Microsoft is Faking Its Financial Performance, Buying Companies Helps Perpetuate the Big Lies (or Pass the Debt Around)
LONG-time readers of this site very well understand that when we started in 2006 Windows was very very very very widely used. The market share of Apple was short of 5%, Google had not yet made operating systems (not even Android), there was no "iPhone", and GNU/Linux was gasping for breath while Novell and Microsoft arranged a patent collusion (to keep GNU/Linux expensive or a perpetual niche player). Windows' dominance helped sell all sorts of other things to so-called 'enterprises' and governments adopted horrible things like ActiveX (Firefox was not yet very widespread or sufficiently popular).
Fast-forward 17 years and a lot of stuff has changed. Many people around the world no longer buy desktops and laptops. Some never saw Windows at all. A lot of stuff has moved to the so-called 'clown' (server side) and for many people actual control over their computing is as elusive as ever.
XBox failed badly. Ignore the chatter about Nintendo. Also don't be misled by the Activision takeover, which might be about debt-loading (offloading debt to another new company) during a time of mass layoffs at Microsoft. As shown in the latest Daily Links, Activision is laying off some of its own staff again (same as last month).
Almost nothing Microsoft does is profitable anymore, but it keeps pretending. It's rebranding loads of things to fake "growth" (e.g. Azure) even if it boils down to accounting fraud.
Our guess is that Microsoft will keep pretending to be huge, even as the market share of Windows (and other things) continues to decrease. █