Summary: A closer look and briefer analysis (than most) of people whom Microsoft is grooming amid perception-altering appointments

Analysis of the press release from Microsoft has been shallow and promotional. Watch out for bogus 'reporting' from Microsoft boosters like Peter 'Bright', to give just one example among hundreds or thousands jaw-dropping puff pieces. Even some Microsoft-hostile circles have offered too week a scrutiny, if any at all. Let's sum up what it's all about (and it's mostly marketing, not real news).

Microsoft has a new racketeer in chief, overseeing patent extortion along with Horacio while putting a 'gentle' face on it. It is all just a rebranding exercise -- a familiar old trick that the company behind Kin and Vista is known for. This is a persona routine that marketing companies are renowned for and villains/abusers like BP or Monsanto are (in)famous for.

Also joining the leadership is the man best known for his leadership in GNU/Linux foe Symantec and his role in Seagate, a company sometimes known for its NSA connections just like Microsoft (those three are all connected, or even four if Symantec gets counted because Seagate preinstalls Microsoft software on drives and Symantec profits from Windows). As a timely side note, avoid Seagate. They are absolutely horrible, both technically (based on new studies [1, 2]) and ethically. Today I had to print labels at a high price at some shop to send back my faulty drive to Segate (Netherlands); they shipped me a faulty drive to replace another drive that had gone faulty. Seagate is garbage.

Last but not least, Microsoft boasts the involvement of serial felon, tax evader and patent booster, who is making money by charging taxpayers for his patents against their will and through governments (as an investor in Wal-Mart, for example, his quickly-growing money hoard is at least partly funded by taxpayers, as Wal-Mart itself admits [1]).

Based on what seems like a satirical piece about Vista 8, this man who joked about Vista being crappy (video from Homer) is now complaining about Vista. To quote Homer's analysis of the satirical piece: "Bill Gates’ first day at work in the newly created role of technology adviser got off to a rocky start yesterday as the Microsoft founder struggled for hours to install the Windows 8.1 upgrade.

"The installation hit a snag early on, sources said, when Mr. Gates repeatedly received an error message informing him that his PC ran into a problem that it could not handle and needed to restart.

"After failing to install the upgrade by lunchtime, Mr. Gates summoned the new Microsoft C.E.O. Satya Nadella, who attempted to help him with the installation, but with no success.

As Will Hill points out: "Sadly, satire: PR for Gates and advertisement for Vista 7."

This is pretty much all over the press these days: whitewash, humour, PR, and viral marketing. There was a similar story about Ballmer trying to get rid of a virus, requiring days of work and the help of several 'engineers'. That was in Vista days, but in court documents it turned out that Ballmer and others really did struggle with Vista and expressed concerns.

Going back to Gates, it's all decoy, distraction, and appeal to the press. So all we have here is one fake 'charitable' hoarder who increases his wealth by surveillance, private police thugs (G4S), GMO etc. and two people of ethnic minorities with proximity to NSA (Azure and Seagate). This is not change or reform, it's just like the Obama speech about the NSA.

A week or so ago Microsoft booster Julie Bort was prolonging the myth of Microsoft as "an insanely profitable company" [2] when she said Microsoft should kick Gates out of the board. This reveals that Ballmer too will continue to be involved. So here we see that the architects of illegal activities still run Microsoft. Ballmer and Gates are to Microsoft what Clapper and Alexander have been to the NSA in recent years.

Remember that Gates has had a lot to do with Microsoft's patent extortion strategy. Now that we learn about more patent deals [3] we should remember that there is nothing "gentle" or "charitable" at Microsoft. It's the same ruthless people, including the man who was put on trial for business crimes and was arrested when he was young (to be bailed out by his affluent family). It's all just marketing now.

"The new patent cross-licensing agreement is designed to protect both companies from patent lawsuits," says the Microsoft booster about Google and Cisco. What a classic mischaracterisation of patents.

Where is the criticism of Gates for rackeetering? Where are the good investigative articles from Wired, which nowadays (on a weekly basis) seems to be acting as Gates' private perception management journal? ⬆

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. In Rare Moment of Honesty, Wal-Mart Admits that Food Stamps Subsidize their Profits

   Walmart has been in the national spotlight for their poverty wages and employees’ reliance on government assistance. In their quarterly report, Walmart is set to announce that their profits have taken a hit. In a moment of rare honesty, they cited the Republican funding cut to the federal food stamp (SNAP) program as a part of the reason for their lower profit margins, admitting that the federal food stamp program amounts to corporate welfare that subsidizes their profits.





2. Kicking Bill Gates Off The Board Is The Best Thing Microsoft Can Do

   Microsoft is an insanely profitable company standing on the edge of disaster. It desperately needs new thinking.
   
   With word that 22-year Microsoft veteran Satya Nadella is likely the new CEO, attention turns to the leadership of the company's board of directors. It will have two former CEOs, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.
   
   So new thinking is unlikely to come from them.





3. Google, Cisco sign deal to avoid future patent squabbles