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Is Microsoft just Screwing with Yahoo's Mind?
The Narrative Fallacy writes "This week Cringely offers up a speculative piece asserting that Microsoft might not really care if its bid to buy Yahoo succeeds or not — Bill Gates just wants to disrupt Yahoo and poach the company's employees. 'Microsoft's offer for Yahoo has thrown that company and several others into a tizzy. Yahoo can't be getting much work done, that's for sure ... Redmond's real goal may be simply to poach people from Yahoo, and this deal could help them do just that.' Cringley says there is plenty of precedent for Microsoft's behavior — Microsoft's bids for Borland and for Intuit back in the 1990s sent both companies into a tailspin. 'A failed Microsoft bid, even one involving a termination fee, could lead to horrific results for the company. Remember that Yahoo is staggering here while Intuit was at the top of its market and its game.'"
Seriously. The guy talks out his ass so much he'd be more profitably employed as a ventriloquist.
It was the Intel exec that gave Linux 0.8% of the desktop.
In the January W3 Schools OS Platfrorm Stats Vista is poised to overtake OSX and Linux combined in a month or two.
Not a bad showing for an OS whose greatest strength in 2007 was in the high end of the OEM consumer market, where the Vista Premium and Ultimate PC competes directly against the Mac system bundle.
the rise of the low end markets where they simply can't compete
Microsoft's $3 "Student Innovation Suite" bundles Learning Essentials for MS Office, Microsoft Math, Office Home and Student 2007, Windows Live Mail, and XP Starter Edition.
The Vista Starter Edition will arrive somewhere down the road.
At first glance, the pricing is shockingly low considering the broader value of the software. For example, in the United States, Office Home and Student 2007 retails for about $150. But further examination reveals pricing not so out of line with what college students might see in the United States. It's fairly typical for universities to provide students with Microsoft software for as little as $5 or $10 a copy under a Microsoft Campus License. It's a bit out-of-box thinking. It is very clever," said Clive Longbottom, service director of Business Process Analysis for Quocirca. "We wouldn't see millions of licenses sold through educational institutions in established markets. You will see thousands."
But in markets like China, "you will see millions."
What is Microsoft's Unlimited Potential?