07.29.13
The Crisis of Microsoft and the Coverup
Hiding from the truth
Summary: Recent news about the demise of Microsoft’s common carrier (Windows) and coverage that belittles this fundamental problem
Without the monopoly on platforms and document formats Microsoft will have to complete based on technical merit (which it doesn’t have). This is why Microsoft has bribed and engaged in other crimes to promote OOXML and ensure that almost nobody runs a desktop/laptop without Windows. A lot has changed since smartphones became as powerful as last decade’s desktops and tablets compensated for size differences. Nowadays Linux in the form of Android outsells Windows.
“Some people suspected that Steve Ballmer would get fired over the latest major dip, which was caused by vanity and oversupply.”Some people suspected that Steve Ballmer would get fired over the latest major dip, which was caused by vanity and oversupply. Microsoft just cannot enter the smartphones and tablets market. Windows is not good enough and people don’t want it. “Even the “Friends of Bill” on the board of directors,” said one article, “will have to consider making a change if Ballmer can’t get the Windows 8 mess straightened out by the end of this year. Without the automatic revenue from the Windows cash cow, Microsoft doesn’t continue being the kind of company that can go a decade without a new hit product. If Windows 8.1 doesn’t stop the bleeding, Ballmer loses his safety net. Don’t expect the Microsoft board to give him until Windows 9 before giving his CEO tenure the blue screen of death.”
As one blogger put it: “Six million unsold Surface RT tablets? Something went wrong there. Perhaps Microsoft was a little, uh, over-confident…”
Yes, well, and this arrogance is dragging down Nokia, too. Watch this disturbing-yet-poetic Nokia photo which shows Elop getting closer to Microsoft rather than taking some distance (as a mole, he cannot go away from Ballmer). “Microsoft Is The Cancer Killing Nokia,” says one headline in the financial press, so perhaps it’s not the GPL that’s the “cancer” Steve Ballmer wants us to believe it is. Over at the Washington Post, which is usually Microsoft-friendly, this one blogger says Microsoft is “doomed” and he adds that:
Microsoft stock lost about 10 percent of its value in the wake of a quarterly earnings report on Thursday that investors deemed sub-par. Yet revenue for the second quarter was up 10 percent, to $19.9 billion. And the company’s profits were more than $6 billion, compared to a small loss in the second quarter last year.
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The problem is that no technology CEO wants to admit that his firm is no longer capable of succeeding on technology’s cutting edge. Selling Windows and Office may be profitable, but it’s not as glamorous as writing the software that powers smartphones and Web apps. So just as DEC continued producing innovative but doomed products like the Alpha and Altavista in the 1990s, Steve Ballmer is likely to continue pouring money into money-losing projects like Bing, the Zune, and Surface. That’s probably not good for Microsoft’s shareholders, but it could be great for consumers.
This is actually not the full story. Accounting tricks are hiding the real financial situation of this company. Here is another new take which says “Microsoft’s stock plunge in the wake of disappointing earnings could force a compromise with shareholders pushing for a change.”
“There are already layoffs, going for almost half a decade now, mostly silently.”Microsoft booster Preston Gralla helps cover up the problems and the fact that a lot of money is accumulated by Microsoft owing to corrupt government contracts, which essentially act like a conduit of subsidies for NSA spying on Microsoft dependants.
One investor of Microsoft is saying that Windows 8 a “flop” and says that a “decade of mismanagement has put Microsoft at risk of becoming a shrinking company.”
Risk of shrinking? There are already layoffs, going for almost half a decade now, mostly silently. It started after Vista, which Microsoft never recovered from, definitely not with Vista 8. Even “Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Admits He Made A Huge Mistake” and as AOL puts it: “Despite some good reviews, Microsoft had an extraordinarily difficult time getting the Surface off of shelves, and an overwhelming number of Surface RT tablets have been left unsold. If you break down the $900 million Microsoft lost on the Surface RT, it comes out to about 6 million unsold devices.”
“Microsoft wants to force people to use Windows because they won’t buy it.”Actually, how many of these reviews were bribed for or written by Microsoft boosters? That’s just how it usually goes. Chips B Malroy wrote in IRC: “I wonder what landfill all those unsold Kin’s went too?”
Microsoft has always failed in the hardware business and Frederic Lardinois says that “Microsoft had a pretty bad week. The software giant announced disastrous earnings, which prompted its stock to tank more than 11 percent the next day. One reason for the bad quarter was the $900 million charge it took against “Surface RT” inventory adjustments, but even without this writedown, its quarter still would have been pretty bad. If the earnings show one thing, it’s that outside of its business and enterprise offerings (which delivered relatively good results), Microsoft just doesn’t have any products right now that consumers want to buy.”
Microsoft wants to force people to use Windows because they won’t buy it. This strategy is assisted by UEFI, but with Android as de facto platform on many devices, we are going to see Windows sliding further and further into minority market share. Without Windows, Microsoft is doomed. Shareholders increasingly recognise this. █
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