Three of the top 20 investors in Microsoft Corp are lobbying the board to press for Bill Gates to step down as chairman of the software company he co-founded 38 years ago, according to people familiar with matter. -- The new Oldsmobiles are in early this year!
Yea, I saw another article like that today and I thought that those idiots are trying to throw out everything that was good about Microsoft.
When you read the old insider communications where Bill Gates is involved in the usability of a product, he delves right into the user experience in a way that Windows 8 failed to deliver on. If anything, they need to encourage him to get more involved.
Help me out here as I don't get how these investors figure they know jack squat as typically they have no qualifications to really say piss all about anything. For example I was looking for some information about ValueAct President G. Mason Morfit, but can't find anything that would suggest he is qualified to do little more then wipe his own ass.
Blake -- Vendor: Author of Link Logger which is a traffic analysis and firewall logging tool
What I read was that the investors want him gone before 2018 when he will no longer have any stock in Microsoft. So, he's already going. They just want to speed up the process. Why would anyone want him to stay around? He didn't lift a finger to stop the disaster Microsoft has become. He's cashing out and doesn't care. -- When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson
It's like using a telescope. Look through the small end and it magnifies whatever you're focusing on - in particular, like a user disgruntled about a particular product; look through the big end and it shrinks whatever you're focusing on - in particular, like a manager lobbying to minimizer company shortcomings on his watch. In both cases, what matters is the whole world "out there", as viewed in proper perspective. That's what seasoned customers, stockholders, and managers should really be watching. -- The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. -- A. de Tocqueville
Well let's see, Ballmer led Microsoft from being the top PC company, to a company with 20% marketshare, missing the tablet, smartphone, mp3 player, and book reader markets, all while highly overpaying for companies and doing 900 million right off's for disasters.
All the while Bill Gates sat back and did nothing because Ballmer is an old friend.
Well let's see, Ballmer led Microsoft from being the top PC company, to a company with 20% marketshare, missing the tablet, smartphone, mp3 player, and book reader markets, all while highly overpaying for companies and doing 900 million right off's for disasters.
All the while Bill Gates sat back and did nothing because Ballmer is an old friend.
I'm sure all of you would be okay with this too?
20% market share, how do you come up with that?
Missing the tablet, perhaps, missing the smartphone, they owned it once and lost it and now they are working towards getting it back as the Windows Phone is pretty dam good. The MP3 player market, glad they didn't work to hard to get that as that market is dead (in fact its always been a terminal market as my PDA/Phone were always able to play MP3s so a MP3 play was pointless). Microsoft still owns the desktop, owns the game console market and hence your living room, business servers/services/online services are rocking along nicely, still sells a boatload of software and in general still makes buckets of money.
I'm happy with dividends from Microsoft as they are a mature company and not some flakey startup, so I don't expect to see stock value jumps, just a nice steady stream of dividends (and not a stock value collapse like that fruit company). If these punk investors think they know so much why don't they start their own high tech equivalent of Microsoft and show us how its done, but they don't so they won't.
I like that Microsoft tries different things, and I accept that not everything will work, but Microsoft isn't paralyzed in fear of failure like some companies who won't know future success.
Blake -- Vendor: Author of Link Logger which is a traffic analysis and firewall logging tool
delivered $20B+/year in profits. Year after year. Even last year. Yeah.
Yeah, except when you take all the negative press and show people a noticeable decline in Microsoft profits in the past few years while both Apple and Google have had a huge surge in profit and revenue, it suggests that things could be much better.
If all the tech giants showed a drop in increased profits since 2007 it would be one thing, but when Microsoft dropped the others are still rising steadily.
TechCrunch wrote a couple years ago, "Apple now makes more money in three quarters than Microsoft does in an entire year." While everyone had a drop in revenue and profit, Apple's still grew in comparison to Microsoft's.
And how has Apple's stock price been doing lately (hope you didn't buy in when it was at $700 a year ago)? How is Carl Icahn doing telling Apple what to do, got to love these investors. -- Vendor: Author of Link Logger which is a traffic analysis and firewall logging tool
Well let's see, Ballmer led Microsoft from being the top PC company, to a company with 20% marketshare, missing the tablet, smartphone, mp3 player, and book reader markets, all while highly overpaying for companies and doing 900 million right off's for disasters.
All the while Bill Gates sat back and did nothing because Ballmer is an old friend.
I'm sure all of you would be okay with this too?
20% market share, how do you come up with that?
Missing the tablet, perhaps, missing the smartphone, they owned it once and lost it and now they are working towards getting it back as the Windows Phone is pretty dam good. The MP3 player market, glad they didn't work to hard to get that as that market is dead (in fact its always been a terminal market as my PDA/Phone were always able to play MP3s so a MP3 play was pointless). Microsoft still owns the desktop, owns the game console market and hence your living room, business servers/services/online services are rocking along nicely, still sells a boatload of software and in general still makes buckets of money.
I'm happy with dividends from Microsoft as they are a mature company and not some flakey startup, so I don't expect to see stock value jumps, just a nice steady stream of dividends (and not a stock value collapse like that fruit company). If these punk investors think they know so much why don't they start their own high tech equivalent of Microsoft and show us how its done, but they don't so they won't.
I like that Microsoft tries different things, and I accept that not everything will work, but Microsoft isn't paralyzed in fear of failure like some companies who won't know future success.
Blake
People who used to buy POS desktops and laptops now buy ipads and android devices. The desktop is a dying game, with 1080p quad core smartphones, people can carry all the computer they need.
As far as game consoles, I don't know if you are paying attention or not but Microsoft has done everything they can to give it to Sony.
Linux owns the server market, and with Microsoft forcing MetroUI and Microsoft App Store on Server 2012, all the good they added is countered by all of the annoying crap.
And no, they won't be getting back in the smartphone market. The MS app store only gets apps when Microsoft pays companies. It's only growing because, with such a low market share, they have too.
But the surface failed, the surface 2 will too, and their smartphones will not take off since they are so late.
I cannot believe anybody is even defending this situation! You had the biggest computer company in the world led by a COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT CLOWN. THIS CLOWN LAUGHED AT:
You have a guy whose only accomplishment is Xbox, which they are trying hard to destroy, and you can literally find out what will be popular by what he laughs at! He is literally a joke, and sounds like he's comedy relief on a movie by the way he talks!
This guy burned Microsoft to the ground, inside and out with stack ranking, and everybody sat around and did nothing.
All the while Bill Gates sat back and did nothing because Ballmer
delivered $20B+/year in profits. Year after year. Even last year. Yeah.
You haven't noticed the issue since MS has a monopoly on the desktop. As time goes by, tablets and smartphones get better and better, MS will be losing more and more.
Perhaps, but is he doing that nowadays? I suspect not, though I wouldn't know. Board members typically don't have that low-level involvement in detail.
The complaint about Gates is that he's too anchored in computing's past, and someone with a more modern outlook might be better. It happens to us all.
All the while Bill Gates sat back and did nothing because Ballmer
delivered $20B+/year in profits. Year after year. Even last year. Yeah.
You haven't noticed the issue since MS has a monopoly on the desktop. As time goes by, tablets and smartphones get better and better, MS will be losing more and more.
They have many $1B businesses. Windows OS sales being just one. My point was simply that he's not the CEO of Windows. He's the CEO of microsoft, and microsoft is a lot of businesses. -- My place : »www.schettino.us
As time goes by, tablets and smartphones get better and better
Sure they will but humans won't, for example my finger isn't going to get smaller so it has built in limitations as a pointing device. I have all the devices, desktops, laptops, tablets, phones and then some, but there are limitations on each device due to human ergonomics, so lumping computing devices into a single category is rather bogus as the functionalities don't necessarily overlap.
Now in terms of being first into a market, Windows Mobile was in the game before Android, but that is an example that markets are fluid, and if you think Android will own the market forever, I have bridge in Arizona you might be interested in. This is why I like that Microsoft tries different things as it means they aren't becoming stagnate and of course some of those things will fail, but some will succeed.
Blake -- Vendor: Author of Link Logger which is a traffic analysis and firewall logging tool
As time goes by, tablets and smartphones get better and better
Sure they will but humans won't, for example my finger isn't going to get smaller so it has built in limitations as a pointing device. I have all the devices, desktops, laptops, tablets, phones and then some, but there are limitations on each device due to human ergonomics, so lumping computing devices into a single category is rather bogus as the functionalities don't necessarily overlap.
Now in terms of being first into a market, Windows Mobile was in the game before Android, but that is an example that markets are fluid, and if you think Android will own the market forever, I have bridge in Arizona you might be interested in. This is why I like that Microsoft tries different things as it means they aren't becoming stagnate and of course some of those things will fail, but some will succeed.
Blake
None of your excuses of smartphones and desktops explain why Android has 50% marketshare and windows now has 20%.
And Microsoft has been first in many markets, that doesn't show fluidity, that shows that under Ballmer Microsoft doesn't know what people want!
Under Ballmer they have made:
Zune (Wasn't just beaten by Apple, was also beaten in marketshare by Creative mp3 players as well as companies like Sansa) Tablets (Beaten by Apple, Google, and considering the Surface only sold 1.7 million (»www.phonearena.com/news/Microsof···_id45909), also beaten by Blackberry Playbook, Hp Touchpad.....) E-Reader (Beaten by Amazon and Apple) Smartphones (Once again beaten by Apple and Google, their great achivement is more marketshare then Blackberry??)
If all of this is due to market fluidity, then how come other companies don't have this same issue?
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