02.09.11
GNU/Linux is Crushing Microsoft’s Business Model But New Problems Emerge From the Same People
Summary: The sociopaths who made Microsoft the harmful, deceptive, and destructive entity it has become are finding new areas from which to spread malice, this time disguised by massive PR
IT IS still evident that many of Microsoft’s top rivals rely on Free software and GNU/Linux, as we noted last year. The paradigm of collaboration and sharing is winning and even a Microsoft co-founder dropped hints of that in a recent interview while the other company’s co-founder became an active patent troll (that would be Traul Allen versus abundance and the Internet, but Bill Gates too has a patent-hoarding operation). By extension, Gates is also indirectly a patent troll; he is financing those who are, looking for dividend of course. The new pet monopolies are served in foundation ‘flavour’ and their patent monopolies are often marketed at the expense of taxpayers all around the world. And meanwhile, on the face of it, Gates puts aside what he views as a bad asset (Microsoft), focusing as always on what he knows best: how to loot and take more money from the public using a form of tax or rent (if not Windows then pharmaceuticals and patented seeds for other people). Guess who pays for it? Taxpayers. Guess who’s investing in the benefactors? Gates of course. Here is the latest report (among many) about Gates further distancing himself from Microsoft while he becomes a major nuisance in other areas whose annual taxpayers-based budget is an order of magnitude higher than anything he ever hoarded (combined sum).
The moves follow a year in which Gates aggressively pared back his Microsoft holdings. SEC records reviewed by InformationWeek show that, in the past 12 months, Gates has sold off a whopping 90 million shares—reducing his holdings of Microsoft common stock by 13%. Over the past two years, Gates has cut his interest in the company he co-founded by about 22% through more than a dozen separate transactions.
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Reports Tuesday indicate Ballmer is set to shake up Microsoft’s management ranks in a big way, following his recent decision to relieve Bob Muglia from his duties heading the company’s highly profitable Server & Tools division. Bloomberg says Ballmer’s next move could be to elevate engineering and product specialists to senior positions in an effort to return Microsoft to its software engineering roots. It would also reduce the perception (or reality) that Redmond has become nothing more than a giant marketing shell for a portfolio of disparate and outdated technologies.
The problem with Microsoft has always been a social one. It’s not a problem with corporations — be it free market or greed — it’s the problem with the sociopaths who happen to run some of them. Techrights is not at all against corporations, it is against abuse of power. █
“He [Bill Gates] acted like a spoiled kid, which is what he was.”
–Ed Roberts, Gates’ employer at MITS in the 1970′s (Atlanta Journal-Costitution, 04-27-97)
