Comments

• AlexH

  2008-05-14 11:45:02

  I'm not convinced Microsoft "lost" $30B. "Cash balance" isn't the same as "value".
  
  If you want to look at value, look at price/earnings ratio or market cap. or something.
  
  The fact Microsoft's cash balance went down is pretty easily explainable, e.g. buying Aquantive. Most people would not categorize acquisition as "loss".
  
  To put this into perspective, Merrill Lynch wrote off almost $30B which helped trigger the global crisis in credit over sub-prime mortgages and is cutting thousands of jobs:
  
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7352402.stm
  
  Believe me, if Microsoft had made a loss anything like $30B, it definitely would not have been "ignored" in the media.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2008-05-14 11:58:32

  It was not ignored by the media. It was in the Wall Street Journal.
  
  To quote a recent response to it from a friend (a tad blunt):
  
  http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/14f9fdac2738f299
  
  Welcome to the wacky world of trading, where a company's perceived value is based on expectation, and that expectation can be manipulated with bullshit like Vapourware; dumping; profit forecasts based on wildly speculative (or downright dishonest) sales figures; buffering sales with "channel" partners (in crime); just the merest hint of a takeover; discrediting and sabotaging the competition; employing spin-doctors to artificially "sell" the idea that the company is thriving, through the use of marketing gobbledygook; or just plain old-fashioned lying through one's teeth about a company's future direction.
  
  That manipulation not only comes in many ways, but it comes from many places too, like right here in COLA for example. Witness how frantically DooFuS (in particular) flooded COLA with anti-Linux vitriol on the very day that the final OOXML votes were being cast. Coincidence? I think not. He may as well wear a badge that reads "Microsoft Shill", it's that obvious. Make no mistake, to him this is nothing personal, he's merely doing his job, which is why he's never discouraged, no matter how ridiculous or suspicious his behaviour, nor how decisively his vitriol is rebuked.
  
  What other possible motive could someone have for spending *years* sabotaging a group that exists to serve the purposes of an alternative to his chosen operating system? Surely he should be extolling the virtues of Windows in a /Windows/ group, not sleeping with the enemy.
  
  But that's the way thugs and gangsters operate. They don't play by the rules, they extort; threaten; bribe; manipulate; lie; attack and destroy to "succeed", and then bray about it like a pack of hyenas, overwhelmed with "pride" in their path of destruction, too busy slavering over the spoils to worry about trivialities like morality. The Microsoft shills in this group are merely another arm of the Microsoft crime syndicate.
  
  And that's exactly what Sweaty the Impaler does to further Microsoft's cause, which is of course greed, so what better place to manipulate people than at the stock exchange, where greed blinds people against the menacing advances of manipulators like Ballmer.
  
  Basically the only difference between the stock market and the dog track is that, generally speaking, down at the track the dogs don't trying to win by lying or ripping each other's throats out.
  
  Sweaty the Impaler tried to fscking kill Google by attempting to eat (what he thought was) one of the weaker dogs in the race (cowards always attack the weak, just like hyenas), to become bigger and stronger, and eliminate some of the competition (typical of the "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish" paradigm). The ravenous punters got too excited and bet heavily on the Vole to win, but lost it all when Yahoo unexpectedly bit back, and sent the Vole whimpering back to the kennels, leaving Google to streak across the finish line. Poetic justice.
  
  That won't stop the Vole, of course, much like the pesky lack of money doesn't stop a drug addict from getting a fix. They'll just keep mugging other innocent victims until they get what they want. The only way to "cure" that rabid dog, is to put it down.

• AlexH

  2008-05-14 12:18:41

  Can you cite a specific WSJ story where they state that Microsoft have lost (specifically "lost") $30B?

• Roy Schestowitz

  2008-05-14 12:28:52

  "Yesterday's early relief rally reversed, and Microsoft's value has now fallen by more than $30 billion since it unveiled its bid for Yahoo on February 1."
  
  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121004447596669953.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
  
  Compare with what I wrote: "Remember that Microsoft lost about 30 billion dollars in value after the Yahoo bid."
  
  I was actually wrong. It was *more* than 30 billion dollar. Mea cupla. :-)