The software maker says the global economic woes and weak demand for its just-launched Creative Suite 4 software is adding up to sluggish sales. In response, the company plans to cut 600 jobs.

The software maker says the global economic woes and weak demand for its just-launched Creative Suite 4 software is adding up to sluggish sales.

The software maker is missing out on a big opportunity by demanding that prospective customers make wholesale switches to its technology.

Software maker is missing out on a big opportunity by demanding that prospective customers make wholesale switches to its technology.

Microsoft will broaden the testing base for the beta version of Windows Vista Service Pack 2, the software maker said Tuesday. Initially announced in October, the pre-release code is currently available to TechNet and MSDN subscribers and will be widely available to the public on Thursday through Microsoft's Customer Preview Program. The operating system's second service pack includes new hardware support for Bluetooth 2.1 and Blu-ray as well as the latest version of Windows Search 4.0 and Hyper-V virtualization technology.

pa href="http://www.evernote.com" title="Evernote"Evernote/a, a web- and app-based personal info storage service, has raised a $5 million second funding round from Russia's Troika Partners. The product, which works across Windows, Mac, the web and mobile, lets people clip bits of web text to save as a searchable collection of notes for later perusal. There's a $5-a-month a href="http://www.evernote.com/about/premium/" title="premium"premium/a version. Evernote has handwriting recognition and sharing features. Evernote scored a $6 million first round from individuals in August 2006, when Esther Dyson and PayPal co-founder Max Levchin joined the board, but this round comes from the still-booming Russia. Troika also invested $5 million each in 3D games outfit iZ3D and 3D software maker ParallelGraphics. From a href="http://www.rbcdaily.ru/2008/12/02/media/392843" title="RBC Daily"RBC Daily/a via a href="http://blog.quintura.com/2008/12/02/troika-venture-fund-scores-three-deals-for-15-million/?owa_from=feedowa_sid=" title="Quintura"Quintura/a. /ppobject width="425" height="344"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/i_ncr1Ee9e8hl=enfs=1rel=0"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/i_ncr1Ee9e8hl=enfs=1rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"/embed/object /p pstrongRelated/strong/p ul class="related" lia href="http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/personal-media-management-startup-evernote-gets-6-million-funding"Personal Media Management Startup Evernote Gets $6 Million Funding/a/li /ul p!-- iMark Logic Digital Publishing Summit, Thursday November 6, Westin Times Square. Insight and perspective from Outsell, Gilbane, Simon Schuster, BusinessWeek.com, more. Evening cocktail reception. Cost is complimentary. a href="http://content.adbureau.net/accipiter/adclick/CID=000010cb0000000000000000/SITE=PC_US/AAMSZ=PREMB_NEWS/relocate=http://marklogicdps.eventbrite.com/"Register now!/a/i --/p pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/pcorg?a=u09vu7"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/pcorg?i=u09vu7" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=RrfQO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=RrfQO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=dTrAO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=dTrAO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=bRHho"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=bRHho" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=Zt4wO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=Zt4wO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=VcuPO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=VcuPO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/pcorg/~4/473442382" height="1" width="1"/

Starting on Thursday, the software maker will make public a test version of the service pack update to Vista.

Starting on Thursday, the software maker will make public a test version of the service pack update to Vista.

Adobe has decided to not exhibit at the upcoming Macworld Conference Expo this January, though the software maker will have a full day of sessions devoted to its recently launched Creative Suite 4.br style=clear: both;/ a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:a8dc97ef83230ca3a1631f4e3035f802:2R8bqEE1N2vuC22ejbSkwRuz63lB8NvcF4KGnPxY3ZAdOhPk3GY81xbyq9gxLJjuvGCJv3jAh%2Fle'img border='0' title='Add to digg' alt='Add to digg' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/digg.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:4b1b8b92d0fc6e1571272adcbfa14d00:iEZ4NSUFJzYwYCdNnUbRexXntqV2dk%2FfCuKruB9Z6zEO67wTVsexZvXO8wxIIIeSvOngv4A7nbVl'img border='0' title='Add to Reddit' alt='Add to Reddit' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/reddit.png'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:cd4d4d48f9bfb7b3ee63ba8462da8b8b:X7meKTMVrMpzxicPY4EDu3zgN0JCkUFHRx8VE8l88U6zAUtuWMMoH%2FRrhEEdIqvQi2ZMFR5kyxj9IA%3D%3D'img border='0' title='Add to Slashdot' alt='Add to Slashdot' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/slashdot.png'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:80ffeb94efa5031f9dea21ac51bd10a7:9WA12QZrO1Dix9A9%2B7tjg8l5ayMtAauENnS%2Bx31jFcuOKremenb%2BLrxOQiygrt%2FUQDFkLYs%2FMFqE'img border='0' title='Email this Article' alt='Email this Article' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/emailthis.png'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:6fb6be62e8e3b4b83b6aba1f87379511:pWG5ZvPcctdNkBX9AtLiKiABFPSKBZ8tLzGxbYYjmbbj7uV%2FI7FnHCTLP51gKTdhifL6CWXX6Pic6g%3D%3D'img border='0' title='Add to StumbleUpon' alt='Add to StumbleUpon' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/stumbleit.gif'//a br style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=b9b43ababfe0e44e67a9fb8c54a0f053p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=b9b43ababfe0e44e67a9fb8c54a0f053p=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=b9b43ababfe0e44e67a9fb8c54a0f053 style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/