Please Steve, don't
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tracyanne May 26, 2011 7:40 PM EDT |
we'd like you to stay |
| cr May 26, 2011 8:08 PM EDT |
:) You like it when Microsoft is hoist on their own retard, huh... |
| djohnston May 26, 2011 9:57 PM EDT |
Please leave Uncle Fester in charge of the good ship Lollipop. She won't run aground for at least a few years. |
| tuxchick May 26, 2011 11:07 PM EDT |
Great comments :D Remember what happened to Uncle Fester in 'Addams Family Values', and his curious relationship with Thing. |
| JaseP May 27, 2011 10:24 AM EDT |
I'd like Ballmer gone too... But I have a fundamental issue with the call for his ouster coming from a guy who's own company has 1/3 the assets, and those comprised of other people's money... It's just a tad hypocritical, I think. |
| cr May 27, 2011 2:15 PM EDT |
Quoting: Please leave Uncle Fester in charge They did. http://www.techeye.net/business/microsoft-board-stands-behin... Steve always reminded me more of someone else who bobs up just when you think he's washed up. No matter, sooner or later we can give him a good sendoff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7zuMMuFjpA |
| hkwint May 27, 2011 8:41 PM EDT |
You know what's funny? ABN/AMRO in 2007 and MSFT 2011 seem much alike. Much assets (ABN/AMRO had ~1 trillion!), shareholders don't like the stock, think it's underperforming and want changes and stuff to be split up. The company is in a bad shape because management is changing directions about yearly. We don't know what will happen to MSFT. But let me tell you (if you don't know yet) what happened to ABN/AMRO after one hedge fund kept complaining: ABN/AMRO wanted to "merge" with Barclays - but a consortium of banks which were about the same size of ABN itself bought it for $100bn. ABN didn't want to be bought by the consortium (Fortis, RBS, Santander), so to screw the consortium they sold LaSalle to BoA. BoA nearly went bankrupt and was saved by the state. Fortis went bankrupt and was bought by the Belgian / Dutch state, RBS went bankrupt and was bought by the UK state, and Santander ended up with other assorted crap from ABN, but they coped. Finally, the Dutch state bought ABN back from Fortis. And why did all this mess happen? Because one complaining hedge fund, one failing management team and of course the credit crisis. If we take the credit crisis out of the equation - we still have the first two ingredients of disaster. The two ingredients Microsoft is facing. Which leaves me wondering what would happen if some companies pooled together, and bought / split up Microsoft. What if IBM decided it wanted the business division, Apple decided it wanted the consumer software division, Nintendo decided it wanted the game console division - and Nokia decided it wanted to buy the mobile division? This may seem like a far fetched 'hell freezes over' scenario. But if I understand correctly, it was Goldman Sachs who was in favour of something resembling this scenario: To split up Microsoft. |
| BernardSwiss May 28, 2011 4:22 AM EDT |
Yeah, modern CEOs have two main problems: (1) make the company productive and efficient, well-maintained and well-positioned, and profitable, (2) produce earnings higher than "expectations" It doesn't matter how well the company is run, if the gambl... errr... investors get it in their heads that the company ought to achieve some particular metric, and fails to meet this expectation. If the company is "merely" successful, merely does quite well -- but not as well as predicted -- this is counted as a failure. That said, Microsoft has been a failure by almost every real metric, for years, but as a huge, monopoly-powered behemoth, it has still been largely considered a "success" and a staple of mutual funds, retirement plans, and trust funds around the continent. I seem to recall a few voices piping up in the wilderness from time to time, suggesting that retirement funds and other similar programs are far too reliant on and over-invested in MS stocks, despite lackluster fundamentals -- it will be ironic if, in the end, it's the gamblers that make the reality plain to all. |
| tuxchick May 28, 2011 11:08 AM EDT |
Quoting: An investor who put $100,000 into Microsoft stock 10 years ago would now have about $69,000 worth. Microsoft’s shares have underperformed the S&P 500 in four of the past five quarters. There have many hints over the years that MS plays accounting games to paint a prettier picture. So it could be their real financial status is even worse. Their internal bureaucracy is famous for getting in the way of creating actual products: Can an open-source backer thrive inside Microsoft? This one says no http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/can-an-open-source-backe... Quoting: It’s a very inefficient company, with very little or nothing being done to make it better. MS has small windows of actual product development (new code being written) followed by long period of stabilization.... some manager pushes idiot time consuming exercises like scenario validation.. two months to produce collateral that is bound to be useless in six months, since everything is likely to change. The Windows Shutdown cr@pfest http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-c... Quoting: The most frustrating year of those seven was the year I spent working on Windows Vista, which was called Longhorn at the time. I spent a full year working on a feature which should've been designed, implemented and tested in a week. In my ideal dream world Microsoft is run by someone with both a clue and a conscience, instead of pathological authority figures who respond to failure by doubling down on it. It would be better for everyone if it became a sane company that created useful, quality products. |
| DrGeoffrey May 28, 2011 11:47 AM EDT |
Quoting: In my ideal dream world Microsoft is run by someone with both a clue and a conscience, instead of pathological authority figures who respond to failure by doubling down on it. It would be better for everyone if it became a sane company that created useful, quality products. (Ahem.) Can I have some? |
| Fettoosh May 28, 2011 2:59 PM EDT |
Quoting:It would be better for everyone if it became a sane company that created useful, quality products. It won't happen. MS got to where it is by being what it is. That isn't going to change because it can't compete on quality. |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!