Comments on: Microsoft’s Very Own “Death Spiral” (on the Web) http://techrights.org/2009/03/23/ms-desperate-for-yahoo-deal/ Free Software Sentry – watching and reporting maneuvers of those threatened by software freedom Fri, 25 Nov 2016 09:41:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.14 By: amd-linux http://techrights.org/2009/03/23/ms-desperate-for-yahoo-deal/comment-page-1/#comment-60827 Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:32:52 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/?p=7269#comment-60827 “Me, too” would also very well summarize their business activities.

They have long time ago given up to even try to invent. They now bully and copy.

They’re done.

]]> By: David Gerard http://techrights.org/2009/03/23/ms-desperate-for-yahoo-deal/comment-page-1/#comment-60818 Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:07:36 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/?p=7269#comment-60818 This post inspired today’s NotN.

]]> By: twitter http://techrights.org/2009/03/23/ms-desperate-for-yahoo-deal/comment-page-1/#comment-60801 Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:21:31 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/?p=7269#comment-60801 Nice summary. It’s easy to lose the big picture with all of the BS M$ pumps out through their purchased and managed press. It’s also difficult to know where M$’s finances really are when you can’t trust what they put into quarterly reports, but the line drawn from $60 billion cash a few years ago points to less than zero today. Not much has changed to turn that line around. Xbox, Zune, web search, online services, Vista and Office 2009 all flunked out and Windows 7 won’t be much better. The company has started to fire people but that kind of cost cutting won’t produce the product they needed now, nor will that product be adequate in the future. Iceland, where things are worse for people, shows an interesting structural weakness in M$’s business operations that creates a cascading revenue failure, so the end may come sooner than anyone imagines.

Ultimately, there’s no room for non free software in the era of affordable computing. Other people can and are doing what M$ used to do, and they do it for much less. There’s no room for a $60 OS fee or a $400 Office suite on a $200 computer. Analysts and people in industry see this clearly. As Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini bluntly put it, “Microsoft has to figure out: What’s their strategy?” The retail channels M$ squeezed to push Vista and fight EEE PC simply went out of business, a trend that started before the financial crisis which is cleaning out everyone left. The only thing they have left is patent extortion, an injustice informed opinion thinks is doomed to fail.

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