Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Tops Corporate-Reputation Survey
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Microsoft beat out Johnson & Johnson for the top spot in the annual Wall Street Journal survey of the reputations of U.S. companies. Bill Gates's personal philanthropy boosted the public's opinion of Microsoft, helping to end J&J's seven-year run at No. 1. From the article: 'Mr. Gates demonstrates how much the reputation of a corporate leader can rub off on his company. Formerly chief executive officer and now chairman of Microsoft, he contributed to a marked improvement in the company's emotional appeal. Jeanie Cummins, a survey respondent and homemaker in Olive Hill, Ky., says Mr. Gates's philanthropy made her a much bigger fan of Microsoft. "He showed he cared more for people than all the money he made building Microsoft from the ground up," she says. "I wish all the other big shots could do something like this." To be sure, some respondents still complain that Microsoft bullies its competitors and unfairly monopolizes the software business. But such criticism is less biting and less pervasive than it was just a few years ago.'"
Slashdot allows astroturf!?!?!? Say it isn't so!!!!
Two words: Tax Shelter
Once you have more money than anyone on the planet, being 'charitable' is easy - and provides a nice tax shelter for the money you don't show us that is still in your financial instruments. The good will that builds for the company you founded (and certainly hold large amounts of stock in) is just stock-value-inflating icing on the cake.
Bravo! Don't be upset when I fail to give you a standing ovation.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
bingo. Microsoft's willful negligence in making their email readers and web browsers insecure has cost consumers hundreds of billions of dollars, and they're doing their best to cripple their customers computers in order to extort more money from them. They still manage to effectively impose a significant tax on the vast majority of computers sold, even if the consumer never uses Windows.
There seems to be something in American culture that causes many people here to reserve their greatest admiration for the politicians and companies that abuse them the most.
What makes you think they're nice people? We already know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Billy Boy is not. Hell, he lied, cheated, and stole his way to the top and fucked customers over from the very beginning. If you got a defective paper tape of their Altair BASIC software, Bill would not replace it. And yes, in those days, you dealt directly with him.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So, according to the majority of these posts it doesnt matter how many starving people Bill Gates has helped feed, or how many children lived because of the Gates' contributions to medicine, or how many families recieved shelter from the elements because of Bill Gates opening his check book. All that means nothing because you think MS could have written a better email program? Since IE isnt better than Firefox and Office is a resource hog, that takes precedence over a baby in Africa getting vaccinated?
The more I read, the sicker I get. Everyone posting has a life 1000x better than most of the people Gates gives money too, just by the fact that you have electricity. But still, you feel that not getting to see the source code for Outlook is a big enough slight to negate giving hundreds of millions of dollars to charity.
What percentage of your income have you given? How much of your time do you donate? Before buying that harddrive or monitor, did you even think about how much medicine that money would've bought a sick child? Did you care enough to even pause before handing over your credit card? Before trashing -anyone- that helps others, look at yourselves.
D
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Not to mention that they hold refugee children hostage
It would have been nice if the parent poster had included an example (maybe with a link) of a clinic 'left with almost nothing' just the same.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
LOLOLOL
How old are you, twelve?
Oh, and stop using the term "evil" for anything you have a beef with. You guys overuse that word so much that it has almost no meaning around here.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
I wonder if some of the good press ratings MS got in this poll have anything to do with the credibility (or want thereof) of detractors like these.
If there's one thing I won't stand for, it's intolerance.