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Microsoft Shareholders Unhappy After Annual Meeting
Kozar_The_Malignant writes "Microsoft shareholders left today's annual meeting grumbling about the 15 minute Q&A period with Bill Gates and Steve Balmer and the lack of any real specifics about corporate direction. Many shareholders are concerned about Microsoft's static share price over the last decade."
Simple solution to a simple problem. SELL THE STOCK.
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MSFT+Interactive#symbol=MSFT;range=my
Just look at that chart. Look at it, guys. It's been down and flat since 2000. Yes, that chart is split-adjusted. All Y! stock charts are split adjusted. If you want growth, Microsoft is not where you want to be.
And the outlook is not encouraging. Just look at Windows 8.
--
BMO
Doesn't MSFT pay dividends? You can't just look at the chart of the stock price. The fair way to construct such a chart would be a graph of an investor's money assuming he reinvested the dividends.
http://www.geekwire.com/2011/microsoft-shareholder-meeting
I would have left too if those were the best answers I could come up with for those questions.
That makes Microsoft a blue-chip stock, like GM or IBM. They are not a bubble rally pump and dump stock. The ultimate value of a company is not what a wall street casino game of money chicken assigns to it, and listening to the gamblers is hardly the course that will find improvement.
Static share price for the past decade, but:
revenue:
2000: 22.96 billion
2011: 69.94 billion (ms ends their year on 6/30.. so this is 6/30/10 - 6/30/11)
profits:
2000: 9.42 billion
2011: 23.15 billion
Yep.. shareholders are stupid. Not Microsoft's fault they don't want to reward their success.
2000 income announcement
2011 income statement
3% is 2x what my credit union pays in an IRA, which is itself 3x what most banks pay. Poor, but there's a risk/reward thing to consider.
In my mind, the last real Microsoft innovations that happened were in the year period between late 1995 and early 1996. That is when Windows 95 came out and Windows NT 4.0. Windows 95 had a lot of things going for it - it had Internet capability included, so people didn't have to go through a rigmarole with Hyperterminal to download Trumpet Winsock from somewhere via X-modem. It had a nice, Mac-like GUI. It was nice - they even had Mac-like touches, like hiring Brian Eno to do the sound for when the computer started, a launch campaign with a Rolling Stones sound etc. Insofar as NT 4.0 - it was the first Windows server which wasn't total garbage. I had to administer a NT 3.51 server for a while, to my chagrin. 4.0 wasn't great, but it wasn't complete garbage like previous efforts. NT 4.0 also introduced the Terminal Services Client, later called Remote Desktop.
SQL Server began coming out before any of this. I don't really like Exchange Server or Outlook, but they came out in 1996 and 1997 respectively. What has Microsoft really come out with since then? They completely missed the boat on smartphones and tablets - they are less than 1% market share for both markets. I just finished reading Job's biography - he mentions that Microsoft had been working on tablets forever. He blames their focus on the stylus, and compatibility with the existing Microsoft monopoly, I mean framework, as the drawbacks to it. Microsoft just seems to be unable to anything new. They started by porting an existing product, BASIC. Then they ripped of CP/M - some say in a straight pirate-like fashion. Then they rip off Apple's Mac interface (which Apple themselves ripped off from Xerox). Microsoft is great at copying others ideas and doing all the back end, support, marketing, licensing business stuff, they are not so great at inventing stuff. A then much smaller company like Apple was able to eat their lunch in the tablet and smartphone space. Google bought Android, and helped it grow to where it now owns smartphones, and is doing respectably on tablets, at least more respectably than Microsoft.
Microsoft has just been resting on its monopoly and sitting on its laurels. They put out garbage that technicians hate to use, but are sometimes forced to. With Windows 95, I used to get a CD where I could reinstall Windows if I wanted. Then they started that horrible OEM recover CD, where you couldn't just fresh install Windows like you wanted to - like you can with a CD of Linux or FreeBSD or whatnot. I mean, they took a step backwards, to protect themselves from piracy - a concern people making Debian CD's have no concern about. Other people are out innovating, they are at work crippling your ability to do things you were able to do with previous installations of Windows.
Only the dumb money is left.
Or the safe money. Not every investment needs to be a double-or-nothing crap shoot. I'm sure a lot of people who invest in MSFT also invest in AAPL or GOOG, but for different reasons. I'm sure there are even lots of people who use a Mac daily but still have money in MSFT; it's really all between them and their financial advisers, and has little to do with Windows vs. Mac OS X.
Breakfast served all day!
No, you're the idiot. You obviously don't understand the point I was making.
Microsoft doesn't control the price their stock trades for in the market. They have been doing their part -- increasing profits -- but the shareholders have decided the stock is worth exactly the same amount. THEREFORE shareholders are stupid.
What do you expect Microsoft to do? Have Ballmer go down to Wall Street and scream Developers! Developers! Developers! ?
MS makes 3x the amount Google does in profits. For 2010, MS made 50% more than Apple. Only this past year has Apple matched Microsofts profits. Yet, Apple and Google get bid up to insane levels based almost solely on emotions.
So if shareholders want to base Microsoft's share price on their emotions, instead of Microsoft's financials, then that's their problem, not Microsoft's.
After all, those poor shareholders expected INFINITE GROWTH and the company failed to deliver. They should apologize.
Seriously though, just like the first poster said they already have the answer: sell your stock. But the greedy fucks keep on looking for more. They should get what they deserve when people finally start to realize (probably right after 8 launches) that they shouldn't have to constantly pay for an OS upgrade and Microsoft's software division finally tanks like they already should have.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
Yield is 3 percent, being generous, and this is nothing when considering the growth of other companies in the same sector - I get modded down for pointing this out.
Stock price is down and flat, especially considering other companies in the same sector. - I get modded down for pointing this out.
There is no sign of this changing any time soon. Windows 8 is the biggest news, and it makes everyone who is not a fanboy yawn, at best - I get modded down for pointing this out.
Yet none of the above is false. So much butthur at the truth. Don't blame me, guys, look at your god, Ballmer, the guy who is only there because of the amount of voting stock he owns. Welcome to the same doldrums that befell Apple in the 90s. Unless something serious happens, the best you can hope for is that the wind does not go completely out of the sails leaving Microsoft adrift in a Sargasso of status-quo or sinking from shipworm.
Break up Microsoft. It needs it. The profit sucking divisions need to sink or swim on their own. The company also needs to make things that people actually want, rather than view Microsoft products as "necessary evils." Apple has been doing it the right way. Microsoft, not so much.
--
BMO
Anything that makes Microsoft or Microsoft shareholders unhappy is a good thing, IMHO.
Until one considers people with a pension plan, IRA, or 401K. For many of these people with the later two they don't pick individual stocks, they pick funds that are managed by a "pro". Many of these funds own Microsoft.
Look at this chart showing how IBM, a blue-chip stock, is able to return value to its shareholders while MSFT cannot.
I might be wrong but expecting infinite growth in stock prices doesn't sound sustainable. The biggest scam Wall Street has pulled is making investors focus on stock prices instead of dividends.
Focusing in dividends might be boring but they are a passive form of income, a good way to build wealth.
HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
Some here will be offended. While I wouldn't care to have to deal with the guy, I like his vision. "Windows yesterday, today and forever" is just the message I want him to have here. He should stay focused on a strong defense of his core business - an iron fort unassailable by all. To stay the course on his miserable failures online, in mobile, in acquisitions is more than I could hope for, but it does appear to be the plan.
So when we move the trade route so it passes nowhere near his precious fort he won't be able to react.
I hope they make him chairman after Mr. Gates finally finishes divesting and retires. He's taking the company just where I want it to go.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
they give out nearly 6% yearly dividend (compare to the current share price). Tell me where you can find a blue chip company that gives out anything over 5%? REITs (Real Estate Investment Trust) does not count.
New Economic Perspectives
Yes, the shares are "extinguished." So all the remaining shareholders now own a larger percentage share of the company, because there are fewer shares in existence. I just sold a bunch of shares back to a company... it was somewhat handy because they gave preference to odd lots (had 84 shares) so it helps to "clean things up" a bit. Also, they paid above the market rate (which didn't quite jump to the buyback value because they did not buy an unlimited number).
This line says it all:
"My granddaughters don't even know what Microsoft does."
I kid, I kid.
I hope.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
By putting the relationship between operating systems in terms of war, you demonstrate that you are not interested in actually getting my thoughts on anything and only want to make your little point.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That's understandable. if I had to listen to either of them for more than 30 seconds I'd chew my own toes off.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."