M

icrosoft's most glorious days are behind it. We recently explained just why Microsoft grew relatively feeble, so it's not worth repeating.

To those who are confused or deceived by revenue, the short explanation would be this: the company exchanges its savings for artificial growth by acquiring more companies (along with their staff and revenue), so there's an illusion of inflation on the surface, whereas the company's savings vanished into buybacks (stock), the profits declined in the previous quarter, and the market cap sank roughly $30,000,000,000 a couple of months after that bid for Yahoo had been announced.

“...Microsoft is trying very hard to buy itself a positive image (improvement of brand value).”Do not permit the Microsoft-influenced press (some of it is funded by Bill Gates, using his supposedly charitable foundation) to fool you; we have selected some lesser-covered stories from the press because they expose the reality of the situation that led to em mass departure of seniors, more latterly a director.

As we've stressed again and again in the past few days alone [1, 2, 3, 4], Microsoft is trying very hard to buy itself a positive image (improvement of brand value). It's exploiting the press to achieve this, so be careful whatever you read.

A reader has sent us his calculated thoughts about the verdict on Vista -- especially the way it will probably be remembered in the future (its sibling products are not better off by the way).

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It just occurred to me that the commercial success of Vista (1) is not getting enough mention, due to Google-bombing. It's open source -- actually public domain really -- and free for download, use, modification (2). It has a thriving community base (3) and commercial support network (4).

1    http://www.va.gov/vista_monograph/       http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_29/b3993061.htm       http://www1.va.gov/cprsdemo/page.cfm?pg=1

2     ftp://ftp.va.gov/Vista/Software/

3     http://www.hardhats.org/

4     http://www.vistasoftware.org/resources/

So perhaps future slams on Microsoft Vista could also point to the real Vista, lest the trademark become disparaged.

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The same reader also points out something rather curious about the role of politics. He notes the that the ZDNet link which was contained here had suddenly died (not even moved to a different URL if Web search is anything to judge by). Here is how it's summarised:

NZheretic writes "In May, under oath at the antitrust hearing Jim Allchin, group vice president for platforms at Microsoft, stated that disclosing the Windows operating system source code could damage national security and even threaten the U.S. war effort. Now in February, Microsoft signed a pact with Chinese officials to reveal the Windows operating system source code. Bill Gates even hinted that China will be privy to all, not just part, of the source code its government wished to inspect. Either Jim Allchin lied under oath, to prevent code revelation being any part of the settlement, OR the Microsoft corporation is behaving traitorously, by exposing national security issues to foreign governments"

We were asked if we could pin down a replacement. Quite fortunately, there is a copy on the Web Archive.

Gates reveals Windows code to China

Microsoft on Friday signed a pact with the Chinese government to reveal the Windows source code, making China among the first to benefit from its program to allay the security fears of governments.

In addition, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates hinted that China will be privy to all, not just part, of the source code the government wishes to inspect.

The Chinese government and military have previously stated their preference for the rival Linux operating system because its source code is publicly available.

[...]

Last month, it announced GSP agreements with Russia, NATO and the United Kingdom. Microsoft is in discussions with more than 30 countries, territories and organizations regarding the program.

The more curious can find some information about back doors in Windows and the poor security record of Windows Vista.

Our reader then added: "I notice that the articles and posts that reflect Microsoft nature tend to get removed faster than others:

      http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?p=311       http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/

"It's hard not to point out that this means he and his execs committed treason and/or perjury and should not be walking about," concludes our reader who pointed all of this this out. ⬆