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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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!
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.
Actually, earnings reports do have a legal obligation to accuracy and deliberately omitting certain kinds of currently-available information is actionable. If you know that your company's sole manufacturing sites got hit by meteors you can't just leave that out of the earnings report. Now, you might disagree with the idea of legally regulated reporting, but that doesn't mean it's not true.
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.
"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)
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 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.