Bonum Certa Men Certa

When It Comes to Financial Spin-Doctoring, Microsoft is Now Marketers Marketers Marketers Marketers

Microsoft exec tells employees to improve its stock performance in lieu of raises



Stock price 'most important lever' to get pay raise, Microsoft CMO tells employees



Microsoft CMO tells employees the stock price is the ‘most important lever’ to get a pay raise after cashing out on $4.4 million worth of stock this month



Microsoft CMO tells employees the stock price is the ‘most important lever’ to get a pay raise after cashing out on $4.4 million worth of stock this month



Summary: Marketers from Microsoft -- and former Chief Marketing Officers or HR VPs too -- are trying to spin Microsoft's collapsing business units (and mass layoffs that are under-reported and grossly under-counted in the media); how much of Microsoft's remaining financial activity is just financialization and debt-loading (e.g. buying companies to offload debt onto them)?

Microsoft is 80 billion dollars in debt (a lot higher than its cash reserves or bank balance) and the layoffs carry on and on this year (example from this past Friday). The bleeding does not stop.



"The bleeding does not stop."As an associate put it this morning, "it is telling that Microsoft is [as per news sites] linking the possibility of salary raises to stock price because it suggest that Microsoft makes most of its money through financialization and that the Office format monopoly rents are weak or gone and that the OEM monopoly rents are weak or probably gone, since they are now basically giving away Windows." (Almost no cost, as the competition with GNU/Linux is fierce)

"Notice how the media now quotes as financial expert a marketing person."We're going to see some interesting things ahead because government bailouts will be harder for Microsoft to secure (Trump and Biden bailed Microsoft out with "defence" contracts worth tens of billions of dollars). Now that the US government grapples with the possibility of default (aside from almost $32 trillion in national debt there is also close to $18 trillion in US household debt), not to mention many failing banks (hundreds more are said to be on the verge of collapse right now) there are not many chips left on the table. Will people's pensions be thrown at the stock market, tied to stocks where the valuation is massively inflated and unrealistic?

Notice how the media now quotes as financial expert a marketing person*. To quote: "Microsoft's Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela has reportedly told employees that "the most important lever for almost all our employees' compensation upside is the stock price.""

______ * That Microsoft "report" and similar ones (same 'script') has helped distract from the layoffs (we saw numerous of the same spiel, an identical 'script'). Last week Microsoft spread a bunch of fluff about salaries and salary increases while many layoffs were quietly signed off.

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