Microsoft’s first official US union formed

And some product updates to be reminded about.

There’s less than a week until Windows 7 and 8 stop getting critical security updates – that deadline is January 10.    It’s the last version of Edge for those operating systems too.  

Microsoft also warned that the extended support for all editions of Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 would end on October 10.

Finally, while I’m on Microsoft… they have a union now.   At ZeniMax, a Microsoft-owned gaming studio, 300 quality assurance (QA) testers have voted to unionize. This marks Microsoft’s first official union in the U.S. and the biggest gaming union in the country.

Let’s focus on that union.   Microsoft is now a union shop.   Sure, it’s a division, and it’s a division inside a subsidiary.      Don’t be dismissive.   These are professional, technical roles within an engineering organization.    Going from zero to one is an important step and one we should continue to watch… particularly in the landscape of the previous story.