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Class-action Suit Filed Against Microsoft Over Surface Write Off
New submitter used2win32 writes with news that at least one investor is unhappy with the Surface inventory write off, claiming that Microsoft mislead investors who purchased stock during Q2 and Q3 by not announcing just how slow inventory was moving at the time "The class action lawsuit claims false and misleading information regarding sales performance of Windows RT based tablets. Microsoft has earned a U.S. $900 million write off and a market share of less that 1% to show for its Windows RT endeavors. Asus, Lenovo, HP, Samsung and HTC discontinued their models leaving Dell as the only OEM producing a Windows RT tablet."
Stockholders win the lawsuit and each get 10 bucks. Microsoft stock takes a huge hit. Stockholders lose a lot more than 10 bucks.
Nevermind, I forgot about the lawyers. The lawyers always win.
It is unquestionable that Microsoft's compromise by the US government has threatened Microsoft's position in the global marketplace. There may not be an obvious reflection of this damage right now, but things are in motion even now to move away from Microsoft products all over the world. In the past, when governments and business sought to move away from Microsoft, they were drawn back in with special pricing or other deals. And specifically, when the initiatives to move away were pushed by specific individuals, those individuals found themselves attacked and discredited in some way. And when the initiatives were a matter of policy or law, such as a requirement to favor ISO standards compliance products, the Microsoft had set about changing law, policy or forcing through new ISO standards which aren't even being complied with.
None of these tactics are expected to work against the current cause for Microsoft mistrust.
A near $1 billion write off. That would put most companies out of business, and even Microsoft can't keep taking losses like that.
Windows 8 is under-performing, people are pulling out of making Windows Phones, the XBone is facing a lot of backlash, their own tablet is becoming a huge flop, and the hardware makers are deciding they want to focus on other things.
Increasingly it's looking like Microsoft is asleep at the switch and just assuming they'll keep selling as much as they always have.
Either they need to start fixing some fundamentals, or Microsoft is going to face some serious long-term problems.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Were clearance priced / firehouse sold. I'll buy one for $99.00 I need something new to hack on and try to get android/linux running on.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Typical sue-happy mentality of the USA: My bad judgement is your fault.
If these people had made money with the stock, do you think they'd be offering to pay Microsoft part of their profits?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
"A drooling imbecile and his money soon go separate ways?" Seriously, if they hadn't been softed by Microshaft, they surely would've been by somebody else... :p
Am I dumb and missing the sarcasm? People don't normally carry their iPads everywhere with them, but I know TONS of people who have them. Most don't even bother with their PC's anymore.
The summary says that is not what the lawsuit is about. Surface was clearly not doing well in the first two quarters of its release (Q2, Q3) but MS didn't disclose this until Q4 when they took a $900M writeoff. I'm not sure what the rules are on reporting but I'm guessing the losses were just too large not to report. The lawsuit claims investors who bought stock in Q2 and Q3 were misled by this lack of information. MS does put into their financial statements a disclaimer about how poor sales may affect their overall revenue: "significant investments in new products and services that may not be profitable;" The litigants felt that was not enough. I don't think they have much of a case.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
In addition, win8 was universally panned by everyone PRE RELEASE!.
Could they not see that the ARM version... RT, meant "Really Terrible"?
Silence is a state of mime.
As much as I despise Ballmer, he is a bean counter/finance guy. I don't think you can lay all blame for all decisions in Win8 at his feet. The issue with Win8 is that what works about tablets: Security/simplicty/stability etc weeded out the bulk problems of users. Making Win8 a full OS forced onto tablets took away all of those and left behind the pains of legacy cruft. Now tablet users get to worry about Virus' and malware and services that conflict. New device same problems. Plus the added confusion of WinRT and the fact that you need to jump back and forth to a desktop mode (entirely schizophrenic in practice)
Only if the company misled about the existence of the lawsuit.
But because even microsoft isn't completely retarded you'll find their 10-K will always have something like:
"""
We have claims and lawsuits against us that may result in adverse outcomes. We are subject to a variety of claims and lawsuits. Adverse outcomes in some or all of these claims may result in significant monetary damages or injunctive relief that could adversely affect our ability to conduct our business. The litigation and other claims are subject to inherent uncertainties and management’s view of these matters may change in the future. A material adverse impact on our financial statements also could occur for the period in which the effect of an unfavorable final outcome becomes probable and reasonably estimable.
"""
in it.
The complaint alleges that Microsoft's first quarter 2013 financial reports were false and misleading. Much of $900 million write down they acknowledged
in the second quarter should have been included in the first quarter statements, they say. If it's true that Microsoft executives knew about the problem and
concealed it in from the investors / potential investors (the owners of the company), that's unlawful, as it should be. That's a fraud on people trying to save
for retirement.
The lawyers will take half the money, so people who were victims of the fraud won't recoup their loss, but punishing fraudulent behavior may tend to
discourage Microsoft and other companies from perpetrating similar lies in the future.
Of course it'll be up to the judge or jury to decide if Microsoft actually did know about the problem by the end of March, in such a way that concealing it
in the first quarter reports mislead investors.
I've always wondered... let's say the court finds for the plaintiffs. Shouldn't the current shareholders then be able to sue for the loss of investment from the company having to pay off the past shareholders?
In theory the accountants lay away a certain amount of cash to deal with various lawsuits. It should just be an adjustment next quarter. The current shareholders are suing over being deliberately mislead, which Microsoft Management is not allowed to do to shareholders. Current shareholders could not sue over that :). In theory they could sack the management.
if they hadn't been softed by Microshaft, they surely would've been by somebody else... :p
Except it was Microsoft. I would love to see Murderers and Rapists using a similar defence.
We'll stop confusing the two Surface products when Microsoft give them different enough names to make a distinction.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Typical sue-happy mentality of the USA: My bad judgement is your fault.
Except that *Judgement* was based on information that is deliberately and intentionally misleading. The Judgement was good.
A bunch of stockholders get to sue MS for not making them enough money.
what about the poor slobs that work there?
Do they deserve money?
Were clearance priced / firehouse sold. I'll buy one for $99.00 I need something new to hack on and try to get android/linux running on.
Why? Why would you promote at anti-consumer device over the many open and cheap ones out there? Why would you help a company that calls you a criminal for doing just that. I remember the xbox and how excited it was to run xbox media center and linux, and hell quake on my TV. Now look at at Microsoft on their latest xbox its the most anti consumer device in existence. Microsoft has gone back on many of its overreacting and draconian practices, but not because people have worked around them, but because they have walked away.
Buy open devices by default.
your right. Not only that, they had the smarts to figure out that people wanted tablets and smart phones a decade before everyone else.
The first tablets ran windows 95, and were powered by pentiums.
the first smart phones ran windows CE.
Somewhere around 1999/2000. This is back when a "tablet" was called a "PDA". They gained cell modems and became phones long before android or apple.
Somewhere around 2005, Archos and nokia started selling internet tablets with wifi and linux.
When it is obvious to the consumers that the execs of a company are arrogant lying assholes acting in bad faith and living in a fantasy world, why would would the rich investors bother to put money in?
All 500 companies in the Fortune 500 have greater than $1B in revenue per Quarter. Sure, $1B is a big deal, but not devastating for any major corporation.
Windows 8 was pretty lackluster, Vista sucked mightily, Millenium Edition was awful. NT, XP, 7 all turned out to be fabulous, stable OSes. Everybody hates a new paradigm in the GUI when they're used to an older one. iOS7 looks like dog shit with a side of cat puke. But we'll all get over it.
MS is super-late to the mobile app party, and they've got nothing to make their handsets a must-have. Android has customization and a huge base of apps, Apple has the comfiness of their one-shop-and-only-one-shop strategy with a huge base of apps. Microsoft has a small fraction of the apps and a market that's small enough that it has few developers. Look at Blackberry - they only had to fall asleep for 2 years to get turned into an also-ran; Microsoft practically left the handset business for 4 years, and came back with essentially a brand new offering that leveraged nothing. And then tried to make a tablet out of that nothing.
Microsoft has the *potential* for market domination - they just can't seem to get their strategy straight. Here's why - 90% of the business application market is still dominated by Windows applications. You HAVE to have windows to run most offices. The possible Win8 strategy to combine tablet and desktop means that convertible devices (which are getting better with Haswell and advanced display tech) are spiralling towards tablet proportions. If you HAD to have a win machine for some things, and it could double as your tablet device, would you really go out and buy TWO devices to carry with you? MS can make that a single device - something that Apple and the Linux market can't (or can't do easily) because their tablet and computer OSes are different. Will MS fuck this up? Yeah, probably, but my expectation is that everything is merging towards combo devices. It's just a matter of who manages to pull it off seamlessly. MS could be set up to be ahead of the curve, or it could squander the opportunity and just plod along.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
why in the world did Microsoft spend so much on such a bad idea? Same with the phones...
The why is actually easy...money, and by money I mean Apple Money + Samsung Money + Google Money + American Express + Old Abusive Monopoly For years. Imagine if Microsoft had 95% share of Phone and Tablet Market share, with everyone else having to use them as their store for electronic goods.
Am I dumb and missing the sarcasm? People don't normally carry their iPads everywhere with them, but I know TONS of people who have them. Most don't even bother with their PC's anymore.
In the context of your quote iPads sales are plummeting. Those may be Android tablet Kathleen Sullivan.
Sadly as a software company they weren't smart enough to actually make software that people wanted the tablets to run.
I think Microsoft listens too much to their customers, following the addage that the customer is always right.
From working in the software industry I found that the customers cannot tell you want they want, and are therefor seldom right. Steve Jobs knew this, the iPhone and iOS was designed to work well for Steve Jobs personally. This gives a lot of focus to the designers of the software and hardware, especially because Steve Jobs has an eye for knowing what is good and what is wrong. Even if he can't design for himself a designer can figure out what Steve wants from this character trade.
Microsoft's way is to aggregate all their current customers and create a list of features that is a mile long, then these features are sorted by the amount of people who wants these features. Because these features are inconsistent because they came from different people, the product itself becomes inconsistent by design. Yea, for design by comity.
These people are like ambulance chasers, and their intended customers are big institutional investors like pension funds and hedge funds. Mom and Pop investors will likely never see a dime. I've been notified about being in-class in two stockholder class action suits like this, and even though I owned the stock in question during the stated period and spent time filling out and filing paperwork in both cases, I was rejected on some capricious technicality both times. A pipefitters local in Ohio and Calpers made out big time, though. Go figure!
I now regard these actions as akin to Samsung suing Apple over the dimensions of rectangles. And let the casual stock buyer beware, as usual. You ain't getting nothing out of this.
I certainly don't think EVERY ASPECT of it was a failure. Much of the physical design was very nice. the kickstand seemed well designed and that keyboard/cover thing wasn't perfect but was clever and from what I read did the job quite well. The hardware in general was good, if not great. It's the software part of things that sucked, which doesn't bode well for the biggest software company in the world.
If the lawyer fees are limited to 30% of the amount actually distributed to the claimants, it would go a long way in creating an incentive for the lawyers to actually make sure the claimants get some money. Right now, once the settlement is done, they lawyers collect all their money and send a form letter to claimants and move on to the next target.
I think we should make lawyers subject to malpractice laws too when they usurp the right to represent a class of claimants. Due diligence in locating all possible claimants to the class, making sure they all get due compensation, making sure the costs are not inflated etc all should come under malpractice provisions. If the lawyers screw up, the claimants should be able to sue them for malpractice.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Has archos ever managed to release a bug free product? I only ask because i've not seen one yet that doesnt promise more than it delivers.
The latest disaster seems to be the gamepad which is so bad they are claiming they are out of warranty even thou they first released them for sale on the 6th of December last year.
After a long series of emails and resets I finally got them to issue a rma since the camera didn't work even without any "buggy" third party software to cause random crashes and freezing and reboots. Once RMA'd they claimed out of warranty. Thats after overcoming the major hurdle that due to the internal (non removable) battery that you couldn't send it by registered post as it wasn't allowed on the plane.
Finding a courier to get it to them at a reasonable price was pretty tricky. I've had 3 other archos devices and each has needed custom firmware to make them usable.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
They're required, by law, not to mislead people as to the financials associated with major product lines. They "discover" suddenly that their inventory of one of the most important products they've ever made, key to their future, is worth $1B less than they claimed a couple months ago. The evidence is that they clearly knew that to be the case in time to have reported it in the quarter-ending statements Mar 31 (since basically even those without access to the sales data suspected so). They continued to put lipstick on the pig in public statements all the way to the day they declared they'd just lost $1B, oops.
Why shouldn't they be held accountable?
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
Yeah, and none of the "tech folks" I know thought an oversized iPhone was gonna go anywhere, ..."tech folk" on this very website thought a certain device that lacked wireless and had less space than a Nomad
Ironically many "tech folks"(sic) not only predicated the tablet, but looked forward to it, and own many of its ealier iterations. The iPad was the most expected device ever, there were surprises...*price* for one. As for the Mp3 quote. The fact that a prominent "tech folk" thought technology would win over brand is maybe misguided in retrospect, although I took advantage of cheap better alternatives. Ironically he can sleep easy now Android dominated 80% of the smartphone market while Apple cling to 14% that he was right all along.
I have never understood why listening to morons on CNBC, Fox Business, or anywhere else was any different from listening to some guy screaming on a street corner.
This was always part of the plan, they took a page directly out of the Xbox playbook, in that they knew the only way to get into the tablet market space was to subsidize their way. The Wintel market has stagnated as a result of maturity, and Microsoft has to do whatever it takes to get into this new market space. Remember back when they missed the boat with the Internet? They licensed Mosaic for millions and then developed and gave away Internet Explorer for free just to fix that problem. Their a bunch of fumbling idiots with unoriginal products, this has always been the case, and their content with this fact. Playing a perfect game is not a requirement for winning at chess.
Android sales are high because everyone starts with the 80 dollar Android tablet and discovers it's junk before they upgrade to something better.
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24253413 Sorry those are the latest figures. That is Apple having a sales drop of 14% Year On Year while Samsung rise of 277%, In a market that raised 60% YonY.
The bottom line is Apple need to start competing on more than brand.
The first tablets ran windows 95, and were powered by Pentiums.
Actually, somewhere around 93/94 time-frame the company I worked for was looking for a device for our customers to use as a carry around input device. I remember one of the devices we considered was a windows 3.1 based "tablet" computer, although I think it was called a "pen" computer back then.
I sort of wish I still had the thing, because it would be good for a laugh now. It was about the size of a laptop (in other words it was about two-three inches thick) and was just a rectangular box with a (12" maybe) touch screen on one side. IIRC it had a floppy and assorted ports arranged around it.
The handwriting recognition was a PITA though. You tapped where you wanted to input text and it popped up a little dialog with a grid (like some paper forms a few years ago) and you were expected to write one letter per box and it would generate the letter it thought you entered below it.
Of the 3 or 4 of us that tired to use it, none of us could get a reasonable recognition rate out of the thing. I think we ended up trying to use it with one of the accessibility keyboards on screen. That by itself was a PITA, but for a device intended to be used while standing up/walking around it was impossible. Holding it in a position with one arm while entering data with the other got tiring really quickly. Probably, because it weighted something like 10 lbs.
In the end I think we ended up using a little calculator sized device with a keyboard. It wasn't great but you could hold it with two hands and type with your thumbs at a pretty decent rate.
BTW: I think it was a 486, and poking around on google I noticed that "Windows for Pen Computing" which is what it was running was released in 1991, a few years before we were trying to use it.
The problem is that they are not being accountable. The company is being sued instead of the executives who decided to publish the deficient reports.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
But I hate stupid investor lawsuits like this even more.
It is tiresome when a company underperforms to have investors want to sue them for being "mislead".
Last I checked, the stock market was volatile and therefore some care and actual thought should go into where you invest your money.
I mean even if a company blatantly said "Hey, we are going to triple our profits in only one quarter", any investor throwing their money against that claim deserves to lose their shirts in the investment because someone that blindly invests money based on what the company says is retarded.
"Buyer Beware" applies to stock investments too. If you want to be stupid and only invest based on what the CEO of a company says once a quarter, then you forfeit the right to be upset when the company underperforms.
With Microsoft specifically, its stupid to sue Microsoft because Microsoft's stock has been "flat" for over 5 years, hovering around $25 - $30. So what you lost a few dollars per share this quarter? I would be more upset if I had bought Apple at $700 and it dropped 300 points in less than 2 quarters, but then nobody is suing Apple now for the fucked up leadership demonstrated by Tim Cook. I mean when you think of it, no other CEO exists in history that loses 300 stock points in under a year and STILL remains CEO.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Check out this video: ~2.50 mins in. Its Bill Gates talking about their "tablet" circa 1991.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eenDjMXfVBQ
It is very hard to see what technologies make it and what doesn't.
Usually you get the following factors I call it the 6P(mostly).
Price
Performance
Power
Portability
Programs
(Ph/F)eatures
Now at any given time there is a demand for some balance of these, however it isn't usually sure where the sweet spot is as it can change.
Price, sure the lesser the better... However if you are selling these things you want to make as much money as possible per unit, People are willing to spend so much for something until it becomes too big of desion and will need to weigh the other 5 P's
Performance, Yeah we want the fastest, but how much is that going to cost, and do we really need it to be fast for our use for it.
Power, how long will the battery last, will it affect its portability.
Portability, how small and light is it. Is is rugged enough for my daily use, does it have the Features that will allow me to be portable with it, does it look good to have on my person...
Programs, like features, however you can add your own. How good are the programs available, how many of them are their.
Features, what does it do what doesn't it do. Can I live with what it doesn't do.
Now different stuff has a different balance of this stuff. I have a crossover Lenovo thinkpad laptop/tablet. I have gained in Performance, Features, and Programs, but I lost out portability, power, and price. But I like it, because it fits my needs.
However we really don't know what the people want until it is out. You can have as many checks to see if people like it as you want. But you will never know until it is released.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I'll note that they didn't disclaim the existence of lawsuits, only their outcomes.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
investors who purchased stock during Q2 and Q3
Investors didn't know RT was going to be a dog by this time? What's the matter with them? Don't they read Slashdot?
Have gnu, will travel.
And you'll find another million unsold Surface tablets stacked below. Ballmer is the Larry Summers of the business world - a genius in his own mind but never right about anything.
"We are subject to a variety of claims and lawsuits"
Clearly states the existence of lawsuits. And then the rest is "guess what, if we lose some it could cost us lots of money" (since that's what the SEC actually cares about).
And what if they had only reported numbers at the annual shareholder's meeting instead of throughout the year?
It's far from uncommon for it to take six months for the numbers to perculate through a company to the point where they can be reported. It's neither misleading nor lying -- it's just the slow movement of behemoth organizations.
People who invest in the stock market are not guaranteed a return on investment of any kind. It's legalized gambling. Always has been, always will be. And as long as there was no insider trading going on, this lawsuit doesn't hold up.
Just another whinging loser from the stock markets, trying to blame someone else for their own stupidity.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I can't believe the size of the straw man you just created!
Which shop sells an "Android (Froyo)" phone? All the phone shops round here sell Samsungs or Nokias or HTCs etc. I suppose I could get confused between a Galaxy S4 or a Galaxy S3, but they both do pretty much the same thing.
I can almost see your point about different cities, but it's obvious that cities in different countries are named by different people and that's why you get name collisions.
Microsoft on the other hand are almost deliberately confusing the market by using the same name ("Surface") for two completely different (as in they won't run the same software or do the same jobs) devices. Obviously they are doing it to trick people into buying the RT model thinking that it will do things that only the Pro model will do.
It's entirely Microsoft's choice to introduce this confusion.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
"The first tablets ran windows 95, and were powered by pentiums."
Absolutely wrong.
the FIRST tablets ran Windows 3.11 for pen computing and were powered by 386 processors. I had one, Dauphin DTR-1 the very FIRST tablet ever made. I then had others that ran on 486 and on up. Win95+ pentium was well into the 3rd generation of tablets.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There's fraud and then there is the usual behavior of MBAs. Microsoft is clearly a company run by MBAs and not the original engineering types. With engineering types deceitful behavior would not be expected and thus would be unexpectedly fraudulent. But with MBAs they will twist any statistic until it bleeds thinking that if they can spreadsheet it then it becomes reality.
This creates many amusing situations such as MBA types issuing Mortgage backed bonds based on mortgages issued to people with such bad credit that they usually missed their very first mortgage payment. It is the typical MBA's difficult relationship with the truth that resulted in GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices) limiting their truth distorting ways.
So any investor that invests in an MBA dominated company should know that they are dealing with a den of thieves who have degenerated into Bottom Line dominated monsters. So the only change that I would ask is that stock ticker symbols come with a super-script that tells you what percentage of the upper management has an MBA. (or used to be in real-estate / used car sales)
Rename it Windows CE Caveat Emptor
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
The question will be when did MS know that Surface was losing lots of money. If by Q3, it was apparent inside the company that MS would have to take a large loss then the litigants have a small case. The thing is not just that Surface didn't sell well. A $900M write off of inventory suggests that MS grossly over-estimated demand. I don't if that is because MS didn't negotiate well when it came to their suppliers or if MS was delusional at the top.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
One question will be how much inventory was produced in advance of launch. With est. 6M unsold RT units, I'm guessing that a large amount was produced after launch. The trend today is that no one holds a large inventory. At what point did MS keep ordering (or not canceling) when it became apparent sales were poor.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
"I have never understood why listening to morons on CNBC, Fox Business, or anywhere else was any different from listening to some guy screaming on a street corner."
Two differences. For the guy on the street corner, you have to go outside. Secondly, said guy screeming about the impending space eel apolcalypse because people have lapsed from believing in the book of Jed The Holy Phebotomist could possibly be right. That is about the sum of the difference if you don't count such tangential things as looks, shoes, and holes in clothes.
-Charlie
This is the problem with investors that read financial magazines and political news and company press releases and reports. Just pick up the fucking product they make and use it. That's all I need to know about where a company is going and that's at least a 6 month jump on any real results and real reports, etc. But no, mister clever investor knows everything with his 6 monitors and a dozen paid news tip conglomeration feeds. This guy should be suing himself for being such an idiot and get a real job. The same goes for anyone who invested in Facebook or Apple lately. They can waaahhh all the way to the homeless shelter for all I care because they deserve it for not having one clue about the actual industry they're putting money into.
MS executives knew quite well that MS was dying (even back then), and they needed to do something. The Windows 8 family was "something", thus they did it.
And there are always a lot of people that get it wrong about MS products (except for Windows 8), so it is easy to dissmiss anybody that says that there is doom ahead.
Rethinking email
Actually it's based on Microsoft's own reports - so if they lied then Microsoft is culpable.
So by that logic, it must be difficult, when picking a cell phone, to decide between, for example, Android (Froyo) and Android (Jellybean)? Since appellations don't mean anything to you...
It sure is for me! I have an Android phone, but have no clue what either of those things are or why I should care.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Don't forget the Apple Newton, which coined the term "PDA" in its marketing, and was also a very early pen tablet. Wikipedia knows nothing of the Dauphin DTR-1, so I can't compare the two.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The Windows key on Surface is that huge touch button prominently visible right below the screen in landscape orientation. It even has the Windows logo on it.
There is a bit of difference between the Surface not selling well and MS over-ordering $900M worth of Surface RT inventory and not disclosing that fact earlier.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I recently got to watch a MS rep doing a presentation about the awesomeness of Win8, and he really seemed to believe it was all that. The Redmond campus can be quite a bubble. I recently switched to Mac, and there are things I miss from Win7...most of which have been tossed in Win8. I still use a lot of MS products because our enterprise uses a lot of MS, and there are some solid reasons for that. But talking about the "MS experience" for an individual user...it's just not there.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
you gamble on stocks you lose.... nothing to see here.. move along please
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRiDPad
your wrong too it seems
They failed to tell me how low the chances of winning is.
Then after I stopped buying tickets, the jackpot was won by someone else.
hoping RT will be flying off the shelves --- well, you got what you've deserved.
I don't think you despise ballmer nearly as much as you think you do. His lack of ability from being what he is (a bean counter/finance guy according to you), is what drives his impressive level of incompetence as CEO. Lack of ability does not take away his responsibility from the fiasco that is the way he's run the horror that is ms.
Only I can judge you.
is the infinitive or present tense.
Misled is the past participle or past tense. Not to be confused with the noun lead. So you cannot say "they were mislead", it's "they were misled". Some people are having difficulties here.
I don't see why the investors deserve anything. It was quite obvious to me the moment they first mentioned their new tablet that it would fail. I would look at the success rate of their other phones and tablets (and plays for sure) and see how quickly they were abandoned. Anyone who believed that it was going to be a success was simply deluding themselves.Caveat Emptor is what I say.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
(...and I'm talking 10years+) Linux and Mac OS enjoy such great hardware longevity because they're running 'nix kernels. What Microsoft needs to do, and I say this in all honesty, is to develop future versions of Windows either in a FreeBSD flavor as Apple did with OSX, or a Linux type kernel. The Microsoft ecosystem is horribly out-moded, they would be miles ahead to innovate in this way, and port their stuff over to the new/old architecture. Also because they are intimately familiar (used loosely) with how MS applications run, they would be positioned to not only make their old stuff backwards compatible, but also make them 'nix compatible,and corner the market. If Apple were to release their restriction on Apple-only hardware installations, they'd corner the desktop market in less than 2 years. Sad to say it, but Ballmer is not an innovator, he's just an excitable speaker.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.