Microsoft Considers $10 Billion Dividend

Dreadnougat writes "Microsoft is considering paying out a $10 billion dividend, the largest corporate payout ever. Cynics (ok, anyone reading /.) might note that Bill Gates stands to make $1.18 billion himself off the $1 a share dividend, in comparison to the $95 million he makes in a normal year off the regular 8 cents a share dividend."

Comments

Re:Damned if They Do ....

[yerricde]

Why should one person control so much wealth?

Re:What would you do with $10bn?

[3waygeek]

About 10 years ago, I worked with a guy who knew Bill Gates. According to him, Bill was quite well known for hiring hookers to satisfy him orally. Upon hearing this, I immediately set about figuring out how much he could afford to pay for this service -- based on the 1994-ish value of MS stock, he could pay many thousands per hour, 24/7/365, to get continuous oral service for the rest of his life.

Re:/.-centric summary.

[BlackHawk-666]

Companies aren't allowed to sell IBM/PC compatible computers without an OS. The only way to buy one like this is to build it from parts. Even OEMs are obliged to bundle an OS with it (guess which one). They typically get that OS for less than 17USD, so it's no big deal. I owuld be very suprised if you have managed to never buy a PC without an OS...and might even call your character into question ;-)

Re:Jesus. Buying votes isn't enough.

[Nept]

Bush's meager tax money payoff

just shut the f*ck up already.

Re:/.-centric summary.

[Genjurosan]

Before you make some STUPID blanket statement simply because you are caught up in hating MS like most other children.. Why don't you check out the 6 BILLION that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given out. Yeah.. That's BILLION.

Who wants to be a billionaire?

[dennison_uy]

1. Sell crappy software at bloated prices
2. Buy out smaller startups
3. Pay out all your shareholders
4. ???
5. ???
6. Profit!!!

Re:Eternally Evil?

[esobofh]

Right.. just like the billion other companies that have paid out dividends since the dawn of trade

you smoke too much pot hippy(tm)®©

Re:/.-centric summary.

[Trepalium]

These days, Microsoft's wares are less about want and more about need. e.g. I NEED to be able to read MS Word documents my business partners send me... I NEED to upgrade to the latest version of Windows because NT 4.0 is no longer supported. I NEED to add another MS server product to the network because no one else has the access to the client OS to be able to properly integrate the features into the system. It's like heroin -- once you start the habit, it's nearly impossible to break the addiction.

Samba works well, but real Windows servers work better with Windows clients. qmail works well, but you can't use all the features of Outlook without an MS Exchange server. Any streaming media format works well, but you can only use Windows Media Format without add-on software on each client machine. Etc, etc, etc.

Re:/.-centric summary.

[Y2K is bogus]

It's simpler than you think. Charities are tax exempt organizations. This means they do not have to pay taxes on donations, furthermore, donations to such charities are tax deductable.

In essence, Bill Gates doesn't pay income taxes, what he does is pay the equivelent amount to his charity, thus garnering him a credit equal to what his income taxes would be.

It's the best of both worlds, he doesn't have to "pay" taxes, and he gets to keep his "play" money anyway. Rather than the money going to "waste", he gets to decide what happens to it directly. It really is very clever.