07.23.10
Posted in Finance, Fraud, Microsoft, Vista 7 at 11:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“One strategy that Microsoft has employed in the past is paying for the silence of people and companies. Charles Pancerzewski, formerly Microsoft’s chief auditor, became aware of Microsoft’s practice of carrying earnings from one accounting period into another, known as “managing earnings”. This practice smoothes reported revenue streams, increases share value, and misleads employees and shareholders. In addition to being unethical, it’s also illegal under U.S. Securities Law and violates Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (Fink).
–2002 story about Charles Pancerzewski, Microsoft
Summary: Microsoft carries on with its deferral tactics and it also takes more debt, which embellishes its financial position amid very difficult times
MICROSOFT has a criminal baggage, as everyone ought to know by now. There have been funny things around the accountancy inside this company (which has a history of financial fraud). Due to lack of time, we are not going to repeat what we already covered along with supportive evidence. Currently, Microsoft finds itself reluctantly announcing further layoffs whose purpose is to cut expenses [1, 2]. Microsoft has had too many flukes recently. It has also taken more debt, as we noted repeatedly this year and last year.
On the face of it, what Microsoft does at the moment is it sells a bunch of block-future-licenses to the OEMs, does not yet get the money, and puts that on the plus side of the balance sheet. Apple, by contrast, doesn’t have OEMs, so it needn’t play that particular accountants’ shuffle.
“That means revenue isn’t really $16bn but $10bn and combined with fake OEM-futures isn’t an accurate picture.”
–Anonymous sourceSome Web sites blindly repeat Microsoft’s press release/report. It’s so much easier (and faster) to not ever investigate or be sceptical. It’s also a lot safer, as standing out from the crowd is clearly riskier to a journalist. One site, however, previously pointed out (2 months ago) that “The company’s $2.25 billion in short-term debt and $3.75 billion in long-term debt, combined, is less than its $8 billion cash hoard.”
As one reader of ours put it, “That means revenue isn’t really $16bn but $10bn and combined with fake OEM-futures isn’t an accurate picture.” Vista 7 is not selling well and as we wrote 3 months ago, Microsoft used the deferral trick to elevate Office revenue since the previous quarter (same accounting trick it used for Vista 7 two quarters ago).
We will share more detailed explanations later (there is a lot of catching up to do with Microsoft news, at least 3 weeks’ worth due to that vacation in London, which I now have photos from).
This post is just a placeholder that hopefully addresses questions we heard from people who believe press releases (and those who merely parrot them). A more detailed analysis will come soon. █
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07.22.10
Posted in Bill Gates, Fraud, Marketing, Microsoft, Steve Ballmer at 3:50 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Ballmer’s designs on McGregor did not include firing him, because Gates worried that if McGregor left the project midstream, the press would find out and flame Microsoft in the papers. Gates begged him to stay for the “good of the project,” just as long as he wasn’t in charge of the project. Gates told McGregor he’d pay his full salary, and McGregor could do whatever he wanted. Gates would call McGregor an architect, which was the hip word at Microsoft, so long as he stayed at the company until Windows shipped. McGregor left anyway. His attitude was, essentially, “Screw that. I’m not going to stay around and do nothing while you guys use me and mess up my project.” McGregor was told he could pick up his things in the parking garage the next day, and Ballmer physically moved into his office.”
–Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, a book composed
by the daughter of Microsoft’s PR mogul
Summary: Unrest inside Microsoft’s management and more information about Bill Gates’ role in Corbis fraud
What’s next for Microsoft? That’s a good question. At present, Microsoft has a lot to worry about, especially because its future seems not so bright. The companies’ big guns are reportedly plotting to overthrow Steve Ballmer, as shareholders did last year.
Senior Microsoft executives, disenchanted with the company’s stagnant stock, have been secretly discussing how to kick Chief Steve Ballmer, and maybe the board, to the curb.
Ballmer’s predecessor, Bill Gates, is still making headlines because of fraud (we covered it earlier this week), so now is not a good time to speak about his potential Steve Jobs-like return as CEO. To quote another page, “On February 16, 2006, a meeting was held with Bill Gates and senior Corbis executives including Steve Davis (former CEO), Gary Shenk (CEO), Sue McDonald (former CFO/COO) and Jim Mitchell (General Counsel) to discuss, among other things, certain software development by Corbis. InfoFlows’ CEO Steve Stone was at this meeting, but he was unaware and was not told that Corbis had already filed a patent application, nor was he aware that Corbis executives had contemporaneously prepared materials for Bill Gates that identified the non-public patent application as a “growth opportunity” for Corbis.”
Amid this identity crisis Microsoft is trying to reinvent itself with branding, just like Vista 7 was a rebranding job.
“Microsoft Rebranding Itself To Be What’s Next,” according to this report and Glyn Moody remarks: “as in “has-been”?”
Microsoft’s annual event for employees – MGX is currently underway and according to Engadget Microsoft has unveiled a new tagline.
The tagline “What’s Next” truly begs for punchlines.
“Microsoft hired kindergardeners for their logo design team,” Ziomatrix remarked, but Engadget points out that the new logos are not real, just the tagline.
What’s next for Microsoft? Maybe a financial blunder. Microsoft’s debt is growing. █
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07.21.10
Posted in Bill Gates, Fraud, Microsoft at 1:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Corbis fraud is now a fact (Bill Gates is the sole owner of Corbis); Alexey Karetnikov from Microsoft is allegedly a Russian spy
THIS bit of news is not about the Gates Foundation, which is a patents-loving/hoarding operation and image/reputation laundering disguised as a tax-exempt charity. This quick post is actually about this new report from Forbes. “Start-Up Goes Public On Corbis Fraud, Starring Bill Gates,” says the headline.
It’s a case of David vs. Goliath and, pebble in hand, now David is talking to the press. The David in this case is Infoflows, a six-person company in the Seattle area that successfully sued stock photography company Corbis and won a $20 million judgment against Corbis early this year. Now, Infoflows has decided to go public with its side of the story.
Bill Gates has a starring role in Infoflow’s story. The company, made up mostly of former Microsoft ( MSFT – news – people ) employees, was launched to form a technology that would identify digital objects. Corbis first entered into an agreement with Infoflows around 2005, feeding information it gleaned from that relationship to an outside patent counsel, according to court documents. Corbis terminated the agreement in 2006, days after receiving key software designs from Infoflows.
Article Controls
A King County, Wash., superior court jury found in January 2010 that Corbis, which is solely owned by Bill Gates, fraudulently entered into a business relationship with Infoflows and then developed the company’s ideas into a service for identifying objects in its digital photo collection.
This is coming from the same guy who, according to OpenBytes, is now busy getting people “addicted”, just like those pharmaceutical giants he invests billions of dollars in and publicly promotes.
Lets begin by reminding ourselves of two comments made by Bill Gates – you might have heard of him, he is/was? quite influential at Microsoft. 
It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not.
As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.
Read those sentences a few times, take a deep breath and then consider the companies mentioned in the last article. hypocrisy? or maybe underhanded tactics to allow the spread of Microsoft wares until such time as they decide to collect? – I hope everyone can forgive me for thinking this sounds very much like the drug dealer who gives the first few “hits” for free, safe in the knowledge that an addict will keep coming back.
I digress (as is my want) and this article is about the contact I have had from some of the companies/individuals who were named on the Microsoft hit list. It certainly makes interesting reading and certainly (in the cases Ive seen) not a case of selling cracked copies of Windows 7, its more a licensing agreement issue when selling refurbed PC’s as a business. Lets make something clear here, the hit list that has been published (although some sources would suggest otherwise) is not a list of people caught selling copies of Windows 7. As the links that follow will show, this is Microsoft cashing in on alleged licensing issues, in particular (in the example) a business selling on a refurbished PC. This is no “Knock off Nigel”.
There was one company in particular who contacted me from the hit list linked in the previous article. For arguments sake we will call them Company X, as you will see, from theirs (and other supporting comments from others) there is a genuine fear of retaliation for speaking out against the “Mighty Microsoft”. I however have no such fear in regards to my comments and if Microsoft feel the need to ever take legal action over my words, I would welcome it.
It all fits together. Poor ethics and dishonesty about counterfeiting make up the attitudinal issue we witness to this date.
Jokingly, Jan Wildeboer from Red Hat suggests a “conspiracy”. A few days ago he wrote: “One of the russian spies worked at MSFT and now Russia gets the sources of Win7 – coincidence? ”
Russia has access to the source code and Alexey Karetnikov is now deported. It probably is just a coincidence though.
Immigration deports Alexey Karetnikov: Microsoft engineer, alleged Russian spy, loyal Facebook user
[...]
The curious case of the Russian spies grows, well, curiouser, as the Washington Post reports that a Microsoft Software Design Engineer named Alexey Karetnikov has recently been ordered out of the country for “immigration violations.” According to a government source, Karetnikov had “just set up shop,” (spy shop, that is) and the immigration charges were technicalities used to get him out of the country quickly (and without an annoying trial).
We will probably return to this at a later stage (still catching up with news that was missed during absence). █
“In honor of the event, Pam Edstrom, who had since left Microsoft to cofound her own agency, Waggener Edstrom, and handle Microsoft’s PR from the outside, sponsored a “Windows Roast.” Gathered at the Alexis Park Resort in Las Vegas, Gates and Ballmer made fun of themselves and not so subtly apologized for the Windows delays. “To Dream the Impossible Dream” was the theme song playing in the background. With three hundred analysts and members of the press invited to these festivities where Gates and Ballmer let it all hang out, it was another coup for “Gates’s Keeper.” Gates joked that Ballmer had insisted, ” ‘We just gotta cut features.’ He came up with this idea that we could rename this thing Microsoft Window—and we would have shipped that thing a long time ago.”
–Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, a book composed
by Pam’s daughter
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07.05.10
Posted in Finance, Fraud, Microsoft at 5:45 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Bad news for Microsoft, ranging from the departure of Rebecca Norlander to a collapse in value and the reminder of further layoffs/offshoring
THIS news is indirectly related to the death of KIN. It helps show just how vulnerable Microsoft really is.
Now that Allard is out [1, 2, 3] his wife is leaving too. She was the online-ads leader, according to the boosters:
Rebecca Norlander, a partner engineering manager with Microsoft’s online advertising business, has left the company along with her husband, former Xbox guru J Allard.
Mary Jo Foley wrote about this too:
When I spoke last month with Rebecca Norlander — a high-profile Microsoft exec who had done stints in a variety of business units — she was evaluating her next move inside the company.
[...]
Just before resigning, Norlander was talking about new job possibilities with the Entertainment and Devices unit, among others divisions at Microsoft, she said. She also was having conversations with the SQL Server and Windows teams about potential opportunities.
Only about 3-5 days ago we have been in E-mail contact with a Microsoft veteran (almost 30 years) who was friends with J Allard and Bill Gates. He struggled to explain to us Allard’s departure, which some say was a sacking, not a quitting.
Microsoft has lost many executives recently. The leadership is weak and Microsoft implodes from within. “100 Index Posts Record Losing Streak as Microsoft Slumps,” said BusinessWeek some days ago:
The measure, which gets 63 percent of its value from computer-related companies such as Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc., has declined 9.7 percent after slumping 10 consecutive days. Microsoft has tumbled 26 percent since peaking on April 22, while Apple has fallen 9.9 percent in two weeks.
Now is a bad time to be a Microsoft investor, unless one has inside information from Microsoft. Pequot Capital criminally got that privilege [1, 2], which allowed it to fraudulently make money from Microsoft’s stock. The SEC’s incompetence is now costing people a fortune and one employee gets compensated for an unjust firing. It’s a Pequot whistleblower.
From Murdoch’s press:
In May, after new information surfaced in a divorce case, Pequot founder Arthur Samberg agreed, without admitting or denying wrongdoing, to pay $28 million to settle allegations he engaged in insider trading of Microsoft stock.
More here:
Last month Pequot, which abruptly went out of business in 2009, agreed to pay $28 million to settle regulators claims that it illegally used inside information to trade Microsoft Corp shares.
It’s a sign of rotten systems. Watch how they penalise those who seek justice:
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will pay $755,000 to a former enforcement attorney who said the agency unjustly fired him after he tried to investigate insider-trading allegations involving former Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer John Mack.
Speaking of whistleblowers, Microsoft fired a whistleblower for saying the truth and bribed another fired whistleblower to drop allegations of Microsoft fraud. Microsoft is a corrupt company, so it’s only its nature to operate in this way. Eric Savitz, one of the key boosters of Microsoft's stock, is still sticking with the same agenda. It would be interesting to know if he has had shares in Microsoft (MSFT).
For those who do not know, Microsoft’s divisions are suffering at many levels; allegedly, they still quietly lay employees off (without disclosure). The “KIN” team would be one obvious area.
“Microsoft and Honda executives dole out advice on cutting jobs,” says this news headline from the Telegraph. Microsoft must be the expert, having dealt with many larger-scale layoffs recently.
Gordon Frazer, managing director of Microsoft, said: “With hindsight, people understood what was going on long before we made any announcement. The sooner you can tell them ‘this is how it is going to affect you and your job’, the better.”
Microsoft does not have to publicly announce layoffs (not even to shareholders) if the process is slow and gradual and if the jobs are moved to cheaper places, as we shall show later. █
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06.07.10
Posted in Finance, Fraud, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft, Patents at 7:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A look at reputation laundering from Microsoft and how easily it can be refuted, by showing that Microsoft still attacks software freedom, abuses US/international law, and harms programmers in general
IT has become either comical or upsetting to see the number of articles from authors gullible enough to be blinded by PR. One type of articles would say that Microsoft changed its behaviour and the other type would say that Microsoft is leaning towards Open Source. As we will show in another post (probably later today), Microsoft’s CEO has just equated “Open Source” to “Linux” and he is fighting both as competitors of his.
Our reader Satipera has found this short post which falls under both categories/types. It’s one of the many white-washy articles and the disclosure says: “Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us more. Microsoft is currently a retainer client of Altimeter Group but not a client of Insider Associates, LLC.”
“Microsoft says it has changed, competing companies would beg to differ.”
–SatiperaThe post/article is basically one of those typical opinions that conveniently leave out Microsoft racketeering [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and other very aggressive behavioural patterns that continue to evoke antitrust complaints filed against Microsoft (we gave the latest example just hours ago).
“Microsoft says it has changed,” writes Satipera, “competing companies would beg to differ.” To quote Mark Shuttleworth regarding Microsoft’s patent racket: “That’s extortion and we should call it what it is. To say, as Ballmer did, that there is undisclosed balance sheet liability, that’s just extortion and we should refuse to get drawn into that game.”
How can Microsoft call itself a friend of Open Source?
It’s easy for Microsoft to make such indefensible claims when .NET dependants are described as “open-source”, such as in this new example from ZDNet:
An open-source Anti-XSS Web Protection Library, from Microsoft
The WPL, which is a set of .NET assemblies, is being offered as part of a defense in depth strategy to add an extra layer to any validation or secure coding practices.
It is rather laughable to call this “open-source” and also a bit of a stretch.
As for Microsoft’s behaviour in general, recently we revisited corruption when dealing with the Pequot case [1, 2]. Here is another new article on the subject:
The S.E.C. only began looking at trading by Pequot in 2005, including some well-timed investments in Microsoft in April 2001. When it takes that long to start reviewing trades, evidence of how information may have been passed might not be available and the memories of witnesses can fade, making it difficult to put together a case.
[...]
Pequot and its chief executive, Arthur J. Samberg, settled with the S.E.C. by agreeing to pay nearly $28 million as disgorgement and a penalty, without admitting or denying liability, for trading in advance of a favorable earnings announcement from Microsoft. A former Microsoft employee hired by Pequot right around the time of the trading, David E. Zilkha, was named in an administrative complaint filed by the S.E.C. as being the source of the information.
Fortunately, Microsoft has been declining over the past 10 years (more evidence of that in a later post). A shift in computing slowly began to occur with the advent of the post-MSIE Internet (returning to the days of innovation on the Web, circa Netscape) and Free software that supported it and thrived in it (collaboration and sharing of code depended on the Internet). The Microsoft fan press has this story about a former Microsoft employee who left in 1999. Here is the cause:
When the Microsoft team dwindled, he moved to Colton’s club based in Wallingford. In 1999, he left his job, in search of a new career.
Microsoft’s neglect of US workforce is another subject we regularly cover. Let’s not forget Microsoft's legalisation of its own tax evasion. How is that an example of Microsoft improving its behaviour? █
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05.31.10
Posted in Bill Gates, Finance, Fraud, Microsoft at 4:57 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Christine Gregoire’s apathy, indifference or fear of her colleague/s who came from Microsoft leaves her incapable of doing the right thing and demanding tax money from Microsoft
WE have already explained why attempts by Bill Gates Sr. to change tax law are self serving [1, 2]. In short, they hardly increase tax imposed on himself and his family and they do help Microsoft justify its legalised tax evasion. Here is a new article titled, “Trust Gates, Sr.? Washington state liberals? No way!”
Bill “I have my fortune, now I want to tax yours” Gates, Sr. wants to tax all of those “rich people” with a state income tax.
His “rich” threshold is $250,000 in income per year.
What a deal. Our property taxes and the B&O tax will be cut.
Really?
We can count on the state to do the cuts after we vote this tax in?
As we stated before, this would work pretty well for Microsoft and the Gates Foundation, which receives tax exemptions it cannot quite defend because it operates like a business. What are Washington’s heads going to do about it? Probably nothing because they are surrounded by former Microsoft employees like Hunter. Here he is mentioned again by Microsoft Nick in Seattle:
(A 17-year Microsoft veteran, Hunter left Redmond in 2000 after jobs such as program manager for Microsoft Access and general manager for Microsoft Commercial Internet System. He winced when he looped a Google badge around his neck Tuesday.)
As we showed some weeks ago, Microsoft used its external PR department (Waggener Edstrom) to help lobby against taxing Microsoft. It was a real PR blitz and Governor Gregoire is stuck in the middle, somewhere between former Microsoft manager/s, lobbyists, and AstroTurfing. “Governor Gregoire Isn’t Clueless, She’s Gutless,” says the headline of this latest post from a former Microsoft employee. He protests against the company’s tax dodge, which left the Governor acting more like a marionette than a representative of Washington’s citizens.
Her answer confused me since the bill she just signed gave Microsoft a huge effective tax cut, changing the royalty law from a tax on gross worldwide revenue to one only on sales to Washington State customers. Whereas Microsoft will earn approximately $20.7 billion in worldwide licensing revenue this year, its sales to Washington State are a tiny fraction of this. So having slashed Microsoft’s tax exposure, what exactly did Gregoire want to bring back?
Furthermore, every effort in the Legislature, spearheaded by 17 year veteran ex-Microsoftee and Chair of the Finance committee Rep. Ross Hunter, seemed geared towards rewriting the system in favor of Microsoft … the legislation even includes language which grants Microsoft amnesty on its past 13 year Nevada tax dodge, an estimated $757 million in unpaid taxes.
[...]
In the year of a $2.8 billion budget gap, Gregoire chose not to cast Microsoft as a tax evading villain, enforcing the old royalty tax in a PR and legal coup that might have netted the state $100.7 million this year (note: that’s more than $84.7 million) not to mention $1.2 billion in past payments, interest and penalties, instead she chose to raise the business service tax rate, create new “7-11″ taxes on beer, wine and candy and to cut vital services including unemployment benefits to the disabled.
[...]
The Two Biggest Myths About Microsoft in Washington State
Rather than worry about the next ten thousand high paying technology jobs Microsoft’s creating in India, China, Texas and elsewhere, she wants us to believe she’s fighting the company to return its 100 – 200 Nevada managed lawyers, paralegals and accountants who run its (formerly) tax avoiding royalty business. As it only takes a small number of lawyers and accountants to dodge $100.7 million annually in taxes, Microsoft’s tax avoidance jobs don’t scale the way it’s next big technical success like Azure, or Natal or Kin might.
The biggest myth in Washington State is that Microsoft plans to grow its next ten thousand jobs here. The second biggest myth is that if we tax the company more it will leave. The painful truth is that it’s already engaging in a number of steps to reduce its growth (and even downsize) here and we’d have to pass a lot more bad law like the one Gregoire just signed if we want them to stay.
Meanwhile, no one in state government has responded to legal precedents that suggest the state might have prevailed in a lawsuit to collect that billion in unpaid royalty taxes from Microsoft. Why would they, aren’t we all on the same team?
Gregoire is being used by Microsoft to keep injustice in tact and other companies do something similar (to a greater or lesser degree). From last week’s news we have another corporate opposition to tax:
The effort is led in part by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an alliance of companies including IBM, Microsoft Corp. and General Electric Co. They are targeting a measure that extends aid to unemployed workers, promotes bonds for infrastructure projects and renews more than three-dozen business tax breaks, including a credit for experimental research that many of the companies support.
Speaking of financial affairs, a short while ago we explained that money could be passed by Microsoft to SCO through Pequot Capital, whose manager got busted and escaped with a settlement but no prison sentence. Here is some more coverage of this corruption:
The SEC separately brought an enforcement action against Zilkha, which is continuing in an administrative proceeding before the SEC.
The SEC said that in Jan. 2009 it first received direct evidence that Zilkha had material, nonpublic information about Microsoft, including copies of emails that had been located on a computer hard drive that was then in the possession of Zilkha’s ex-wife.
Separately, the S.E.C. has filed a complaint against David Zilkha, a former Microsoft employee who later worked at Pequot, accusing him of tipping off the hedge fund and Mr. Samberg with nonpublic information about Microsoft’s earnings, the agency said in a statement.
The case against Mr. Zilkha will continue in an administrative proceeding before the commission, the agency said in a statement.
Let this teach us what happens when employees like Hunter move from Microsoft into another entity where mischief and corruption become more likely. Shouldn’t Gregoire just expel someone like Hunter for consistently serving his former employer’s interests whilst in government? No wonder such a small proportion of the US population trusts the government. These numbers may have improved when Bush left office, but they carried on declining since then. Industry and governance ought to be separated, but Microsoft won’t let them be. █
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05.28.10
Posted in Finance, Fraud, Microsoft, Novell at 8:54 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The company which made corruption a standard
practice, a ‘norm’ to merely be settled
Summary: Pequot to settle for $28 million after illegal behaviour (inside trading); new shuffles at Microsoft after an inside-trading president, Robbie Bach, left the company
THE Pequot case is one that we previously covered in [1, 2, 3]. This case of fraud — just like Microsoft's fraud and Novell's fraud — ends up being settled (which is often an implicit admission of guilt).
Pequot Capital Management and its chief executive, Arthur Samberg, agreed to pay $28 million to settle the SEC’s charges that the firm traded shares of Microsoft based on insider information.
As a side note, now that Microsoft struggles to reinvent itself [via] and key people are leaving [1, 2], we happen to find out that “MSFT switches E&D CFO Mindy Mount to online services,” according to Tartakoff who reads many Microsoft insiders’ comments. It’s truly a game of musical chairs after the inside trader Robbie Bach left this company. █
“Behind every great fortune there is a crime.”
–Honor de Balzac
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05.26.10
Posted in Fraud, Hardware, Microsoft at 1:58 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Without a jail sentence — let alone an investigation — Robbie Bach exits Microsoft along with his sidekick from the division that cost Microsoft billions of dollars in losses
SEVERAL days ago we wrote about J Allard, who rumours suggested had left Microsoft [1, 2]. For those who do not know, J Allard is responsible for losing billions of dollars in failed projects at Microsoft. He’s a key mastermind/engineer in some atrocious products like Zune. We now have it confirmed that J Allard is indeed leaving Microsoft, joining the long list of top executives who quit the company in recent years. To make matters worse, J Allard metaphorically takes with him a Microsoft President, who also seems to have decided to abandon the boat while it’s rocking. We are talking about Robbie Bach, the corrupt (yet above the law) Microsoft executive with direct oversight involving money holes (or sinks) such as Xbox. What future is left for Microsoft in hardware then? Re-badged mice and keyboards from the far east?
The severity of these two new departures is so high that Steve Ballmer needed to formally announce it himself with a tone of ‘damage control’ [1, 2].
Microsoft Chief Experience Officer J Allard sent out a goodbye note of his own on May 25, the date that Microsoft announced officially that both Allard and Entertainment and Devices President Robbie Bach are leaving the company.
Over at GigaOM, a site which Microsoft used to pay for some AstroTurfing (sneakily throwing slogans into posts), there is pondering about Allard, Bach, and Ballmer. There were a lot of articles/material written back in 2008 (when Microsoft began a big decline) about the need to fire Steve Ballmer. There is nobody left who can inherit his position and besides, being the PR disaster that he is, it’s probably good that he remains CEO (his predecessor spends billions investing to empower other monopolies and laundering his criminal past with legions of PR people). █
“On the day of the sentencing, the gang members [Microsoft executives] maintained that they had done nothing wrong, saying that the whole case was a conspiracy by the white power structure to destroy them. I am now under no illusions that miscreants will realize that other parts of society view them that way.”
–Supreme Court Justice Jackson
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