Slashdot Mirror
Ballmer Sells Part of his Stake in Microsoft
An anonymous reader writes "The Financial Times reports that Steve Ballmer has sold part of his MS shares (my early morning math isn't very good, it seems a shade under 10%). Short of cash? Parking tickets? Or the start of a strategy to get rid of it all without causing too much upset in one go? No idea, but speculation is sure to be with us for a while."
Microsoft said the sales were undertaken so that Mr Ballmer could diversify his financial interests.
my guess is that some of those interests may include this, this, and if he's lucky after all that, maybe this.
Mike
Sure, he's a billion dollars richer, but he's still got some 400 million shares. must be nice
Accountants!
Accountants!
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Maybe he sells them to BG. Parking tickets? For wrong parking of an air-craft carrier?
-Is the meaning of life vanity, or is vanity the meaning of life?
Here's to hoping that the ship is about to sink...
Bush Lies Watch
...and bought RedHat. Here's to the future baby!
...is sell those damn Seahawks .
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
To whom has he sold this stock?
Is this a step towards some other interest group having a share of microsoft in exchange for a friendlier marketshare in some instances of power, foo example?
...and the time will have come. And the name shall be known... The Kylrathi Viper Clan.
Of his ADHD problem?
More links for the video
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
I !!! ::whoa, the stock is worth that?!::
LOVE !!
THIS !!
SELL !!!
YEEEAAAAHHHH !!!!
Vonal Declosion
The thing is, most of the upper management of Microsoft that have been with the company from early on have most of their wealth in Microsoft shares. The problem is that they have to sell it off slowly or they wouldn't manage to get a decent price for it.
Like it or not, Microsoft is doing fine. They have good profits for the forseeable future. His claim that he just wants to diversify is completely plausible. I'm sure his portfolio is disproportionatelyMicrosoft.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Geez. The guy is just diversifying his portfolio. He is the least diverse of all the software billionaires or Buffett.
Unfricking believable that this is actually a slashdot story.
I mean, come one. Isn't it amazing enough that he mades $12 billion or whatever on MSFT? Now, the implication of this being on slashdot is that this smells of some sort of bad omen for MS. It's a little late for that given that HE HAS $12 BILLION WORTH OF STOCK!!! (insert Sam Kinison "oh! oh! OooooH!" here)
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
It seems odd to me that a company that has so much cash and such high profit margins requires mandatory fast growth, but then I am a humble programmer, not a financial guy :-)
The whole idea goes against my basic philosophy of "take what you need and leave some for others". Not to go off on a huge tangent, but in the western world, greed seems to far outweigh issues like building an enjoyable and productive career. As Josepgh Campbell used to say "follow your bliss"...
That said, Balmer probably has some fun with Microsoft :-)
-Mark
He's investing in the drug industry. Think about it:
a large market of people who have no choice but to buy your product, an army of goons with automatic weapons, the government in your hip-pocket, and all the Latina sex slaves you could want?
Hmm. Doesn't he already have all that at M$? Perhaps my theory is off.
They probably think that the stock is still strong enough so that their dumping of it won't be seen as a sign of rats leaving the ship, which could further accentuate a slump.
Congratulations! Now we are the Evil Empire
The Developer Dance is murder on the body.
So he and other Microsoft upper management sells some shares. It doesnt matter, most likely Microsoft the corporation buys it back and over a couple years they will get those shares back from their contracts, bonuses, or whatever golden package those C level execs get.
He's probably just getting a little spending cash rather than accumulating more stock that he doesnt really need if he already has hundreds of millions of shares.
He's probably begun reading Slashdot for his investment advice and now believes that .NET will soon fail.
Of course, Slashdot is riddled with Millionaires.
Amazing magic tricks
That being said, I don't think Ballmer falls under the category of "low paid".
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
Information Wants To Be Mirrored
He sold 10% of his Microsoft holdings, or 10% of Microsoft?
After getting access to the Windows source code, China has discovered and created exploits/backdors that will threaten any computer running windows. They have already hacked the Pentagon, and have downloaded the whole TIA database.
Ballmer knows this, and he is selling his stock to get cash enough to buy out a small tropical island, where he can hide while the DOJ and every luser on the planet marches on to Redmond, torches and pitchforks in hand.
At the company meeting last year, Balmer (memory is fuzzy) he's 47, and plans to return in 10 or 15 years (can't remember which) - I think 10. No Monkeyboy -- but he did play a song from his favorite Broadway play, some 70's wierd shit sounded like Hair or Jesus Christ Superstar. Instead of Monkeyboy or the usual miltary analogies, they played a bunch of videos where people talked about how they failed and what they learned from it -- it was a reaction to Enron/Worldcom "ethics"...
Important thing is Balmer is ten years and out. MS people are getting old -- I think average age is 35 now. Every great story has an ending...
He finaly saw a Gnu/Linux desktop running.
Gosh. A simple rule of thumb would seem to be, "If selling your share of stock makes the news, you probably have too much." At this point he'd probably be a pauper if MSFT were to hit bottom. Of course, MSFT hitting bottom is probably more related to overall economic conditions than what goes on at Microsoft.
of the end for Microsoft. All hail Linux! The king is dead! Long live the king!
Or the start of a strategy to get rid of it all without causing too much upset in one go
/. ?
.net just barely leaving the vaporware category to face more established Java (btw Java is not perfect but it was simply there first).
don't we all just wish so here on
actually all indications show that the current software business model cannot be sustained during the next decade, there are hardly any valuable commercial software without an equivalent open source nephew even if not so-ready today but it is promising (remember how Linux itself started?).
IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft are all stretching this business model to the maximum but the end is coming sooner or later, I think in the future the only valuable commodity in the IT business will be services not licensing commercial software or being so desperate and try to force people to license your IP (SCO).
lets take Microsoft case their revenue is earned mainly from bread & butter Office Suite being challenged by OpenOffice and the desktop which Linux is getting there fast, they are trying to grab a share of the enterprise market by promoting SQL Server 64-bit kicking against market titans like IBM and Oracle, and with
Add global reduction on IT spending to one Microsoft screwing there customers by outrageous license costs and terms and you get yourself a recipe for a loser.
It seems that "the road ahead" has a road block for Microsoft and they don't know "where do they want to go Tomorrow.
Sells Steak now? Those guys are taking over everything!
SCO's!
Some interesting tidbits from a parallel article.
Ballmer has only dropped about 15% of his ownership in MS since his involvement with the company as compared to Gates and Allen who each own only 50% of their original stake.
Contrary to intution, MS shares actually rose as this occured, climbing 6 cents to close at 24.22 on Friday. MS had declined 7 of the last 9 trading sessions.
It seems that the public hasn't taken this as an indication that MS is going the way of the iLoo anytime soon.
So, Dubya signs a tax-cut which includes lots of short-term and long-term capitals gains cuts, and Ballmer suddenly decides to sell a lot of stock.
Gee, I wonder why.
For those speculating on other things, I think Ballmer, et. al. *KNOW* that the profitability of MS is eventually doomed, but can't think of a way of getting out big time without crashing the company. So, they sell off here, they sell off there, and do the standard "screw the employee, shareholders, and everybody else not part of the good-buddy club" routine.
Karma: Food Fight (Mostly affected by Date Plate).
... laundry bills!
This is par for the course. All CEOs do it. This story just made it to /. since its Ballmer and, well, if he took a dump people would try and tie it back to MS being evil. Larry Augustin sold 100k shares a the end of February, nobody posted that. Matt Szulik sold 500k shares at the beginning of the year and Mcnealy sold almost 5 million in April. Nobody cared about those. Sorry folks, Ballmer just has a smart financial planner, this doesn't mean MS is doomed.
Yossarian!
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
Microsoft is imploding. Pure and simple.
The combination of open source commoditization and open disgust by growing numbers of CIOs (esp. in governments) are probably viewed as leading indicators by the big fatso in Redmond.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Step 1: President of global software company sells part of his hold in company.
Given: This provides an image of the president allegedly losing faith in his company and their projects. This may be an indicator for others to sell. Stock price-per-share drops.
Step 2: If the drop is enough, president re-purchases his previously sold shares of stock at a lower price.
Given: Everyone else scrambles to buy up what's left.
Step 3: Value skyrockets. Profit! (From leftover money in difference of higher-priced-sale and lower-costing-buyback, and then from the now even-higher-valued stock).
Informatus Technologicus
Why else?
He'll put the money in a little compamy that will buy up SCO and fund the suit against IBM!
Steve Balmer diversifies into buying SCO Grou at their asking rpice of $1 billion..
News at 11
Don't Tread on OpenSource
After selling M$ stocks Blamer is opening strip clubs nation wide.
:)
Get free lap dance if you can lie about Linux.
SCO executives where the first and regeular customers.
> No idea, but speculation is sure to be with us for a while."
None of which will take into consideration the possibility that he is simply diversifying his holdings as all financial advisors tell us to do. Do you have all your savings invested in your employer's stock?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Come on, we all know what he is really buying with all that money.
I agree with you that there's nothing for conspiracy theorists to worry themselves (and others) here.
But I will leave you with one thought: Steve Ballmer is the richest employee ever. Never in all recorded history has anyone else hired by a company been paid so much.
(And, for the benefit of the few who don't understand the difference, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, etc were founders of their respective companies. Nobody hired them to do a job.)
Now, given that he's earnt several billion, you have to ask, why the hell does he still work? Why not quit and enjoy what he's got? Why be sat in an office in cloudly Redmond worrying about anything when you could be kicking it on your own private Carribean island worrying about nothing?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
News at 11.
Until now, that is. While helping my 16-year-old son (also an avid Slashdot reader) do research for a term paper on technology and journalism, I stumbled across some information that made me change my views about Slashdot completely. In a nutshell: Slashdot, and more accurately, its parent company VA Software, has deep and mutually influential ties to the Microsoft Corporation. In fact, Slashdot's own editors are paid (albeit indirectly) out of the coffers of Microsoft.
Yes. It's hard to believe. At first I couldn't believe it. But a few simple Google searches and 45 minutes' research on Lexis-Nexis (as well as a couple of phone calls to a friend of mine at the SEC) revealed the following:
At first I was more amused than shocked; I mean, the technology industry is notoriously incestuous and its leaders, even those who are in competition, often sit on the same boards and are members of the same organizations. So what if a few board members of Slashdot's parent company are also directors of a company funded by Microsoft? Well, it gets more interesting.
As it turns out, in May of 1999, VA Software submitted to the SEC Form 5506-D, Application for Direct Non-Ownership Subsidization. This is the form that a corporation will submit to the SEC when it wants to directly fund a subsidiary from its own parent corporation. (It's basically a tax shelter for companies with a lot of subsidiaries) The application was approved in July 1999. The applicant name? OSDN. In other words, Form 5506-D basically eliminated the middleman between OSDN and Murberry-Slocomb. Following the money, I now saw that OSDN was being funded directly from an infusion of captal that Murberry-Slocomb has received from Microsoft!
Weird. I know. But what does this all mean? Honestly I have no idea. I'm not the custodian of any privileged information. A look at VA Software's web site and a Google search is all anyone needs to find the same information that I found. Are Slashdot's staff being paid through Microsoft? I sincerely hope not. But the facts are there and it sure looks like it. More importantly, what does this mean for the future of Slashdot? Can any grain of objectivity or journalistic ethics be preserved? What happens when the company you are bashing, nay, the very company that you preach the loudest against, Microsoft, is the same company that signs your paycheck? Could there be a deeper link still? Who knows. As far as I'm concerned, I'll never look at Slashdot the same way, ever again.
Microsoft makes only about 10 billion in profits, so it's severly overpriced,
Um... that simplifies things just a little too much. There are huge issues that go into market cap and you really are looking at a longer term for stocks, not just one year.
And even if you do think that its a good stock measurement then why not buy Philip Morris? They have a Market Cap of 85.5 B and 2002 profit of 11 B (or a profit/interst rate of 13%). Good luck with the lawsuits.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Only the most deluded Linux fanatics think MS is going the way of the dodo.
1. Quality doesn't always determine purchases. (Ex: Consoles - IMO, Nintendo has the best games around)
2. MS produces decent software - not amazing, but pretty good. They make great UIs, and that's what helps the average user.
3. MS is powerful. They'll bully and bribe their way to domination, as they have done in the past.
4. Finally, MS hires passionate people (well, I know they did a few years ago). These people are not going to stand still.
Jesus still loves you.
I sold some compact flash memory on eBay last week, and I may sell some next week too. Get your slashdot story ready!
he needs more antipersperant?
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
All I know is that:
/. cronies can bash the MS all you want, but in the end, it is (and will be) the desktop OS of choice. MS is going nowhere, fewl.
WinXP never crashes (141 days consecutive UT last time I checked).
I can play any game I please.
I don't have to open a text editor every time I add a new piece of HW.
You and your
Now retreat into your Unix-derived black hole while I play Battlefield 1942 @ 120 FPS on my Radeon 9800 PRO.
the company has enough cash to play accounting games for a few years. but the implosion will come when outside analysts admit to themselves and the public how much market share ms has lost, and the rate of the then current market share loss. including desktops. The beginning will come from foreign sales, which is coming soon. Once the foreign sales numbers scare the shit out of the analysts, and the tremors start, then an intense spotlight will uncover problems in the US, which by that time will be a substantially decreasing market share everywhere, servers, database, desktops, crm, everything. Add that to the continual losses in all the other divisions, and the implosion will dwarf all previous scandals.
They have enough cash and divisions to play with the books for about two years. After that, gnu/linux will have two more years of international development, will be past 3.0 or better on the kernel, will have two more years of foreign country adoption, will be the standard for document exchange for the vast majority of foreign countries, and analysts will be rating the stock a hold. Once the implosion starts, and the stock bottoms, analysts will finally throw in the towel and rate the stock a sell.
The implosion, while large, will turn into a side show. The real show will be the dozens and dozens of sec, congressional, and executive branch investigations to follow.
the end is closer than you think.
According to the insider report at Yahoo, this is the first time Ballmer's done anything with his stock in over a year.
He obviously did this because of the whopping TAX CUT he just got...you know..the REAL NEWS THAT MATTERS!!!!
I've got 5 words for you: I LOVE SELLING THIS COMPANY *long pause as he jumps around on stage* GIVE IT UP FOR ME!
...
The rats always flee from the ship about to sink.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Don't forget to check out "Steve Ballmer"'s comments on kuro5hin.org:% 20Ballmer/comme nts
http://www.kuro5hin.org/user/Steve
Ben Stein was on CNN a while ago, plugging Yes, You Can Time the Market! and the website, perhaps Ballmer was watching too.
I sold my "share" in Microsoft by looking at my Mutual Fund advisor and telling him, "I do not want to hold any fund that contains Microsoft". We made it happen, last week. My reason: Microsoft does evil things to please the shareholders. I don't want to be part of that inadvertantly.
I feel better now, perhaps Ballmer will too? By the way, do you get bonus karma points for not owning Microsoft shares?
Seems that the Beast can't meet payroll without printing new stock to cover it. link here.
When all else fails, run.
Personally, I would like to donkey-kick Ballmer squarely in the figs with a golf shoe. That aside, however, his selling of shares probably isn't some devious plot, he probably really is diversifying his portfolio, but not how you think of it. Since he's probably considering retirement soon, he's probably moving his money into fixed-income securities (bonds, etc). So maybe he's selling his shares of stock so that he can either better prepare himself for retirement, or maybe he's using the money to buy M$ debt. A side note: Incidentally, by ratcheting up M$ debt level with bonds, M$ could actually improve their financial position by selling debt--their Return on Equity would increase, as would several other financial analysis ratios...
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Lost Sheep to Shepard, you got your ears on?
it seems a shade under 10%
close...actually more like 9% of his shares (he sold $1bill and still has $10bill left)
also, it's interesting to note ballmer still owns 4% of the company.
Before a ship sink, the rats are the first to leave the ship .... :o)
SEATTLE - Steve Ballmer just announced that he is leaving Microsoft, after serving umpity ump years
as its President, and is negotiating a new position as head of International Buggy Whip Enterprises, Inc. "Under my inspired leadership, I intend to take buggy whips into the 21st century. In fact, I expect that we will whip company affairs into shape and strive to improve quality so that our whips will be world class and less buggy," Mr. Ballmer was quoted as saying. When asked if he knew what a buggy whip was he said that he wasn't entirely sure yet, but that "buggy whips have the reputation of consistently surpassing open source whips in terms of reliability and total costs of ownership."
Not who is selling shares, but who is buying them? I will answer for you. It's me! An evil IBM exec who will soon have control of Microsoft by holding more than 50% of all M$ stock. The plan, you ask? To shut down M$ after I pretty much have control, replacing M$ software with IBM software rebranded to make look
like it was made by microsoft.
The Windows 2003 startup screen may have the Microsoft logo, but the "about" screen will be read "OS/2 2003 by IBM Corp". Mwuhahahaha!
Short of cash? Parking tickets?
Gotta pay those prostitutes...
If you liked licking my balls, add me to your foes list!
When, to refill all the toilets in your big ass house, you need to sell off $1 billion dollars in stock every 3 years to get 100 million hundred dollar bills to have something to wipe your ass with.
:)
Why bother buying and disposing toilet paper, when money is so durable and comforting for billionaires
Cover your eyes and click this link!
Booze money.
...to snap up shares of SCO to profit when they win their case against IBM.
-Shane
I love teh int4rw3b!!!!!111one1
Normally I would see Ballmer sitting courtside. However, later in the season I saw him sitting in my row I think it is obvious that he sold his shares so he could get more courtside seats. :)
Andrew
I didn't know you could sell shares of HELL once aquired. I always thought that was an eternal commitment
Slashdot reader SgtChaireBourne mentioned this 2 weeks ago in a comment titled Pump & Dump, in response to a post of mine saying that probably Microsoft code is difficult to maintain because Microsoft isn't fixing bugs.
According to SgtChaireBourne, selling of Microsoft stock by Microsoft executives is common. He said, "Both the frequency and volume of sales is increasing: They're all selling as fast as they get."
SgtChaireBourne pointed to the SEC (U.S. government Securities and Exchange Commission) list of Microsoft executive trades of stock. I looked around and quickly found an example. A Microsoft Group Vice President, Kevin R. Johnson, received 322,560 shares of stock and sold it the same day. He received 244,760 shares of stock on March 6, 2003 and sold that the same day.
SgtChaireBourne also said, "Don't forget that benefits [employee benefits at Microsoft] have been cut way back and there's also been outsourcing like mad. Consultants and contractors don't show up as layoffs when you let them go.
Earlier in this thread, RoLi said, "Microsoft executives know that Microsoft has a lot to lose and not much to gain. The only market where they are strong (the desktop) they have no room to grow, everywhere else they are losing (servers, embedded systems, gaming consoles)." (RoLi's comment #6030636.)
To this must be added that most people who bought a computer as powerful as a Pentium III 866 MHz won't buy another computer. The faster Pentium IIIs were good enough for almost everyone. I have often seen computers survive for more than 10 years. I have a voicemail computer with a 386 SX-16 processor that is perhaps 15 years old, and has been in continual use. The computer market is fast collapsing.
This is a very helpful post for those of us who don't understand how it works. I read everything ahead of it and it's not redundant at all. Who is moderating this? A.L.I.C.E.?
You took and posted 19 pics of Ballmer? Was the game that bad?
Were the people around you creeped out that you kept photographing someone down the row? I think if I did that security would throw me out.
Of course I'd be photographing young adult women and not older bald guys.
IT's always some big deal when some exec gets rid of stock.
There are only certain times when execs can get rid of stock... this is becuase of that thing called insider trading. At a certain level, especially in a large company with a high profile, there are very strict guidelines as to when someone can sell their stock. That means that often, you will see clusters of execs at a company selling at the same time, and people call out concpisracy.. no, it's because by law, or by the company's rules, they MUST do it at a certain, narrow time period.
Secondly, if stock is given as an employment incentive, why do we give those execs a hard time for selling it? Why does it have to be about confidence in the company? Confidence in the company won't buy you a new yacht, dollars will.
If Ballmer was given stock, he has every right in the world to sell it.
Maybe he wants to have some guaranteed cash when he retires, no matter what happens to microsoft?
He's not doing anything different than many other investors with many other companies.. he's selling stock at a profit to get cash.
From Microsoft's 1986 IPO to the 1999 split, the stock price doubled predictably every twelve to eighteen months. As a result, compensation is based largely on stock options rather than salary -- new engineers typically have larger salaries than more senior engineers. But the senior engineers have been with the company long enough, they may have far more MSFT shares than new upper execs and VPs.
Since the 1999 split, MSFT entered a trading range between about 50 and 70. For the old employees, this represents a loss of only six months of growth. As good employees, they expect the stock price to bounce back soon and continue to hold their shares.
However, the dividend tax cut package will also lower the capital gains rate to 15%. After four years of waiting for recovery, numerous shareholders will finally be prompted to take their profits and cash out on MSFT.
Balmer is dumping his shares ahead of the tax cut and expected wave of MSFT selling. For contrarians, there will be a great buying opportunity for MSFT in six months...
disclaimer: I'm not a financial advisor.
No, I think it was a good game. I just had never seen him so close (like I said, he is normally courtside).
:).
The people behind me were wondering who I was taking a picture of, I told them it was Steve Ballmer of Microsoft. If they knew who it was, I don't think they would be freaked.
I was a little nervous about taking a bunch of pictures of him, which is why I did it discreetly. For example, the shots where you can see down the whole row, I had the camera resting on my leg as to be inconspicuous.
I did take a lot of pictures of the cheerleaders over the course of the season, but those aren't on my website
I mean, it's not like executives in companies that size only have short periods of time every year when they can actually sell stock legally. Oh wait, that's true.
So.. if you had that money invested in microsoft, you would not sell it either?
An EMPLOYEE of microsoft, such as we are discussing here, has no obligation to own ANY stock in the company. Selling publicly, at fair market price, small percentages of their stock at a time is *THE MOST RESPONSIBLE* way they can do it. How else do you propose they be permitted to sell their stock?
Do you think selling a few thousand out of almost 10 billion shares is going to drop the price?
Folks like Balmer have to sell some time, and there is no reason why he should wait until he dies.
Exercising stock options isn't the same as selling shares in the company. After exercising his options, Ballmer could hold on to Microsoft shares.
If he sold these shares in order to consume something (holiday on the moon, whatever), that's one thing. If he sold those shares in order to invest elsewhere (which it seems like he did), it tells us that he thinks there is a significant risk that Microsoft shares will underperform or even crash.
The whole point of giving stock options is for the company to compensate their people without paying for it directly.
Yes, they are a big tax and accounting fraud. But that has nothing to do with how we are to interpret the sale of Microsoft shares.
It's very, very common for wealthy senior execs to sell of substantial ( The SEC requires such sales to be publicised as part of proper corporate disclosure. While the numbers involved are titilating, there's likely nothing more interesting involved.
Any company can grow exponentially -- it's just a question of the exponent. I could start a company today and buy t-bonds and it would grow a couple of percent every year.
Microsoft is giving dividends now.
Otherwise, I tend to agree.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
It doesn't matter what you think is going to happen -- all of your wealth is tied up in ONE source. If something DOES happen, you're screwed (also, as CEO, there's also a high correlation between the stock going down and you losing your job, which means no more new cashflow). Better to sell a good chunk and invest in government bonds or something else relatively riskless, or, perhaps, something that has a negative correlation with your company (so if your company goes down, you'll at least make up some of your money on the other side, as a hedge).
I'd never trust my judgement 100% -- if my company started loading stock on me, I'd sell some of it, just in case (even though I think my company is well positioned). Not doing this is what screwed all of those Enron employees, and, unfortunately, my own father's employer a while back.
In any case, if you're investing your own money like this (i.e. monotonically long your company), I'd suggest reading up about diversification before going too much further... (my apologies if you've got financial credentials or something, but I strongly disagree with your analysis).
there is no thing
what else could you want?
What happens when the company you are bashing, nay, the very company that you preach the loudest against, Microsoft, is the same company that signs your paycheck? Could there be a deeper link still? Who knows. As far as I'm concerned, I'll never look at Slashdot the same way, ever again.
To use an analogy, you probably know Terry Pratchett's Discworld series? In some of the books there is this city leader, called Lord Vetinari. Since he runs everything he also frequently hires people who try to asassinate him and he pays guilds who are trying to overthrow him. It has to do with control. Giving all those dissenters a channel to vent some steam, in a very controlled way. Also, talking about a leadership figure in a bad way sometimes still enforces the impression of autority and leadership!
Well anyway, this goes to far. It's really just paranoia, because EVERY publicly traded company has some ties with EVERY other publicly traded company (yeah, not always, but you know what I mean).
And, admit it, many people here don't have a hateful relationship with MS, instead they are in a kind of love-hate relationsip. MS lifestyle and the people who work there still represent the geek world very accurately.
According to these videos, perhaps Ballmer should consider the aquisition of a portion of this company. :-)
Do you like German cars?
NT
Do you like German cars?
He sure looks like he's about to have a heart attack at the end of the Ballmer Blitz...
~S
one share at a time ...
Managers tend to try to sell high.
A great predictor of future stock price is manager's behavior.
You should sell when they do.
I forget what 8 was for.
I'm posting this to undo my accidental mod. I mean to mod +1 funny but modded -1 Redundant.
I *hate* redundant mods. Sorry for the screwup. This will undo it.
Linux IT Consulting and Domino Development in Michigan
who or what company did he sell his shares to ?
finding this out could be really interesting.
was it a big company, or just arbitary people ?
"Life's been good to me so far..."
Instead of paying tax, the upper few percent pay accountants - except for a few honest ones who pay full rate and get rich anyway. It's a factor that tax law ignores almost entirely, except for sliding income scales. These tend to compensate somewhat for richer peoples' ability to afford skilled accountants. However, the compensation is somewhat uneven, and breaks down completely at a certain level.
For exmaple, Alan Bond, a local convicted thief, liar, embezzler, name it, got to live in "his wife's" house and drive around in "his wife's" car, having had a divorce-of-convenience just before the pooh hit his personal fan. The only actual penalty he suffered beyond having other peoples' money taken back off him (9% in the $ for his main company) was some time (a year? two?) on Woorooloo Prison Farm, which is pretty much like a low-budget holiday resort compared to what you and I think of as prison. If we did the same things with far lesser amounts, we'd be spending somewhere between 5 and 20 years in a real prison, and have nothing left. He's still got squillions of other people's dollar squirrelled away in overseas accounts and other rorts.
Another local example is Mark Povey of Povey Petroleum; slightly lower scale of cheating, underpaid and mistreated his staff too, but he didn't lose his house or anything, and keeps rematerialising with new rorts (ABC123 Cleaning did people's houses in more ways than one) about every year or two, each one going bankrupt and each one being a drain on the public purse (not to mention financially shafting his employees at every opportunity). And the Poveys get indignant if anyone queries this behaviour. Human nature at its best.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
heh, selling licenses to rent proprietary software is indeed an accounting scandal[1]. it's just taken several decades for most people to realize this. nothing seeds resentment greater than a late realization of mis-applied trust.
[1] don't think so? well if you promise to pay me (too) i promise to lie to you (too). fair enough? let's start! where do you want to go today?
We had a local little old lady who trundled about the place in rags with a shopping trolly, doing stuff like picking up cans and generally acting like a bag lady. One day she died, and a friend of mine who does a lot of stuff for the local Catholic church was one of two people tasked with sorting out her estate (she'd left everything to the local Catholic church).
She'd lived in a very old house in the middle of what is now very expensive real estate (but probably would have been twenty pounds a block when she bought). In the course of going through the house, these two men stumbled across caches of money here and there adding up to thirteen million dollars (AUD) in cash. This does not count any other assets at all. Evidently she continually felt poor, and continually responded by accumulating money.
I guess her house and land was worth an additional million or two, and a lot of her chattels were well-kept antiques which probably brought in another few million for their age value alone. Nothing was said about jewelery or investments. You and I might have trouble understanding why she or Ballmer act this way instead of hitting Phuket, DisneyWorld or Vegas, but a surprising number of people are like that, and a surprising percentage of those use that most cursed of justifications for whatever they do: "the end justfies the means" - or, to quote Daffy Duck, "Consequences? Schmonsequences! As long as I'm rich!"
In a way, I can relate to the "same tiny house" - if a house works for me, I see no reason to have to learn new paths to blunder through in the dark (e.g. when a child wakes up or nature calls), new dance steps to organise a meal in the kitchen, and so on. New for new's sake doesn't ring any bells for me. OTOH, my wife just froths at the mouth for "new" all the time. Between us, we strike a reasonable balance.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
You become a legend in your own mind.
In everyone else's minds you become a navigation hazard.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Despite the fraud 'n' stuff, I think now is probably optimax selling time for Steve anyway. Even if Microsoft still exists and prospers in 10 years (doubt it), he's planning to retire, and on top of that Microsoft pretty much seems to have stonewalled in terms of the radical new market expasion which has kept it fed and happy since birth. Like any huge animal, it may not realise that it's dead yet, but the wave it rode to power has definitely splashed up on the beach and is receding.
Keep an eye out for an article entitled The Late Great Planet Microsoft.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Actually, until this January Microsoft did not pay dividends. The *only* way to get money out of Microsoft stock was to sell. This particular sale by Ballmer, then, may be lack of confidence in the company, but the "constant sales" you talk about since the collapse could well have been mainly for the purpose of rational diversification without any particular lack of confidence in Microsoft. Without dividends, it simply wasn't possible for Gates or Ballmer to diversify from their main assets without selling, and it is well known that everyone should diversify in case of emergency.
Ever wonder why there's a reason why he's rich and you're not?
Bingo.
> there are hardly any valuable commercial software without an equivalent open source nephew
/ports/ of those apps, I'll be more enthusiastic. We're using linux terminals at work for our sales staff already, and other than some word doc issues with OO.o it works very well. However, our prepress and production department would be simply impossible.
Sorry to disagree, but there are a LOT. Perhaps you mean "high-volume off-the-shelf shrinkwrap software"? Here are a few that don't have anything vaguely approaching an alternative, some of which are shrinkwrap:
- QuarkXPress/Adobe Indesign (No scribus doesn't count)
- Adobe Photoshop (GIMP is good, but nowhere near pshop. No ICC profiles, no decent CMYK, lack of previews, slow).
- Pongrass Classified Pagination (newspaper classified advertising booking & pagination system)
- AutoCAD
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Acrobat (no, I don't mean just distiller)
- An AppleTalk server that's reliable and works properly with all mac apps
- oodles of small-volume "solutions"-based customised software for industry-specific needs (ATEX, etc).
When I start seeing
developers, developers, developers, developers. Developers, developers, developers. Who knew he was talking about real estate?
M$ has promissed their investors and other suckers world domination. Even a year ago they were spouting shit about 99.99% of all computing devices running winblows in the future. It ain't going to happen and every stratagy they have that demands it will fail. Hell, it's enough for the world to know that they don't have to have M$ Word to exchange emails for Office to fail. The only thing that Microsoft has is the false notion that you need their crappy propriatory formats to get along in "the real world". The real world has looked around and realized that's BS.
If you are having trouble exchanging email and you are running XP, the reason you are having trouble exchanging email is that you are running M$. The rest of us don't have that problem, even when exchanging email with win98 and 2k clients. We only have trouble talking to you. You don't need XP and you are better off not giving M$ permission to search through and delete your personal files.
The pyramid is collapsing because it was hollow inside.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I never did like this guy. That video of Ballmer prancing about a stage like a baboon a couple of years ago did not impress me.
M.
Insider selling is not nearly as good a predictor as insider buying.
Insiders may very well sell only to diversify their portfolios. Also there may be gambling debts, messy divorces or multiple kept women to keep happy.
But there is one and only one reason why insiders buy. THEY BUY BECAUSE THEY EXPECT TO MAKE MONEY ON THEIR INVESTMENTS!!!
Microsoft insiders have been hardly buying any shares recently, except for freebie stock options which are usually sold as soon as they are received. What else do you need to know?
Microsoft insiders are trying to tell us that this is not a good time to buy Microsoft stock.
"It seems odd to me that a company that has so much cash..."
From to time I look at Microsoft's profile on Yahoo Finance. Lately they have about $4 cash per share. But a year or so ago it was more like $6 per share. You might ask, "How can the cash per share be dropping with all of those profits?".
The answer is obvious! The number of Microsoft shares outstanding has increased. They do grant employees stock options every year, remember! It's just a little bit like a pyramid scheme, isn't it?
When you invest in Microsoft, never forget that you do so on a per share basis!
I'man old fart
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
About 8.3% 39.3M / (39.3M + 432M) = 0.083 (where 'M' is for million)
Check out Chad's News
Seriously, MS has been in one battle after another for the past 2-3 years. Major battles.
Battles which has been hurting MS's cash funds as well as their future income.
To list a few...
If I've been fighting the good(relatively speaking) fight for the last few years and have seen defeat after defeat, I would jump ship. The fact that Balmer hasn't jumped ship before this is either credit to his undying loyalty to MS/Bill Gates or his salary.
That's not to say that MS is all bad. XP pro is by far the most stable and workable OS I've ever used from MS. And I've used all of them from MSDOS 3.00 through XP_Pro. Then again, I've also used Linux from betas of Slackware up through the latest in Suse/Mandrake/Redhat/Debian and have had a great time with Linux as well.
If Ballmer is starting to jump ship, I can't say I blame him. His position is like that of a President's; You work for the length of your "term' and then you gracefully step down to let someone else get some face time while you get to work on your book and movie rights.
Having millions in liquid cash to live off of while waiting for your next job doesn't hurt either.
Winged Power Photography
I know this is a dead conversation and you'll probably never read it, but I decided to reply regardless. I was asking a question. I start my post with two questions, then explained my reasoning behind my asking.
You started your post with an insult. I don't know a whole lot about the stock market, admitedly; but I do know what a split is and that what you said was correct. However, it doesn't answer my question. I also know he didn't flood the market. There are over 12B shares of MSFT, I was only suggesting that Ballmer selling 10% of his personal shares could have other negetive effects on the price of the stock, but it's moot. You ended with another insult, and one that suggests you'd like to censor me. My suggestion to you would be this, think about who you are as a person before you post.
put the what in the where?
Get on the phone! Call Schwab and make it happen! Get on the phone! And get me stock in Apple!
I live in Portland, Oregon, one of the places Intel designs its microprocessors. It is common to meet Intel employees at parties. We have had long discussions about finding some task that requires more powerful processors. Intel employees are VERY interested in this, because if uses for more powerful processors are not found, some of them will lose their jobs.
Only video requires more processing power. However, I estimate that it will be 3 or 4 years before the software is powerful enough to attract significant numbers of people to video. I have contact several times a week with one of the engineers who designs video applications, so this is not just a wild guess.
This graph shows MS stock has slid 3-4% over just the last week versus the DOW and NASDAQ.