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Microsoft: The Faint Smell of Rot
happycorp writes "A business reporter for ABC/Fortune
is asking whether Microsoft is poised to collapse, based on years of industry observation
(with successful calls in the past, he notes) rather than
purely technical considerations.
A short read, with this favorite quote:
"if you sniff the air, you can just make out the first hints of rot.""
...about the Roman Empire in the time of Julius Caesar. But it took several hundert years until it collapsed.
This kind of "insight" can be applied to almost every company, and it's about as good as Colin Fry's cold reading
Looking for previous Malone predictions I found this gem where he predicts the death of Apple. I quote from the full article:
"No, I think that if Jobs proved anything, it's that the core body of Macolytes is pretty inviolable. It would be very damn hard to lose them. The question is: Can he do much more than he's done right now? He's up against 300 companies. No matter how clever he is, the combined creativity and brainpower of 300 companies ultimately will defeat him. He didn't believe that the first time around. I think he knows that now. That's why I think he's positioned Apple for the big exit. I suspect he's shopping the place around. I hear rumors to that effect but I couldn't confirm them. If he was smart he'd do the same thing as NeXT. Remember, NeXT almost died, he managed to go sideways with it, establish it with a certain amount of prestige but not a lot of long-term potential, and sold it to Apple. He ended up being a hero, but he came within weeks of being a goat. If he can sell Apple and make a ton of money, then he becomes the savior."
No - they have a lot of assests. And "investments". In cash they are about equal with Apple. Have a look at their quarterly earnings.
Huh? How do you figure?
Apple Balance Sheet 25-Sep-04
$2,969,000,000 Cash
$2,495,000,000 Short Term Investments
=
$5.5 billion cash equivalents
Microsoft Balance Sheet 30-Jun-04
$15,982,000,000 Cash
$44,610,000,000 Short Term Investments
=
$60.5 billion cash equivalents
You are right. "corpus" is a body, which is where we get the words "corpse" from.
"Corporate" or "incorporate" means to form a body. Legally, a corporation has the rights of a human, but that is a modern invention. Historically, a corporation was a way that a new "body" could be formed of many different people. The articles of incorporation detail how the body is run, how decision are made, what the purpose of the body is, etc...
Every organization that comes together and has rules for how the organization is run is a corporation in that sense of the word. You'll note that sometimes "organization", "association", "body", "assembly" can be used to mean the same thing.
In the market, for-profit corporations are formed by investors who want to take their capital (time, talents, cash, resources) and turn it into something more. You've heard of "synergy" right? That's the idea that the combination of the parts is greater than the sum of the parts. As the corporation matures, they don't expect much in return. When the corporation is complete, they expect to get regular payments on their investments. Should the corporation fail its purpose, they expect to be able to salvage whatever capital they can from the effort.
Rich people don't do like Scrooge McDuck and swim in their piles of cash. Instead, they drain their coffers and invest it hoping to get even more cash. Or they give it away to their favorite charities. Rich people can't stand seeing money lying around doing nothing much like nerds can't stand seeing a computer turned off doing nothing.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
A tautology in the logic sense is effectively a statement whose truth table is entirely true.
E.G., "A or Not A"
A | A or Not A | value
T | T or F | T
F | F or T | T
Contrast that with a contradiction, for instance "B and Not B"
B | B and Not B | value
T | T and F | F
F | F and T | F
So, no, an argument that assumes the consequent and is therefore circular is not a tautology.
You are incorrect. For FY 2004, overall revenue was up %14, Windows revenue up 11%, and Office revenue was up 14%. Hard to call any company that has double digit growth "rotting".
Does anyone out there love MSN? I doubt it; it seems to share AOL's fate of being disliked but not hated enough to change your e-mail account. And do college kids still dream of going to work at MS? Five years ago it was a source of pride to go to work for the Evil Empire -- now, who cares? It's just Motorola with wetter winters.
In other words, he's talking about how college kids perceive Microsoft, not about the current reality of working there or about contrasting it with Motorola.
Here in France we have a simple solution to this. When you are paid a dividend you get a tax credit with it that is the amount of taxes already paid on that dividend.
So a company that paid no taxes would be unable to give tax credits with its dividends, so the people receiving those dividends would pay more taxes.
Watch this Heartland Institute video