&P 500 lost 18.8 percent between its peak in July 2011 and its bottom in August. As the market slid, the political standoff badly hurt investors' confidence in Washington, setting off a spike in volatility.

In the end a deal was announced that raised the ceiling and put off longer-term fiscal decisions until January 1, 2013, setting the stage for today's "fiscal cliff" crisis.

After staying flat through September 2011, the S&P 500 jumped 31 percent between its October low and the end of March.

BUY THE DIP?

Gridlock in Washington and all that could possibly go wrong with the economy if a deal is not reached have grabbed the headlines, but the negotiations leave room for stock market gains. Congressional leaders said Friday they will work through the Thanksgiving holiday recess to find a solution.

"The debate over how to solve (the fiscal cliff) may be more productive than is commonly recognized," said Brad Lipsig, senior portfolio manager at UBS Financial Services in New York.

"The U.S. is facing a major debt overhang, and serious steps toward addressing it might ultimately be viewed as a positive for future growth," he said. "The market may recognize this and, after a time of hand wringing, recover from the concerns with a renewed sense of optimism."

The recent selling took the S&P 500's relative strength index - a technical measure of internal strength - below 30 this week, indicating the benchmark is oversold and due for a rebound.

The RSI in four of the 10 S&P sectors - utilities, telecoms, consumer staples and technology - is below 30 and the highest RSI reading, for the consumer discretionary sector, is below 40, suggesting a bounce is in store.

"What I want to do is what we did during the decline following the budget negotiations in the summer of 2011: The lower the stock market goes, the more I want to own stock," said Brian Reynolds, chief market strategist at New York-based Rosenblatt Securities.

"If we go off the cliff it will be with a bungee cord attached," he said.

KEEP CALM AND HEDGE

Volatility is expected to rise through the end of November and to spike in late December if no agreement on the fiscal cliff is reached in Congress. Alongside comes opportunity for those with high risk tolerance.

"Recently, volatility has increased in the market overall. You can't really pick it up in the VIX yet, but I think as we get through November, I think you're likely to see the VIX be at a relatively higher level," said Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist at Delta Global Asset Management in Boston.

In 2011, the VIX averaged 19.2 in July and 35 in August. So far this month the average is 17.8 and it is expected to spike if negotiations on the cliff drag into late next month.

"Looking at the range of possibilities, I would say any of them would be better than sitting here waiting. I would even put going off the fiscal cliff in that category," said Jill Cuniff, president of Seattle-based Edge Asset Management Inc, which manages about $20 billion.

"But we don't believe Congress will let that happen; there's going to be some middle ground here."

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos and Jonathan Spincer, additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Egypt opens tiny window for Gaza truce

GAZA (Reuters) - Egypt opened a tiny window to emergency peace diplomacy in Gaza on Friday, but hopes for even a brief ceasefire while its prime minister was inside the bombarded enclave to talk to leaders of the Islamist Hamas movement were immediately dashed.

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil arrived in the Gaza Strip on Friday officially to show solidarity with the Palestinian people after two days of relentless attacks by Israeli warplanes determined to end militant rocket fire at Israel.

Israel said it would cease fire during the visit if Hamas did too. But rockets fired from Gaza hit several sites in southern Israel and the Israeli air force responded with an attack on the house of Hamas's commander for southern Gaza, a Hamas source said.

Medics said it killed two people, one of them a child, raising the Palestinian death toll since Wednesday to 21. Three Israelis were killed by a rocket on Thursday.

Air raid sirens wailed over Tel Aviv on Thursday sending residents rushing for shelter and two long-range rockets exploded just south of the metropolis. The location of the impacts was not disclosed.

They exploded harmlessly, police said. But they have shaken the 40 percent of Israelis who, until now, lived in safety beyond range of the southern rocket zone.

"Even Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu was rushed into a reinforced room," said cabinet minister Gilad Eldan.

Israel has started drafting 16,000 reserve troops, in what could be a precursor to invasion.

The 21 Palestinian dead include including eight militants and 13 civilians, among them seven children and a pregnant woman. A Hamas rocket killed three Israeli civilians a town north of Gaza, men and women in their 30s.

Their last war, a lopsided three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-2009, left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, mostly civilian, and killed 13 Israelis.

THE MESSAGE

"If Hamas says it understands the message and commits to a long ceasefire, via the Egyptians or anyone else, this is what we want. We want quiet in the south and a stronger deterrence," Israeli vice prime minister Moshe Yaalon said.

"The Egyptians have been a pipeline for passing messages. Hamas always turns to request a ceasefire. We are in contact with the Egyptian defense ministry. And it could be channel in which a ceasefire is reached," he told Israeli radio.

At the same time, there were signs of possible preparations for a ground assault on Gaza. In pre-dawn strikes, warplanes bombed open land along the border zone with Israel, in what could be a softening-up stage to clear the way for tanks.

Self-propelled heavy artillery was seen near the border.

The United States has asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the Islamist movement to stop its recent rocket attacks from Gaza, a White House adviser said.

"We've ... urged those that have a degree of influence with Hamas, such as Turkey and Egypt and some of our European partners, to use that influence to urge Hamas to de-escalate," Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, said in a conference call with reporters.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in an interview with Voice of America: "I understand the reasons Israel is doing what they're doing. They've been the target of missiles coming in from Gaza ... ."

EGYPT ON THE SPOT

The Gaza conflagration has stoked the flames of a Middle East ablaze with two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to inflame the whole region.

Egypt's new Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, viewed by Hamas as a protector, led a chorus of denunciation of the Israeli strikes by allies of the Palestinians.

Mursi faces domestic pressure to act tough. But Egypt gets $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military aid and looks to Washington for help with its ailing economy, constraining Mursi despite his need to show Egyptians that his policies differ from those of his U.S.-backed predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Thursday urged Egypt to do more to help the Palestinians.

"We call upon the brothers in Egypt to take the measures that will deter this enemy," the Hamas prime minister said.

The appeal poses a test of Mursi's commitment to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which the West views as the bedrock of Middle East peace.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which brought Mursi to power in an election after the downfall of pro-Western Hosni Mubarak, has called for a "Day of Rage" in Arab capitals on Friday. The Brotherhood is seen as the spiritual mentor of Hamas.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said they had targeted over 450 "terror activity sites" in the Gaza Strip since Operation Pillar of Defence began with the assassination of Hamas' top military commander on Wednesday by an Israeli missile.

Some 150 medium range rocket launching sites and ammunition dumps were targeted overnight. "The aim of targeting these sites is to impair the rocket launching capability of terror organizations in the Gaza Strip and hamper their continuous build up," an IDF statement said.

"The sites that were targeted were positively identified by precise intelligence over the course of months," it said. "The Gaza strip has been turned into a frontal base for Iran, forcing Israeli citizens to live under unbearable circumstances."

Israeli bombing has not yet reached the saturation level seen before it last invaded Gaza in the first days of 2009, when armored bulldozers and tanks flattened whole districts of the crowded enclave to make way for fire bases and open routes for infantry.

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis, Ari Rabinovitch, Jeffrey Heller and Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem; writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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Analysis: New Microsoft mantra after Sinofsky – teamwork

SEATTLE/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The sudden departure of powerful Windows boss Steven Sinofsky this week is the first step in a plan by CEO Steve Ballmer to remodel Microsoft Corp as a much more integrated operation in an attempt to take on Apple Inc and Google Inc at their own game.

After nearly 13 years at the helm of the world’s largest software maker, which just launched its first own-brand computer, sources inside the company say Sinofsky‘s departure signals Ballmer‘s new-found focus on co-operation between its self-sufficient – and sometimes warring – units.

“What I’m hearing over and over is collaboration and horizontal integration is the new mantra,” said one Microsoft insider, who asked not to be named. “They (top management) understand that, if they don’t move to a model where devices and software are more integrated across the entire Microsoft system, they are in a weak position.”

After floundering for most of the last decade, Microsoft is trying emulate the way Apple‘s software and hardware – such as iTunes and the iPhone – work perfectly together; or how Google‘s online suite from Web search to YouTube and Gmail are seamlessly joined.

Microsoft – which Ballmer rechristened as a “devices and services company” last month – has all the parts, analysts say, but has failed to put them together. Now Ballmer looks set to reshape the company to try to make that a reality.

“I certainly expect the org chart to look a lot different six months from now,” said Brad Silverberg, who ran the Windows unit during its massive growth spurt in the 1990s. “There will be attrition from Steven’s (Sinofsky’s) people and Steve Ballmer will have a chance to create a more harmonious organization.”

Ballmer replaced Sinofsky with two executives with a reputation for co-operation. The move marks the third time in the last few years that Ballmer has replaced a single unit head with two leaders sharing responsibilities.

“Sinofsky really centralized all the power under himself. We’ll see how it shakes out from here,” said one manager in the Windows unit.

More fundamental organizational shifts could be in the cards.

“A lot of things are up for grabs,” said David Smith at tech research firm Gartner. “How the management is structured – there could be more changes.”

NO ROOM FOR AN EMPIRE BUILDER

Sinofsky, a 23-year Microsoft veteran, built up a walled empire around his Windows unit.

His hard-charging but methodical style, which took on the name “Sinofskyization,” alienated other groups in the company, especially the Office unit, the other financial pillar of Microsoft‘s success.

“Steven is a brilliant guy who made tremendous contributions to Microsoft,” said Silverberg. “But he was also a polarizing guy and the antibodies ultimately caught up with him.”

The decision not to share the latest internal test versions of Windows 8 and keep the Surface tablet a secret until just before its announcement especially upset the Office group, which insiders say accounts for the lack of a fully featured Office suite on the Surface RT tablet.

“All good leaders create friction, but my guess is the cost of doing business with Sinofsky ended up outweighing the benefits,” said a former Microsoft staffer who saw Sinofsky operate at close quarters.

“If you work in Steven’s team, you love him,” said a former colleague who now works for a financial technology firm in Seattle. “If he’s outside of your team? That’s where his reputation of being hard to work with came from.”

Ballmer has made it clear that executives have to work together better. Next year, top managers will get bonuses based on company-wide performance, not just their own unit, which Ballmer hopes will lead to “deeper cross-organization collaboration.”

But there is no guarantee Ballmer can radically redirect almost four decades of culture at Microsoft – which he is partly responsible for – that gave Windows primacy and intentionally pitted teams against one another to get the best results.

Nothing will change without new leaders from outside the company, said Trip Chowdhry, managing director at Global Equities Research.

“Microsoft is clinging to the past and they keep bringing in the people from the past. This is a fundamental flaw in the logic,” Chowdhry said.

CEO THRONE

Despite urging collaboration, Ballmer – a 32-year Microsoft veteran who took over as CEO from Bill Gates in 2000 – does not let any junior executive get too close to challenging his authority.

Sinofsky, widely touted as Ballmer’s successor for the past three years, was just the latest in a line of would-be CEOs. Over the last five years alone, Ballmer has seen off a clutch of rising stars that were discussed as potential leaders.

Windows and online head Kevin Johnson went to run Juniper Networks Inc, Office chief Stephen Elop went to lead phone maker Nokia, while Ray Ozzie – the software guru Bill Gates designated as Microsoft‘s big-picture thinker – left to start his own project.

“They’ve gone through quite a bit of senior management talent in the past few years. The bench is not what it used to be,” said Smith at Gartner. “The overall management structure, career path, replacements, succession planning – a lot of that is an issue for Microsoft.”

Ballmer’s promotion of Julie Larson-Green and Tami Reller to jointly fill Sinofsky’s role may only be temporary, Microsoft-watchers say.

“The question is what comes after, like in the next three years,” said Rob Helm at Directions on Microsoft, an independent firm that advises business customers on how to deal with Microsoft.

(Reporting By Bill Rigby in Seattle and Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco.; Editing by Edward Tobin, Martin Howell and Andre Grenon)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The X Factor Reveals Its Top 12

TV Watch

The X Factor

11/15/2012 at 11:00 PM EST

Demi Lovato and Simon Cowell

Double elimination time on The X Factor!

The top 12 performed songs by divas the night before – and then faced a night of diva-worthy drama on Thursday's show. And it was a particularly tough night for the young adults' coach, Demi Lovato, after the outcome of the viewers' votes were revealed.

Keep reading for all the results ...

Early in the hour, hosts Mario Lopez and Khloé Kardashian announced the act with the lowest number of votes was Simon Cowell's hip-hop group Lyric 145, who performed a mash-up of Queen's "We Will Rock You" and Katy Perry's "E.T." on Wednesday.

"We didn't get the opportunity to show what we really had," frontwoman Lyric Da Queen said. "We hard original lyrics ... But we're just taking the good with the bad right now."

Nine acts were then declared safe, leaving two to sing for survival – and they were both from Demi's team: Jennel Garcia and Paige Thomas.

Jennel performed an emotional rendition of Hoobastank's "The Reason," and Paige sang Coldplay's "Paradise."

Then the judges had to vote for the act they wanted to send home.

"I'm shocked that either of them are at the bottom," L.A. Reid said. He voted to send home Jennel. Britney followed his lead. Simon refused to say his choice and forced Demi to go first. "The act that I'm going to send home is Paige," she said. It was up to Simon to avoid a tie – and he picked Jennel.

So, Demi was the only one to reject Paige and she'll have to work with her again next week. Awkward!

"You're so unbelievably talented and you have a future ahead of you so I'm not worried," Demi told Jennel. "I love you and I really, really believe in you."

And then the co-hosts announced the ranking of the top 10 based on who got the most votes:

10. Paige Thomas
9. Arin Ray
8. Beatrice Miller
7. Diamond White
6. Fifth Harmony
5. CeCe Frey
4. Emblem3
3. Vino Alan
2. Carly Rose Sonenclar
1. Tate Stevens

The show's only country singer does it again!

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