Comments

• Robert Millan

  2008-07-20 21:37:49

  So where are the expenses of the "OOXML war campaign" accounted? They surely belong in the Office division, I hope they didn't miss it ;-)

• Jim

  2008-07-20 23:38:16

  I suspect a lot of this has to do with the economic times. Most businesses are having trouble meeting their projections right now. Yet I read that Microsoft has been selling 20 million copies of Vista per month for the last year and a half.
  
  I hope Microsoft's outlooks improve, it's one of the few competitive American businesses left.

• Jim Powers

  2008-07-21 01:13:21

  It is true that there is somewhat of an economic downturn here in the states (i.e. we are heading into a recession), but the impact of that impending recession is not uniform: Intel recently announced rather impressive profits. Now, perhaps those profits are to some degree ill-gotten as Roy is likely to point out, but then it appears that Intel is better at finding the right opportunities to "grease" than Microsoft. Perhaps they need a better quality criminal. ;-)

• IGnatius T Foobar

  2008-07-21 04:06:54

  Microsoft has been raping and pillaging the industry for decades. In the end, though, we reap what we sow. May they go down in flames as soon as possible.

• Stephane Rodriguez

  2008-07-21 08:38:40

  "It is true that there is somewhat of an economic downturn here in the states (i.e. we are heading into a recession)"
  
  You must not be talking about anything remotely related to the financial industry, because the opposite is true. Behind the "downturn" media blitz, financials institutions and virtually every single actor of the inter-bank network (hedge funds, ...) are making more money than ever.
  
  The cynical thing about it is that they are doing it by speculating ten times more than a year before in commodity markets therefore at the expense of the so-called real economy, therefore citizens. And here this applies to every single "free-trade" place in the world, not just the US.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2008-07-21 09:04:25

  In a conversation I had at lunch the other day, the situation was described a bit differently. The weakening of the dollar (possession of oil in Euros partly 'to blame' here) led to quite a deficit.
  
  Large sums of money are still quietly centralised in the financial sector (loans affects not only citizens but the government too), which belittles Microsoft by leaps and bounds. Greed and ego suffer from the decline of the dollar, so the burden is being passed downstream. Sadly enough, this kills and already-shriveling middle class and now leads to people losing their homes. Does your media cover the tent cities crisis?

• anonymous coward

  2008-07-21 11:30:24

  I masturbated while reading this article. I long for the downfall of Microsoft's little corrupt mafia. Fuck them and the aliens who work for them.

• Stephane Rodriguez

  2008-07-21 13:15:38

  "The weakening of the dollar (possession of oil in Euros partly ‘to blame’ here) led to quite a deficit."
  
  The reality is that the Brent curve and the FOREX EUR/USD curve are moving in parallel since at least 2007 and in same strength. This is, for me, evidence of market manipulation (eg. Exxon/Total and others asking hedge funds to change currency rates proportionally as Brent goes up, and vice versa).

• Stephane Rodriguez

  2008-07-21 13:18:34

  "ow leads to people losing their homes. Does your media cover the tent cities crisis? "
  
  No, not here in France since nobody buys a house with a variable rate. The subprime problem is entirely a US thing, and I think it's because americans have grown arrogant over years, with a mindset : we'll buy now at any rate, and worry later how to pay for it. I guess this is also a consequence of PR propaganda.
  
  But, while the subprime crisis, only touches the US, the commodity market crisis is a completely different animal.

• Bob Robertson

  2008-07-21 14:19:36

  To inject a little economics into the discussion, "sub-prime" has nothing to do with the rate of interest. It means making the loan to someone with a "less than optimal" credit record or otherwise likelyhood of paying off the loan.
  
  The US.Fed.gov has been pushing, through their mortgage insurance and direct money "corporations" Fannie-May and Freddy-Mac, the illusion that lenders could make these risky loans "safely".
  
  Put the blame directly where it belongs: Political interference in the housing market.
  
  The result was a bubble, a "false boom", where prices were inflated without the real assets to back them up. Just like the stock bubble 8 years ago.
  
  The only thing which will let this bubble burst quickly so that people can reallocate their money rationally would be to get the US.fed.gov out of the way entirely and let the house of cards fall where it may.
  
  But no, they will fiddle and interfere, throw huge quantities of ever more worthless fiat money at the "problem", and we'll have to suffer through this for years instead of months, coming out far poorer than we went in.

• Bob Robertson

  2008-07-21 14:29:49

  Here's an article on the issue, in case anyone is interested.
  
  http://mises.org/story/3053

• Roy Schestowitz

  2008-07-21 14:34:50

  Thanks, I like Mises.
  
  Wherever the blame belongs, investments (VCs) in what falls under "open source' (subjective) reached an all-time high and maintained this for two consecutive quarters, so there's hope for change.

• Alex C.

  2008-07-21 16:52:33

  Microsoft is having trouble for several reasons. 1. Vista wasn't the success it was supposed to be. The OS offered little over XP but requires double the system resources, with a revamped interface that hasn't been embraced by joe avg. 2. Office 2007 wasn't the success it was supposed to be. The office suite offered little over office 2003, the new interface turned off many 'power' users. 3. Economy issues are forcing businesses to hold on to older computers,. MS WIndows is pre-installed on almost every new computer. Office is included as a two month demo. No new computers, no new license revenue. 4. Gates leaving M Love him or hate him, Bill Gates is a major force. Ballmer is an unknown for many and an aggressive jerk to others. This makes MS seem less stable because of Gates departure.
  
  5. Competition from Apple and Free Software Free software is becoming more mainstream. Many businesses are seeing the advantages of OSS. Especially on the server side (file/mail/print). Apple has a powerful marketing machine and offers more "ooh-ahh that's shiny" then Microsoft.
  
  This is why I see MS as having trouble.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Alex C.

• Nick

  2008-07-22 19:10:21

  Quote from above: "I hope Microsoft’s outlooks improve, it’s one of the few competitive American businesses left. "
  
  Microsoft is only surpassed by GW Bush as far as making the USA look bad on the world stage.
  
  I won't miss Microsoft when it is gone.

• Rufus Polson

  2008-07-23 16:44:55

  Mr. Robertson is right in a sense, but in political terms utterly misleading. To read his post, it seems as if the poor private sector businesses are taking a fall because of those awful government people interfering where they're not wanted. The reality is the reverse--all the government interventions that helped create the current financial crisis, along with, on the flip side, all of the failures of government regulation that equally helped create it, were assiduously lobbied for, indeed bought and paid for, by private sector financial interests. The problem is not interference with business by government. The problem is interference in government by business. American businesspeople decided decades ago now that they could make more money by financial manipulation than by productive endeavours, and have spent the intervening time getting government to let them take more risks and use taxpayers' money to guarantee that they won't have to actually deal with the downside of those risks. It's an old game: Privatize profit, socialize cost/risk. But the impetus comes from the private sector, not the government; the power and influence that need reining in is private, not public.

• Shocky

  2008-07-24 17:16:55

  You made my day with this article. I'm happy to see them reaping what they've sowed. I don't expect to ever see M$ disappear. I just want to see them humbled like IBM of old, forced to actually start innovating and stop bullying/bribing/stealing/libeling/etc.
  
  And hopefully Intel will be next in line, for their crimes against AMD. Despite their making some contributions to FOSS and being less evil than M$, it would be better for everyone to have the chip industry returned to a fair and competitive market.