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The Death of Microsoft in the Media

News companies chart
Image from Pew Research Center



Summary: Microsoft rapidly slides into obscurity and Techrights explains how coverage will be affected

FOR THOSE who do not know, the way Techrights tracks Microsoft typically involves reading and studying Microsoft news over the weekend, usually on a Sunday afternoon. But Techrights has not done this since last month. Why? There is not a high enough volume of news. Microsoft grew somewhat irrelevant in news outlets. A few years ago Microsoft was by far the most talked about company in technology and now it fell behind companies like Facebook, based on this survey (watching the graph is a must). As Microsoft boosters put it:



When it comes to mainstream media outlets like newspapers, TV and radio news, it seems that no one cares much about Microsoft anymore, a new report from Pew Research Center has found. Everyone's eye is on Apple instead. If they turn away from Cupertino, it's mostly to write about Google, Twitter and Facebook.


Yes, even Facebook receives more coverage according to this survey. About a week ago Techrights stated that it would de-emphasise Microsoft coverage not because Microsoft is any less harmful or increasingly benign; it's just because to software freedom, greater hurdles are beginning to develop and we need to recognise these hurdles. Fog Computing is a very scary phenomenon and software patents are no longer being pushed just by Microsoft; Apple is in certain aspects a lot worse than Microsoft even if historically it is not being recognised as such. Facebook is quite a disgusting company for all sorts of reasons, not just its software patents and general policy (Professor Eben Moglen has begun warning a lot of people about Facebook). In IRC we've been discussing the early days of the company and how the history is gradually being deleted; Facebook -- like Microsoft -- gained momentum through illegal activities, but a lot of people no longer know this or recognise this. More recently came all the PR nonsense from Mark, who had called his users "dumb fucks" in the early days when he is said to have illegally published people's profiles on his site, pretending that they had subscribed to share this information. It should hardly be surprising that Facebook sympathises with Microsoft and sometimes gets compared to it. Facebook, which is now partly owned by Microsoft, has increasingly become an extension of Microsoft. To highlight some recent news, we have "Microsoft bolsters Facebook Docs sharing service" and "Microsoft initiates a campaign on Facebook with PC vs. Mac application" (with more examples in the wiki).

Microsoft Nick argues that "Microsoft conspicuously absent from new social media map" and if one considers the social media networks which Microsoft turns into subservient ones, then it's a different picture altogether.

As if we needed further proof Microsoft isn't a notable player in the emergent world of social media ...

The third and newest version of The Conversation Prism, a map of today's most influential online social tools, includes just one Microsoft product: Newsvine, which Microsoft subsidiary msnbc.com acquired in 2007. Like The Seattle Times' Brier Dudley, I couldn't spot any other Microsoft products in the Prism.


Well, msnbc.com is an interesting case and later on we are going to show how this network -- along with other networks -- was being 'bought' by Microsoft in order to lie (or to "spin", putting it more mildly).

For those who worry about Microsoft, there is reason to worry no more. It's like worrying about SCO and as we'll show later in the week, Microsoft as a phenomenon is a greater threat than Microsoft itself. The company called Microsoft received many downgrades recently (most of them we've covered) and now there's this smackdown from Barclays Capital, just shortly before the results come.

Barclays Capital cut its price target on shares of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) by 6.7%.


"Citigroup Pessimistic on Microsoft" says this other new article's headline and there is clearly turbulence with closures and layoffs (we covered nearly all of them last week). Microsoft is still shrinking, it only pretends to be growing sometimes (attributed to the art of PR).

“Microsoft is still shrinking, it only pretends to be growing sometimes (attributed to the art of PR).”As Microsoft is yesterday's company (see the bar charts about media coverage), nobody can trust it anymore. Just watch what happened to "KIN" partners. Microsoft is a risky partner to have now. Well, even Verizon's CEO rejects it in an insulting way [1, 2] and Newsweek predicts that Microsoft will oust its CEO (Ballmer) later this year. It would be symbolic, it would not actually save the company. When asked whether Vista Phone 7 [sic] failing would have Ballmer lose his job Ballmer jokingly responded as seen in this video. Groklaw framed this as "Ballmer Asked if His Job is Secure If Windows Phone 7 Bombs (video)" and Pamela Jones wrote: "Answer is, "I don't know about that." But a little bit as a joke. He's "excited" about the launch and believes it's a "market changer"."

Well, half of departing Microsoft employees do not like Ballmer [1, 2] and huge Microsoft boosters like Harry McCracken lose faith in the company in general.

The next few months will be interesting, but Techrights will not cover Microsoft matters as much as it used to. There just isn't much to cover, so it's not necessary.

Recent Techrights' Posts

New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
 
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually