04.21.13
Accounting Tricks Hide Losses at Microsoft; Windows is Dying, Still, So Microsoft Relies on Dirty Tricks
Don’t be bamboozled by Microsoft’s lies
Summary: The reality behind Microsoft’s financial results and the continued agony associated with inability to compete against Linux
As noted in the previous post, Microsoft’s CFO is fleeing, perhaps not wanting to be held accountable for future quarters at Microsoft. Mr. Arthur, who rarely takes Microsoft’s claims at face value, writes: “Here’s the first part of what happened. In June, Microsoft offered a scheme where people who bought a Windows 7 PC could update it to Windows 8 for just $15. The scheme ran through to December, and only after that could all the money received in it be cashed in. That gave a $1.1bn boost in “deferred” revenue which was really earned in the preceding six months, but couldn’t be recognised then.
“Take that away from the latest total, and you’re left with $4.60bn in this latest quarter, compared to $4.63bn a year ago.”
A year ago is before a new version of Windows came out! Talk about Vista 8 killing sales…
“Take that away from the latest total, and you’re left with $4.60bn in this latest quarter, compared to $4.63bn a year ago.”
–Charles ArthurThis weekend I bought two tablets and Microsoft was nowhere in sight among the tablets on display (the salesman was misinformed though, strongly insisting that one needs anti-virus software to use Android). People who bought tablets from Microsoft were not pleased, so this is becoming a dying breed and a source of misconception about security and stability (my Android tablet has not been booted for two months, since I first bought it). Well, the world is changing for everyone including the copyright industry because sales of portable devices are growing and many run Free software systems which thrive in abundance. Even Microsoft business partners report a serious decline for Windows machines and the Microsoft booster says that Microsoft is running back to where it used to be, essentially moving backwards with a “plan B”.
Microsoft just cannot evolve, not even by hijacking Nokia, which is dying under Microsoft leadership. “Do I need to remind you, that just before the Elop Effect, Nokia sold 2.6 million phones per quarter in the US market,” writes Tomi Ahonen.
“It’s about patent money,” writes Pamela Jones, “that agreement, in my view. I don’t think they care all that much about sales of phones. It’s like SCO selling Unix. They surely didn’t care. It was all about the litigation, which of course they denied until they were no more.”
“Why are GNU/Linux developers having to struggle with UEFI restrictions in the first place?”Having failed to stop the growth of Linux as of late, Microsoft also uses UEFI, which necessitates special distro releases just for Microsoft. As Jamie Watson put it the other day in his blog: “The Live image is Secure Boot compatible, but the installed system is not?”
Why are GNU/Linux developers having to struggle with UEFI restrictions in the first place? This is what Microsoft was hoping to achieve, but it cannot stop Android. UEFI is now the subject of an antitrust investigation, but when will there be another SEC investigation into Microsoft’s dirty financial tricks? Shareholders are being deceived. █
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