Rumours of Massive Sell-off at Microsoft Remain

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2009-08-16 00:11:15 UTC
Modified: 2009-08-16 00:11:15 UTC

Summary: Massive ship keeps floating, but for how long?

EARLIER this month Microsoft decided to say goodbye to over 2,000 employees, whom it will hand over to another company. Microsoft is still shrinking, even if the press fails to herald this properly.

Massive layoffs go only a few months back and old rumours are back, suggesting that Microsoft might just sell the whole of Massive.

So What Other Parts Microsoft May Sell? Massive?

[...]

The rumor we have heard is that MSFT will sell Massive at a fraction of the cost it bought it for. Despite the fact that Massive had a massive lead in the in-game ad sector—it announced several major ad deals with big gaming companies, including Activision—it may say something about the state of the sector itself. This follows a rival IGA Worldwide also putting itself up for sale earlier this year.

Matt Asay remarks on Microsoft's urgent need to change.

It leaves Microsoft desperately needing to refresh its approach to the market. Immediately.

For the past two quarters Microsoft has seen its profit falling by a third. GNU/Linux is a major catalyst here. ⬆

Comments

pinguinpat

2009-08-16 09:34:06

Don't underestimate m$, the only reason why it still flows is the same reason why it got big: lobbyists, money, power in companies and governments and so on. I hope just as much as a lot of people do that the dark m$ period will be over but please do not sell the bears skin before the bear has been shot!! Every bit of effort is still needed to finish the dark empire.
twitter

2009-08-16 03:21:11

Ship? M$ is more like a submarine with design flaws that has dived too deep and does not know it. "Minor difficulties, have positive up-angle, attempting to blow," management is telling the remaining staff who are are mostly oblivious to competitive threats and their own software's problems. With profits decreasing so quickly, it's hard for the employees to notice the ship is headed in the wrong direction and that the bulkheads are bursting.

Recent Techrights' Posts

What Really Matters to Companies is Net Income or Profit (Bankruptcy is Possible Even With High Revenue): We ought to stop talking about revenue without focusing on actual profit
Carole Cadwalladr Talks About How Big Business Tried to Silence Her (and Why You Might be Next): Our story is very different from Cadwalladr's for many reasons
LLM Slop and SEO SPAM Take Us Further Away From Facts (the Case of IBM Layoffs): Some of these can impact Red Hat as well
Hundreds of Microsoft Layoffs (Net Headcount Decrease) in the United Kingdom: headcount decreased
Links 14/04/2025: Russian Attack on Sumy Shows No Intention of Peace, Virgin Australia Admits Overcharging People: Links for the day
The Dilemma of Web Browsers Lying About What They Are (in Order to Bypass Discriminatory Gateways Like Clownflare) Worsens Due to LLM Slop: LLM crawlers/scrapers have made sites more restrictive and hostile towards browsers that are potent but not "famous"
Companies Conspiring to Keep Salaries Down and Undermine Competition: People who do all the practical work are being paid less and made to work for much longer
Links 14/04/2025: Disinformation, Public Disdain for LLMs, and "Lessons on Tyranny": Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/04/2025: Ween and Historic Ada Project Management: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 13, 2025: IRC logs for Sunday, April 13, 2025
Influencers: Red Hat, Inc's IPO, 1999, post-mortem on the directed share offer to open source developer community: Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 13/04/2025: Microsoft Cuts to "AI" and Azure (It's Failing), ‘Ghiblification’ Shows Slop Doing Much Harm: Links for the day
Microsoft SLAPPs Against Techrights Losing Momentum: It always backfires
Links 13/04/2025: Tariff Remorse and Chatbots Leak Again: Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/04/2025: No CSS, Spring Scripting: Links for the day
Richard Stallman Turns 72 and Will Be Giving Talks in Europe Soon: We have many local copies of his talks as WebM, having converted files uploaded to YouTube
Revisionism and Lies by LLM Slop and Lazy "Media": What happened to investigation of issues?
Exposing Corruption and Crimes Against Women Isn't a Crime, It's an Imperative: When evil and greedy people are so desperate to silence you it typically gives you more motivation - not less - to do more of the same
EPO Likely Breaking the Law Yet Again, This Time by Using Slop for Patents (to Lower Costs While Producing Monopolies That Cause Ruinous Lawsuits): Nobody authorised this
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 12, 2025: IRC logs for Saturday, April 12, 2025
Links 12/04/2025: Tariffs Standoffs and Spam 'Articles' About Patents: Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/04/2025: Isle Release 0.0.4 (Alpha) and Pokemon: Links for the day
Links 12/04/2025: Science and "DEI" Dismantled Further in the US: Links for the day
Links 12/04/2025: "Part of the Problem" and "Facebook Is Just Craigslist Now": Links for the day
New EPO Leaks: Replacing Patent Examiners and Classifiers With Deficient Bots (Without Even Asking for Permission): Any consultation about it? Any media coverage? No.
The Consensus is Changing and Web Sites View LLMs as Evil, a Malicious Force of Plagiarism and a Source of DDoS: It's not about "AI" but about plagiarism of sorts
Slopwatch: Lots of Fake Articles About "Linux" Infect the Web, Google News Still Promotes These as 'News': people who go to a site like google.com or Google News or even social control media (where users get links from Google) will be directed to read slop, i.e. pure garbage.
Gemini Links 12/04/2025: Sigrblot and Conway Calamity: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 11, 2025: IRC logs for Friday, April 11, 2025