DUE to the heavy load of existing coverage about Nokia, we have only published a couple of posts on the subject [1, 2] and gathered the rest in our daily links. There are a few issues worth bringing up separately.
“Elop does have some shares, but not in the company which he actually works for.”So whose wallet is Elop in? Rupert from ZDNet UK writes: "Interesting finance fact: Stephen A Elop is Microsoft's 7th-largest individual shareholder" (to which Glyn Moody responds with "well, well").
In addition, gnufreex wrote: "Probably double shareholders think that MSFT gain would be bigger than Nokia's loss." While we cannot verify these claims, this type of question was asked publicly and Nokia returned the usual excuses. "It seems that few largest Nokia shareholders are US based and are also MSFT shareholders. A clever scheme by MSFT," added gnufreex. Again, these claims need verification, but we do know that Novell's board, for example, had been poisoned by Microsoft cronies before it sold out to Microsoft. We have this documented. The same thing happened with Yahoo!
Since Microsoft is dead in mobile it seems to have decided to operate like some kind of a cult which relies on entryism now. Based on Microsoft Watch, "Microsoft's Windows Phone Consumer Sales May Be 366,099+" (article is from 2.5 weeks ago):
Meanwhile, a Facebook page for the Windows Phone application has 366,099 monthly active users. I asked Microsoft if this was the official page for the smartphone platform's Facebook application, and they declined to offer an answer. But given how at least one of the people listed on the page's "About the Developers" section works for Microsoft, I heavily suspect that's the case.
He referred to a slide that Nokia displayed last week that showed marketing and other investments flowing from Microsoft to Nokia as part of the deal. While speculation has had that number in the millions or tens of millions, it's more than that, he said. "In fact the value transferred to Nokia is measured in B's not M's," he said.
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop implied Sunday that his company would receive billions of dollars in incentives from Microsoft for agreeing to make Windows Phone 7 the primary operating system for its smartphones.
Speaking at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Elop said the deal's value to Nokia is "in Bs not in Ms." The comment sparked speculation that Microsoft is, in effect, paying Nokia—the world's biggest cell phone manufacturer in terms of market share—to carry Windows Phone 7 on its smartphones.
Nokia chief Stephen Elop is trying to rid himself of his numerous shares in Microsoft, he said at a press conference ahead of the start of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
What it’s going to look like to most Microsoft employees is that Management panicked. I’ll bet that there’s a lot of resumes getting dusted off this weekend, and not just in the division that handles WP7. When Management makes short term decisions like this, it’s a good time to get ready to bail out.
I understand what Microsoft Management was trying to do. But they so totally blew it. Short term thinking can kill your company. Totally kill it.
But it might be good in the long run. This might be just what board needs to give them the ammunition to dump Ballmer. So far he’s been protected, because he’s Bill’s school buddy. This foul up however may make Bill take another look. Maybe.
--Brad Silverberg, Microsoft
Comments
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2011-02-16 06:35:06
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2011-02-16 06:39:55
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2011-02-16 12:56:53
Some of the damage will never be undone. There will be contractual obligations and community disruption. Every day that Elop is allowed to fire gnu/linux programmers is a day those people are out finding something else to do for a living and more experience is lost to Nokia. Microsoft people know that a community of developers is what makes the software world go round and that perception in communities is very important. Elop's mouthing off is damaging and he knows it. The windows press magnifies this damage and won't undo it if things change. Clueful people won't bother to look at Nokia want adds while Elop is in control, the place will be flooded with Microsoft monkeys. That flood will persist even if Plan B is implemented because the Microsoft press won't trumpet the return to sanity.
This is the kind of disruption Microsoft TEs like to inflict on competitors. They hate and seek to destroy each and every person who knows how to get things done without Microsoft. They gauge the result in lines of code written to their standard or someone else's.
Recent events are showing that Microsoft's arrogance and insane, hypercompetitive pettiness and malice is a reflection of the rich and powerful that is not confined to Microsoft. One of the BoA and US chamber of commerce smear targets tells us,
It is a good thing that the corporate flunkies consistently chose Microsoft, so that it was easy for Anonymous to penetrate their networks and publish their email.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2011-02-16 13:07:01
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yp-1MdxfT8&feature=youtu.be
Alien Dalvik (Android apps/games on Maemo) was getting too promising. Stephen Ballmer and Stephen Elop had to kill it. Likewise:
- Corel did wonderful work on Linux with Wine, enabling almost all Windows application to run on Linux. Microsoft had to 'steal' Corel and burn it down.
- Novell did good work on Compiz with SLED 10, enabling all business tasks to run on Linux. Microsoft had to 'steal' Novell and take its software patents.
-Yahoo provided a lot of backing to GNU, Linux, BSD, PHP, Hadoop etc. Microsoft had to shut down Yang's Yahoo!, making it a Microsoft shop. Traffic too got lifted.
"Microsoft has had clear competitors in the past. It’s good that we have museums to document them." ~Bill Gates, March 10th, 2005
Learn about what Bill Gates called his "Jihad" against Linux at Intel: http://techrights.org/2009/01/12/bill-gates-jihad-vs-linux/