Summary: Microsoft loses chairs (although none are thrown) and Ballmer’s chair too is doubted
Moments ago a reader mailed us some pointer to important news. It was earlier today that Jon Brodkin covered for IDG the story of Microsoft exodus in January of 2011. It is about 3 departures that we wrote about separately about one week ago. Bad news, eh? Microsoft will probably need to start hiring more lawyers (Microsoft is a lawsuits company), but then again, Microsoft’s legal team is being shifted to India for savings and the patent strategy is misguided yet damaging to everyone. Steve Ballmer is not a lawyer, but his company recently promoted some, positioning the monopolist more properly for an existence as a patent agitator and troll.
What Microsoft needs right now is not an eccentric CEO but some kind of a person more ruthless than Ballmer — one who is willing to carry on relentlessly despite realising that s/he serves a malevolent agenda. Many executives perhaps leave because they come to this realisation, or perhaps they foresee further layoffs and collapse of this employer. Either way, a strong Apple proponent slams Microsoft watcher Joe Wilcox and alleges that Ballmer does a terrible job:
If Muglia were the first executive to be let go at Microsoft this year, one might guess he was indeed a bad apple or a poor fit for the job. But in the context of Ballmer’s housecleaning of Xbox and Zune leader J Allard, Entertainment & Devices Division head Robbie Bach, Office Division head Stephen Elop, as well as chief software architect Ray Ozzie (who had joined Microsoft in 2005 to take over the vision role of Bill Gates, and who was supposed to be holding the company’s divisions together in a coordinating role), throwing out the Server and Tools head within the same year-long period seems to be a rather intense and extended amputation on the level of “127 Hours” climber Aron Ralston.
[...]
Wilcox’s praise of Baller makes it sound like he’s a court musician, struggling to find rhyming lyrics that best flatter the crowned emperor who sits on his throne naked and glassy-eyed, eating a greasy turkey leg as his country is overrun by invading Huns outside.
Earlier this month, Robert Pogson pointed out that Ballmer’s vote of confidence had sunk. This was hardly reported, but it helped show that even within Microsoft there’s tiredness of Ballmer. Is he on his way out? █
“Government attorneys accuse Microsoft of using its monopoly position to bully, bribe and attempt to collude with others in the industry, while illegally expanding and protecting its Windows franchise.”
Summary: In addition to private meetings with Bill Gates, President Obama plays a role in serving Microsoft’s interests
OVER the past couple of years and even more than that (ahead of the 2008 elections) we have covered incidents where Steve Ballmer went to the White House for private meetings with President Obama. These red carpet trips were not intended to help the American population, they were intended to benefit a monopoly abuser which is currently terrorising rivals such as Google, in more than a single nefarious way.
“Obama cites piracy data from Ballmer in comments on Hu visit,” argues a Microsoft booster in a report about incidents we will probably expand on later this year:
When Steve Ballmer talks, President Obama listens, apparently.
The Microsoft CEO is among the corporate executives in Washington, D.C., today for the visit of President Hu of China. As always, trade between the two nations is one of the big topics on the agenda, and Obama talked at one point about the need for a “level playing field when it comes to our trading partners.”
So here we are in the second week of January, and it’s already looking like 2011 could be a repeat of 2010 for Microsoft. A confused, belated, and underwhelming mobile strategy? Check. More top-level defections? Check. Languid stock price? Check.
At some point, it all comes back to Ballmer, the CEO. The question now is how long Microsoft’s institutional shareholders, and its board (which cut Ballmer’s bonus in half last year following the KIN debacle) will let this go on.
“Ballmer’s Microsoft desperately needs a makeover” says the deadline of a very strongly-worded and critical piece from Nick Farrell in the British press:
It seems that all Microsoft’s chickens have come to roost and have now tucked up their heads under their wings and are dreaming of wriggly grubs.
After years of being the bad-guy in many of the IT industry deals, the Imperium is reaching the point where the great unwashed will only buy its operating system, somewhat grudgingly.
For the last few years Microsoft has been entirely on the back foot and yet still regarded with suspicion. Its own attempts to enter the mobile industry have been treated with much mirth, somewhat unfairly. If any other company had produced it everyone would be praising it to the skies, and yet for some reason it is failing to move.
All those years of evil court cases, anti-trust actions, buying rivals out generally being the corporate Mr Evil have undermined its image to the point that people expect it do something nasty.
Lately however the sum total of the Imperium’s legal efforts have been defensive against other companies who are playing the patent wars against it.
It appears the Nintendo Wii finished 2010 as the top-selling video game console, with the Xbox 360 nipping on its heals.
Following the release of video game sales figures by market research firm NPD Group, Nintendo announced it had sold more than 7 million Wiis last year, with 2.3 million of those getting scooped up in December alone. The company also sold 8.5 million DS handhelds in 2010, impressive numbers ahead of the spring launch of the Nintendo 3DS.
Take this with a grain of salt because the last time we checked, NPD Group was funded by Nintendo. NPD’s business model relates to deficient statistics which leave room for bias. In any case, the leadership of Xbox left in droves and there is almost nobody left to leave, except Ballmer. My co-host Tim predicts that Ballmer will have no more than 6 months left at Microsoft. There will be no-one left to threaten furniture. █
“I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life.”
“I do hope that the suit can help demonstrate that Microsoft’s claims of succeeding through innovation are a complete fraud. Their only innovation has been in inventing predatory business practices. Other than that, they have been perhaps the greatest borrowers in the history of the software industry.”
–Sybase Chairman Mitchell Kertzman
Summary: Time has nearly run out for Vista Phony 7 [sic] and Steve Ballmer’s chair is said to be in jeopardy
Red Hat’s Harish Pillay writes that Microsoft’s “phone OS is so bad, that they’ll give you two for the price of one just to make the numbers.” He refers to articles like this one, which help show that Vista Phony 7 [sic] quickly follows the “KIN” trajectory [1, 2] due to inability to sell. [via the good Slashdot summary with many links under the headline "Windows Phone 7 Sales Continue To Struggle"]
“Even with the pre-Christmas buying rush, Microsoft is already desperately offering a new buy one get one free offer similar to the ones they gave for the KIN. According to the article, ‘Windows Phone 7 devices can’t even manage two per cent of the fortnight’s sales.’ These aren’t official Microsoft figures; they come from online shopping sites. But since Microsoft official sales figures seem subject to manipulation, this is perhaps one of the better guesses we will get at the success of Windows Phone 7 until well into next year. This also strongly backs up other reports of deeply disappointing phone sales. Even Microsoft supporters have been wondering for a while whether it’s time for Ballmer to go. If the sales reports are true, then he may be pushed before he jumps.”
Microsoft resorts to using Oprah again, obviously as an advertiser (Oprah Winfrey promotes Microsoft products in exchange for payments [1, 2], not to mention her recent promotion of Gates Foundation agenda which include taking over schools [1, 2]). As Goblin (Tim) puts it in his Web site last night:
We looked at this during episode 13 of the TechBytes show which can be found here, but it does beg the question: Is Oprah soon to promote WP7? I would think that it certainly needs all the help it can get (Bing certainly does) and if she gives it away to her audience members (like she did the 360) then Microsoft can claim some more sales of the “new” phone.
Talking of sales, why is Microsoft being so tight lipped about the figures? If, as some Microsoft advocates suggest it’s a raging success, why are we not seeing Microsoft proudly claiming this? Why is AT&T trying to offer 2 for the price of 1 on the WP7 and why is it that there seems (in my experience) to be very little excitement anywhere about it?
2 for 1, Oprah, I wonder what other “incentives” can be thought up to try to get people interested in Microsoft tech? This union between Oprah and Microsoft hasn’t been received well by some and prior to the “Xbox Oprah show”…
The Registersays that even shortly after a PR blitz from Microsoft (costing around half a billion dollars in just marketing expenses) the Linux-based Android outsells Vista Phony 7 [sic] more than 15 times over.
Figures from comparison service Mobiles Please show Windows Phone 7 being outsold by Android more than 15 times over and by Symbian three times.
That pretty much sums it up. As the Slashdot summary put it, Ballmer’s chair is under threat and it’s not under threat from Ballmer. █
“But rather than a search engine or even a “decision engine”, Bing also appears to be a spin engine, in that it provides partisan answers to controversial topics, such as Steve Ballmer’s propensity to throw chairs to blow off stress.”
Summary: Another fine example of copyright being misused to suppress free speech and the Seattle Times acting as though it’s Microsoft’s PR department redressed to look like “official” and “professional” news
THE RATHER appalling ‘newspaper’ called Seattle Times is more of a propaganda tool for the Gates Foundation and for Microsoft, which is taking Seattle Times staff out for meals and briefs reporters so that they just print Microsoft’s spin. We have posted many examples before (almost a hundred in the past year alone), so we are not going to post more examples. They are just a small subset and they can be found in our archives.
The latest blunder from the Seattle Times is that they had an image removed from a competitor’s site. They are attacking fair use (humour purposes) to defend an unethical bully, Steve Ballmer. This only contributes to our negative characterisation of the the Seattle Times, which is not news; it’s corporate press and it’s in the pocket of companies that include Microsoft.
Luckily, after or just before the Seattle Times helped censor Engadget’s work, many people in the comments created other, derivative images (which the Seattle Times has not formally complained about) and we include all of them below in the interests of freedom of speech. █
Summary: Vista 7 is unsuitable for form factors that customers increasingly adopt
WINDOWS is not doing well. Don’t believe the spinners. When it comes to profit, the numbers not only declined over the years; these turn out to be faked figures, too (the rest of the revenue comes from squeezing the goose, inflation, forced ‘upgrades’ and so on). Even Microsoft is now admitting that Windows has an innovator’s dilemma-type crisis. It just doesn’t scale, not even Vista 7 which Microsoft claims to be lighter than Vista (how inappropriate a basis for comparison).
According to this Microsoft booster, Vista 7 is too heavy for tablets. It’s implicit and subtle. By saying that Vista Phony 7 [sic] might be needed for tablets, Microsoft inadvertently admits that Vista 7 is too fat.
If Vista Phony 7 [sic] is Microsoft’s plan for the future, then no wonder we saw more and more people saying that Ballmer is already on the exit chair, awaiting ejection (and it won’t be Ballmer setting off this chair). As my colleague and friend Tim puts it, what Microsoft says is not reality and even its PR is suffering a lot this month. Examples are being given, including some from the overly-hyped KINect:
Today I thought that I would present a list of articles/links which hardly put Microsoft in the same light as its PR agents and boosters would want you to know.
[...]
Can Microsoft compete with the Nintendo with Kinect? – On the basis of this and other reports around the net, I wouldn’t think so.
[...]
It also seems Microsoft advocates/boosters will tell you that demand has it sold out. This doesn’t appear to be the case and at time of writing HMV had these in stock. Maybe Microsoft is trying to generate some interest? Maybe Kinect sales are suffering with the same type of lag that the device reports to have (as per the BBC Click review) . Maybe the people who part with cash for this contraption can let us all know.
As I noted Friday, Microsoft has backed down from earlier legal and technological threats against the programmers who turned Kinect into a general computer interface. But now Google’s Matt Cutts has tweaked the Green Monster with his own contest for the best Linux and open source applications using the device.
Note that this is not a Google contest. It’s a Matt Cutts contest. He just happens to work at Google.
As our Adrian Kingsley-Hughes notes, the Kinect’s parts cost just $56. Even at $149, that’s a healthy profit margin, but he also notes that Microsoft’s research costs mean it must sell “a lot of Kinect devices to turn this one into a serious money spinner.”
Based on the billions (in losses) which Xbox cost Microsoft, one should not be too optimistic here. KINect will definitely sell better than KIN, but again, this is not a proper basis for comparison. Any Wii sold already contains the equivalent of KINect. Microsoft is playing catch-up here and allegedly spends half a billion dollars just marketing this thing. The same goes for Vista Phony 7 [sic] marketing, which — as we predicted — will be money down the toilet. The Registerponders: “So did Windows Phone 7 ‘bomb in US’?”
40,000 devices is still embarrassing, even if it’s just the USA and leaves out the 90,000 or so Microsoft employees who’ll be getting one, and even if figures elsewhere are rather better. But before drawing any conclusions it’s worth thinking about the numbers.
Charles Arthur, who is working for a Bill Gates-funded publication (where the sponsorship helps inject bias sometimes [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]), looks back at the early days of Windows and suggests that we are seeing the end of this era. His headline states: “Has Microsoft’s Windows had its day?”
The bald man in the ill-fitting check jacket doesn’t pause as he stands beside the beige 1980s-vintage PC. The words pour out of his mouth like the sharpest huckster you’ve ever seen. “How much do YOU think this advanced operating environment is worth? WAIT just ONE minute before you answer,” he instructs eagerly. “WATCH as Windows integrates Lotus 1-2-3 with” – he clutches his lapels – “MIAMI VICE!”
The screen shows picture of a Ferrari pasted into a document. “NOW we can take THIS Ferrari and paste it RIGHT INTO Windows Write,” the man gabbles. “NOW how much do you think Microsoft Windows is worth?… DON’T ANSWER. WAIT until you see Windows Write and Windows Paint and LISTEN to what else you get at NO EXTRA CHARGE!”
We’re only 15 seconds in but already you feel buffeted. “The MS-DOS executive, an appointment calendar, a cardfile, a notepad, a clock, a control panel, a terminal, printer, a RAM driver, AND CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, REVERSI, yes that’s right, ALL these features and Reversi, for just – HOOOOW much did you guess?”
Guess? We had to guess? ” FIVE HUNDRED? A THOUSAND? EVEN MORE? NOOOO it’s just 99 dollars, that’s right, it’s 99 dollars, it’s an incredible value but it’s true, it’s Windows from Microsoft, order TODAY! PO BOX 286-DOS,” he concludes as the address flashes on the screen, before adding weirdly, and without explanation, “…. Except in Nebraska.”
Arthur refers to the viral video below. Tim (of TechBytes and OpenBytes) does not expect Ballmer to survive next year at Microsoft. Vista Phony 7 [sic] is just one of his many recent failures. █
Summary: Steve Ballmer’s dumping of many shares of the company he runs has raised many questions, including his abuse of the system with a lot of lobbying money
A YEAR ago, a Microsoft shareholder likened Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates to Bernard Madoff. He gave an interview to IDG. Now that Microsoft's CEO is selling billions in shares, people start talking about his future in the company (or the future of the company in general). Corporate press like Associated Press says nothing critical and Microsoft-sponsored sites like this one say that Ballmer has just contributed a huge sum of money to lobbying against tax for the rich (I-1098):
The stakes are getting higher in the battle over a proposed tax on high-income individuals and families in Washington state, and it turns out Steve Ballmer really doesn’t want Initiative 1098 to pass. A new public disclosure statement (PDF) from the campaign to defeat the proposed income tax shows the Microsoft CEO contributing another $325,000 to the cause, bringing his total to $425,000.
What this Microsoft boosters’ site will not tell readers is that Gates found a loophole and therefore does not pay tax while he takes over more industries and creates new monopolies. Instead, this silly site gives a platform to the Gates family (the senior one for example) and pretends it wants rich people to be taxed. This type of damaging spin oughtn’t be forgiven for because it hurts the same citizens the site claims to be informing. A few weeks ago there was similar spin aided by Pelosi’s Microsoft visit, which this site covered poorly. Microsoft is working against the US public, contrary to Pelosi’s claims, and the explanation can be found here. Anyway, in another post from the same site they announce that “I-1098 goes down in flames”, having previously used it to unjustly praise the Gates family (which is exempted from tax).
Washington voters have decided that they don’t want to tax the rich in order to raise funds for education. Initiative 1098, which would have imposed a state income tax on individuals making more than $200,000, was defeated Tuesday night, according to early returns from the Washington State Secretary of State’s office.
Somebody a little sharper has submitted a summary to Slashdot in which s/he puts together the pieces and explains that when Ballmer sells his shares he profits a lot from all the lobbying (legalised bribery) he has just done to distort public policy. “Income Tax Quashed, Ballmer To Cash In Billions” says the headline:
Just three days after the measure went down in flames, Ballmer said in a statement that he plans to sell up to 75 million of his Microsoft shares by the end of the year to ‘gain financial diversification and to assist in tax planning.’ Based on Friday’s closing price of $26.85, the 75M shares would be valued at approximately $2 billion. All of which might make a cynic question what was really important to Microsoft — public education, or a $2B state income tax-free payday for its CEO?
Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer disclosed in an SEC filing Friday that he sold $1.34 billion worth of stock on November 3-5, at prices ranging from $26.74 to $27.18 a share. After the sales, which included 49.3 million shares, Ballmer continues to hold 358.9 million shares.
“Microsoft is like Enron in 2001,” says gnufreex about this news. It was only about a week ago that we mentioned a site saying: “Enron was a cash maven too, till nearly the very end” and Microsoft’s “moves are not a marker of a company with coffers full of cash.” As a reminder, Microsoft has growing debt and just because rich people came out of Microsoft does not mean much for the company’s own situation. “Ballmer’s Worth Billions, and he’s Cashing in his Stock” reportsMaximum PC:
Steve Ballmer might look like Joe Everyman on the outside, but under that sweat stained exterior is a billionaire in disguise, and according to Reuters he’s cashing out. The CEO has apparently confirmed reports that he has sold 49.3 million shares of Microsoft stock worth an estimated $1.3 billion, a move that some feel might be motivated by the end of Bush-era tax cuts on capital gains.
One must not forget the Bush-era Microsoft pardon. The company was supposed to be forcibly split about a decade ago, after it had committed serious offences against many companies and thus harmed progress. █
“Microsoft looks at new ideas, they don’t evaluate whether the idea will move the industry forward, they ask, ‘how will it help us sell more copies of Windows?’”
Summary: Additional signs that Vista Phony 7 [sic] is failing as Ballmer dumps close to a fifth of his holdings in the company he runs
LOOK NO FURTHER than Microsoft for evidence of the company’s gradual collapse. Even its top people lost faith. Bill Gates has been getting rid of his Microsoft shares for quite some time (only gradually), but Steve Ballmer too is starting to get rid of Microsoft shares, starting with a huge disposal of $1.34 billion in Microsoft stock.
Chips B Malroy says that “If this isn’t an impending sign that the stock is going tank soon, then its a sign of Ballmer being soon forced out, or both.” There is a lot more in the IRC logs. “Notice that the sales,” he adds, “were not made (at least the news of the sale) public until late Friday… Because a sale like this by the CEO would have caused the stock price to tank.
“It looks like Ballmer is trying to cash in, and just doesn’t have enough stock, even with his one position on the board itself, to prevent his eventual ouster. Just more rats deserting the sinking ship, but this time it might be the CEO himself.”
According to Microsoft boosters, Ballmer will sell almost a fifth of his stake. The sources add: “Ballmer last made a sale of Microsoft stock in 2003. Bill Gates remains the largest individual shareholder in the company. The Microsoft chairman routinely sells 80 million shares a year in a portfolio diversification strategy. As of the company’s last proxy statement, Gates owned 621 million shares, or more than 7 percent of the company.”
“But if you sell it too fast, it will surely tank.” –Chips B Malroy“Ok, so neither Ballmer or Gates wants to be left holding the bag of Microsoft stock when it tanks,” Chips B Malroy speculates. “But if you sell it too fast, it will surely tank.
“Could it be that WP7 is already a bust, with Kinect not far behind? Is this the real reason that the CEO is dumping stock?”
Both products had about half a billion dollars dedicated just to marketing. That is some huge waste. Ballmer recently joked rather than properly answered the question when asked if WP7 (Vista Phony 7 [sic]) failing would cost him his job.
Chips B Malroy quotes from a very recent article (or several): “But given how many mistakes Microsoft made in the design of the Windows Phone 7 OS, it probably makes sense to focus on not using the device. No one, as near as I can tell, will want to spend much time with it. Maybe the slogan should be “The smartphone for people who hate smartphones.” [...] It doesn’t support copy-and-paste. It doesn’t offer an easy way to switch between open applications. And it doesn’t have a universal search that allows you to find applications, content, messages or other data stored on your device. [...] What’s more, its Web browser supports neither Adobe’s Flash software nor HTML5, which Apple has promoted as an alternative to Flash.”
Notice that Microsoft shares no numbers about WP7 (Vista Phony 7 [sic]) sales. It means that the number of actual sales (not channel stuffing and granting of phones to all Microsoft employees, with an apparent similar deal at Dell) must be embarrassing.
Oiaohm responds by saying: “Android is only first wave of Linux. Meego is lining up to be second wave. So we are going to have Meego vs Android. [...] Really, Meego is about unifying distributions. Fedora [and] Suse already have Meego forms.”
“Android is only first wave of Linux. Meego is lining up to be second wave.” –Oiaohm“It’s important to show that Microsoft is failing to compete with Linux in the form of Android and with Apple on ARM devices. This will be when the snowball start to speed up on the decline of MS,” Chips B Malroy claims. “We should not want the US gov to bail out MS when the time comes, as in “too big to fail.” MS will try to pull that one. [...] using taxpayers money to bail out MS when and if it fails, is not funny.”
“Really, here is the funny part,” says Oiaohm in response. “By the time US gov tries to bail out MS it might be impossible. Only way to bail MS out would be to raid it and release all its source code. Basically terminate its existence.”
Chips B Malroy continues: “Well, the brainwashed here will be crying for the gov to bail them out, so they won’t have to try another OS. Inertia is all that is keeping MS going, that and the hold they have on OEM’s preinstalls. The preinstalls are now in effect being broken by Apple and Google. This trend is likely to rapidly accelerate. At some point, enough users will have used Android/ChromeOS and iOS on ARM devices to try them on Intel computers. When that happens, MS is dead.”
“But OEM preinstalls are not going to be enough,” replies Oiaohm. “Linux has preinstalls now on phones and other devices. The market is poisoned. Problem is in a way that there is no way to stop it [editor's note: actually, Microsoft reportedly extorts with patents in attempt to prevent this now]. It’s exactly like when Linux took the super computer market. Just on a large scale.”
The full conversation will be published later.
For those who think that this is far fetched, remember that Microsoft’s debt is growing and the future seems far from promising, even based on analysts (who are usually easy for companies to ‘buy’). Just because rich people came out of Microsoft does not mean they’ll donate their money to save Microsoft. It just doesn’t work that way. █
Chips B Malroy says that “If this isn’t an impending sign that the stock is going tank soon, then its a sign of Ballmer being soon forced out, or both.” There is a lot more in the IRC logs. “Notice that the sales,” he adds, “were not made (at least the news of the sale) public until late Friday… Because a sale like this by the CEO would have caused the stock price to tank.
