Investors want $$$ that's why they invest. Microsoft has $$$$ and don't seem to be increasing profits.. they should pay money to their owners, it's what they're in business for.
they've been funding R&D at those levels for 20 years! That's 160 BILLION.. have they gotten good value for that money? The VAST majority of Microsoft's profits come from Windows and Office that generate 80% profit margins. Most other product lines lose money and don't make back their R&D cost.. they only "profit" Microsoft because they keep other companies from selling a product and keep customers from paying money to somebody else. Spending $8B a year to keep somebody else from having employees or new customers isn't really worth it.. When it could be $8B in investor's pockets. Why not stop making products that lose money and just keep the cash they already make by the bag full!
they spend $8B on other "money sinks" they've only spent $5B on Xbox over several years... I'd say they did well with that project...investors want to see one of these PER YEAR for the money they're paying out.
You brought up Xbox... because they've ONLY lost $5 Billion on that project over 5 years... and they're the leading online platform now. Where's the bang-for-buck out of the other $3 Billion from just ONE YEAR. That's what investors are asking.
I've seen this coming for a while. Now that the "cult of bill" is coming to an end, and the economy is down, investors are going to want some pocket money... i.e. profits. Bill SAT on $40 BILLION dollars CASH for most of a decade... just sat on it or used a little bit for R&D... that's more than the Airline bailout, more than the Auto bailout.. and it was just "mattress money" to Bill.
but developing games is expensive and you may not get your money back. Charging rent to get on one of the popular boxes and on the best online console platform is where the money is at. Now that enough other developers are lining up to make games for their platform, no point to front money you may not get back.
The stockholders are just holding the big Microsoft to the same standard of cash generation that microsoft is holding all the studios they're closing down!
first, Microsoft has many other ways to "punish" OEMs for not playing ball. Look at netbooks, they had to drop the price of XP 50%+.... imagine if they took that discount away for some reason. Also, the OEMs rely HEAVILY on Microsoft and Intel kickbacks for Advertising. Just for putting the Microsoft/Intel logo on the ad* (* subject to conditions) OEMs get 50% of their ad cost paid... If they put a penguin or an AMD logo on the page and break conditions, they don't get the kickback... Mess up even once in a capaign and lose the whole 6 months work of "ad partnership" see how it works.
As far as lock-in, Microsoft has lots of lock-in they haven't even begun to flex yet. They have "IP" related to making motherboards and video cards they could flex at any time. They have all sorts of other things businesses use every day that are very difficult to inter operate with. Sure you can switch to OSS easily, but many companies are tied to a specific API in Visual Basic...and it's mission critical to their operations. They'd have to throw out stuff (and cause business pain) in order to switch because Microsoft has many things structured so you can't have their way and a free way.
So realistically, you really can't walk in to Target or WalMart and buy a decent, modern netbook -- not quite yet.
actually I got my Aspire One at Walmart off the shelf. But they ONLY had the Windows one.. with more memory and hard disk for only $50 more than the EEE at Target.. no contest. Fedora runs nicely on it.
of course Apple likes being the "chosen" competition. They enjoy a great amount of profit because they are "Microsoft approved" in that Office and Exchange usage is supported officially. Apple is careful to be "different" but in reality they don't support open standards and open source efforts very well. No ODF formats, no vorbis or theora in their "media creation" OS. They like to borrow the open source code, but really don't like to "approve" of using Linux or other things like EXT 2/3/4.
I think Apple would do well to embrace the non-microsoft options.. there's lots of PCs out there to take away from Microsoft, even if Apple really wants the customers next PC to be theirs.
I can't see Microsoft targeting Linux very well either. Most customers don't know a thing about Linux at all. I can't see Microsoft making ads that describe any Linux well enough to not do more harm to Microsoft's cause by naming Red Hat or Ubuntu.
many patents are process patents... equipment used to make something. That's what many of the electronics patents we see in the news really are... you can't make product A without overcoming problem B that needs tool C... prove you DIDN'T use that tool or pay up for the patent. You can infringe on patents you USE to make things that you don't directly sell.
Apple got their multi-touch tech thru acquisition of Fingerworks, which had had it's own multitouch patents and sold products for 5 years before iPhone. And they still employ the original patent holder as far as I have read.
While there may be conflicting patents, like the patent office would not check what they've already given out, they bought recognized patents several years in advance.
It's an excellent time for a startup if you have cash... he sold MySQL for a billion dollars!
Even Steve Jobs said "cash is king" just last week. Monty will be able to get whatever he needs cheaper than last year. Remember, that it takes 2-5 years to be an "overnight" success like the first MySql had. Recession is the perfect time to build a company if you can float the start up capital.
First, he sold his company for a billion dollars! He doesn't need a loan. He can pay employees cash.
Companies need time to develop a good product.. jumping the gun is really bad. Good thing we're in a recession and companies aren't throwing around cash. That's a good thing because they can make a quality product.. find a good niche and get strong about the same time this recession starts to thaw!
The people planning and building new, exciting companies now, will be the "overnight" rockstarts in 3-5 years.
First, we have hard freezing winters in a good portion of the US. That give us time to catch up while the cold kills off crops of the little buggers. We also have Drain Commissioners that go out every year thru the field and repair/maintain the existing drains so the land doesn't turn swampy again.
The main problem many third world counties have is lack of long-term organization provided by stable governments. Look how many have rolling civil wars.. a few guys being paid to dig ditches all year are the least of their problems even though that thankless, expensive job would be highly important to their long-term well being. Not to mention a stable, lawful society that allows people to work without fear of highway robbers and gangs roaming the countryside to take their lives and/or equipment. In my state we have one Drain Commissioner per county that supervises a few teams of workers... that's several hundreds of people per state.. just employed to dig ditches that are already there.
1) MS still gets 85 cents on the dollar profit... from what they charge OEMS! Multiply by 90% of ALL computers sold is a huge number. Office only gets on about 60% (or less) of machines so while it make more "per copy" it's irrelevant to windows. Every other product brings Microsoft down...because they spend more on R&D and marketing then most products make in profit, even the high priced ones.
2 & 3) Windows is already "free". Most people don't know (or care) what OEMs pay for Windows. The only blip was in Netbooks when Microsoft underestimated the market conditions and didn't provide a product to OEMS forcing them to try Linux, which is fixed now. Even businesses like to pay for Windows because it helps out Bill--and he was really rich-- so it must be a good business product.
4) Microsoft cannot envision a world WITHOUT Microsoft... and they force OEMS into "do or die" contracts to include only windows.. or they'll give a better price to somebody that plays along.
5) the author has no concept of the sheer amount of proprietary code and lock in Windows and Office have. If anything, a smart business person would fire 40% of Microsoft's employees, wipe out 75% of the non-profit products from Bill's trying to "change the world" and start doling out that 80% profit margin to stock holders. Microsoft is suffering from NIH syndrome and their inability to play nice with others.
There are several issues. First, that media tax means stopping pirates is harder in Canada... they have slightly shorter copyrights (refused to protect the Mouse).. and the blank media tax goes to Canadian companies not USA ones.
Second, They have a saner company environment, I'd be sure they don't allow "hollywood accounting". Also, they have weaker actor/director/etc unions (but their actors get free health care! and ours don't) and many Hollywood unions prohibit work there. (They hold grudges a long time.. even George Lucas can't film on US soil using "union" actors because he went "non-union" on Star Wars squeals!) That's why our favorite shows like Stargate weren't affected by the writer's strike in Hollywood in 2007. But the other companies won't do business in Canada because of it.
Also, Canada has "Canadian content" rules in place for TV and radio... so they don't end up becoming "just another" US state. That means there's a limited market for only a few US shows per week, hence they don't want to sell them on video until they have sold TV/PPV rights first, which may take a while.
think of it like moving two magnets on the top and bottom of a table...a really thick, frictionless table... there is no information exchanged when the magnets move in sync in a pattern. There is no "motion" to violate the speed of light, but a third force binding them together acting outside the normal rules we can see.
That's when the Atheists realize that we're all just little bugs. Anybody in a spaceship is infinitely smarter than any human that exists, and therefore more evolved and superior on the food chain. So it's perfectly OK for them to treat us like sheep unless we can evolve to prove them wrong.
By the time kids are 12 or so they are able to think for themselves a little bit. At that point it's up to schools to "win" students over to their own education. The idea that you "have to" go to school doesn't fly..
"You can lead a horse to water.." applies here when the quality of the "water" is really bad.
the adobe products are SPECIFICALLY browser helpers... that's the point of Flash or Acrobat Reader to be plugged in to your browser. There's even a spot in the browser for them to do this.
Microsoft is trying to "fix" Firefox compatibility with.Net tools, that's the big problem people have. On one hand they are adding in the tools needed for Firefox to function properly on Microsoft web pages like any other browser plug-in vendor would. On the other hand Microsoft is doing this without announcing it, and the manor in which they slipped this in is of questionable motive. Remember they had a motto years ago..."DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run" Firefox and others had/have no such intentions.
that's because: a) most apps in Ubuntu come from the ubuntu servers, not their native homes and are compiled by canonical to work nicely with ubuntu
b) Other apps are hosted in repositories. Some by the program writer, some by other people. But Apt/synamptic manages all the repositories in one place for you! And you can turn them on and off at will. What a concept!! This is what people have been requesting from Microsoft update for the better part of a decade.
That's what the parent is saying. China keeps their take from sales of cheap stuff mostly in US banks... the same ones that turn around and put the money back into loans for high interest credit cards and ARM home loans.
In a sense it was their money that fueled the housing boom... People borrowed to buy more stuff. Which increased Chinese profits and they make the money available to borrow so interest stays low. It works well until the bankers screw it up by fixing the books.. because they are "competing" to turn sub-prime 5% loans into 20% plus returns to investors.. take a guess how long that lasted?
Slashdot Mirror
Investors want $$$ that's why they invest. Microsoft has $$$$ and don't seem to be increasing profits.. they should pay money to their owners, it's what they're in business for.
they've been funding R&D at those levels for 20 years! That's 160 BILLION.. have they gotten good value for that money? The VAST majority of Microsoft's profits come from Windows and Office that generate 80% profit margins. Most other product lines lose money and don't make back their R&D cost.. they only "profit" Microsoft because they keep other companies from selling a product and keep customers from paying money to somebody else. Spending $8B a year to keep somebody else from having employees or new customers isn't really worth it.. When it could be $8B in investor's pockets. Why not stop making products that lose money and just keep the cash they already make by the bag full!
The product you're looking or is called Exchange CALs.
they spend $8B on other "money sinks" they've only spent $5B on Xbox over several years... I'd say they did well with that project...investors want to see one of these PER YEAR for the money they're paying out.
You brought up Xbox... because they've ONLY lost $5 Billion on that project over 5 years... and they're the leading online platform now. Where's the bang-for-buck out of the other $3 Billion from just ONE YEAR. That's what investors are asking.
I've seen this coming for a while. Now that the "cult of bill" is coming to an end, and the economy is down, investors are going to want some pocket money... i.e. profits. Bill SAT on $40 BILLION dollars CASH for most of a decade... just sat on it or used a little bit for R&D... that's more than the Airline bailout, more than the Auto bailout.. and it was just "mattress money" to Bill.
but developing games is expensive and you may not get your money back. Charging rent to get on one of the popular boxes and on the best online console platform is where the money is at. Now that enough other developers are lining up to make games for their platform, no point to front money you may not get back.
The stockholders are just holding the big Microsoft to the same standard of cash generation that microsoft is holding all the studios they're closing down!
first, Microsoft has many other ways to "punish" OEMs for not playing ball. Look at netbooks, they had to drop the price of XP 50%+ .... imagine if they took that discount away for some reason. Also, the OEMs rely HEAVILY on Microsoft and Intel kickbacks for Advertising. Just for putting the Microsoft/Intel logo on the ad* (* subject to conditions) OEMs get 50% of their ad cost paid... If they put a penguin or an AMD logo on the page and break conditions, they don't get the kickback... Mess up even once in a capaign and lose the whole 6 months work of "ad partnership" see how it works.
As far as lock-in, Microsoft has lots of lock-in they haven't even begun to flex yet. They have "IP" related to making motherboards and video cards they could flex at any time. They have all sorts of other things businesses use every day that are very difficult to inter operate with. Sure you can switch to OSS easily, but many companies are tied to a specific API in Visual Basic...and it's mission critical to their operations. They'd have to throw out stuff (and cause business pain) in order to switch because Microsoft has many things structured so you can't have their way and a free way.
So realistically, you really can't walk in to Target or WalMart and buy a decent, modern netbook -- not quite yet.
actually I got my Aspire One at Walmart off the shelf. But they ONLY had the Windows one.. with more memory and hard disk for only $50 more than the EEE at Target.. no contest. Fedora runs nicely on it.
of course Apple likes being the "chosen" competition. They enjoy a great amount of profit because they are "Microsoft approved" in that Office and Exchange usage is supported officially. Apple is careful to be "different" but in reality they don't support open standards and open source efforts very well. No ODF formats, no vorbis or theora in their "media creation" OS. They like to borrow the open source code, but really don't like to "approve" of using Linux or other things like EXT 2/3/4.
I think Apple would do well to embrace the non-microsoft options.. there's lots of PCs out there to take away from Microsoft, even if Apple really wants the customers next PC to be theirs.
I can't see Microsoft targeting Linux very well either. Most customers don't know a thing about Linux at all. I can't see Microsoft making ads that describe any Linux well enough to not do more harm to Microsoft's cause by naming Red Hat or Ubuntu.
many patents are process patents... equipment used to make something. That's what many of the electronics patents we see in the news really are... you can't make product A without overcoming problem B that needs tool C... prove you DIDN'T use that tool or pay up for the patent. You can infringe on patents you USE to make things that you don't directly sell.
Apple got their multi-touch tech thru acquisition of Fingerworks, which had had it's own multitouch patents and sold products for 5 years before iPhone. And they still employ the original patent holder as far as I have read.
While there may be conflicting patents, like the patent office would not check what they've already given out, they bought recognized patents several years in advance.
It's an excellent time for a startup if you have cash... he sold MySQL for a billion dollars!
Even Steve Jobs said "cash is king" just last week. Monty will be able to get whatever he needs cheaper than last year. Remember, that it takes 2-5 years to be an "overnight" success like the first MySql had. Recession is the perfect time to build a company if you can float the start up capital.
actually though, he's starting in a good point.
First, he sold his company for a billion dollars! He doesn't need a loan. He can pay employees cash.
Companies need time to develop a good product.. jumping the gun is really bad. Good thing we're in a recession and companies aren't throwing around cash. That's a good thing because they can make a quality product.. find a good niche and get strong about the same time this recession starts to thaw!
The people planning and building new, exciting companies now, will be the "overnight" rockstarts in 3-5 years.
First, we have hard freezing winters in a good portion of the US. That give us time to catch up while the cold kills off crops of the little buggers. We also have Drain Commissioners that go out every year thru the field and repair/maintain the existing drains so the land doesn't turn swampy again.
The main problem many third world counties have is lack of long-term organization provided by stable governments. Look how many have rolling civil wars.. a few guys being paid to dig ditches all year are the least of their problems even though that thankless, expensive job would be highly important to their long-term well being. Not to mention a stable, lawful society that allows people to work without fear of highway robbers and gangs roaming the countryside to take their lives and/or equipment. In my state we have one Drain Commissioner per county that supervises a few teams of workers... that's several hundreds of people per state.. just employed to dig ditches that are already there.
Mr. Moneybags threatening other rich and powerful with disease... Lawyers should have a field day.
"..Sure hope they signed their consent form!"
1) MS still gets 85 cents on the dollar profit... from what they charge OEMS! Multiply by 90% of ALL computers sold is a huge number. Office only gets on about 60% (or less) of machines so while it make more "per copy" it's irrelevant to windows. Every other product brings Microsoft down...because they spend more on R&D and marketing then most products make in profit, even the high priced ones.
2 & 3) Windows is already "free". Most people don't know (or care) what OEMs pay for Windows. The only blip was in Netbooks when Microsoft underestimated the market conditions and didn't provide a product to OEMS forcing them to try Linux, which is fixed now. Even businesses like to pay for Windows because it helps out Bill--and he was really rich-- so it must be a good business product.
4) Microsoft cannot envision a world WITHOUT Microsoft... and they force OEMS into "do or die" contracts to include only windows.. or they'll give a better price to somebody that plays along.
5) the author has no concept of the sheer amount of proprietary code and lock in Windows and Office have. If anything, a smart business person would fire 40% of Microsoft's employees, wipe out 75% of the non-profit products from Bill's trying to "change the world" and start doling out that 80% profit margin to stock holders. Microsoft is suffering from NIH syndrome and their inability to play nice with others.
There are several issues. First, that media tax means stopping pirates is harder in Canada... they have slightly shorter copyrights (refused to protect the Mouse).. and the blank media tax goes to Canadian companies not USA ones.
Second, They have a saner company environment, I'd be sure they don't allow "hollywood accounting". Also, they have weaker actor/director/etc unions (but their actors get free health care! and ours don't) and many Hollywood unions prohibit work there. (They hold grudges a long time.. even George Lucas can't film on US soil using "union" actors because he went "non-union" on Star Wars squeals!) That's why our favorite shows like Stargate weren't affected by the writer's strike in Hollywood in 2007. But the other companies won't do business in Canada because of it.
Also, Canada has "Canadian content" rules in place for TV and radio... so they don't end up becoming "just another" US state. That means there's a limited market for only a few US shows per week, hence they don't want to sell them on video until they have sold TV/PPV rights first, which may take a while.
think of it like moving two magnets on the top and bottom of a table...a really thick, frictionless table... there is no information exchanged when the magnets move in sync in a pattern. There is no "motion" to violate the speed of light, but a third force binding them together acting outside the normal rules we can see.
That's when the Atheists realize that we're all just little bugs. Anybody in a spaceship is infinitely smarter than any human that exists, and therefore more evolved and superior on the food chain. So it's perfectly OK for them to treat us like sheep unless we can evolve to prove them wrong.
CS Lewis had the idea that there might be life out there, but maybe they don't want to talk to us.
I'm sure anybody within earshot heard all those A-bombs go off 50 years ago.. they'd probably have second thoughts about visiting.
By the time kids are 12 or so they are able to think for themselves a little bit. At that point it's up to schools to "win" students over to their own education. The idea that you "have to" go to school doesn't fly..
"You can lead a horse to water.." applies here when the quality of the "water" is really bad.
the adobe products are SPECIFICALLY browser helpers... that's the point of Flash or Acrobat Reader to be plugged in to your browser. There's even a spot in the browser for them to do this.
Microsoft is trying to "fix" Firefox compatibility with .Net tools, that's the big problem people have. On one hand they are adding in the tools needed for Firefox to function properly on Microsoft web pages like any other browser plug-in vendor would. On the other hand Microsoft is doing this without announcing it, and the manor in which they slipped this in is of questionable motive. Remember they had a motto years ago..."DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run" Firefox and others had/have no such intentions.
that's because:
a) most apps in Ubuntu come from the ubuntu servers, not their native homes and are compiled by canonical to work nicely with ubuntu
b) Other apps are hosted in repositories. Some by the program writer, some by other people. But Apt/synamptic manages all the repositories in one place for you! And you can turn them on and off at will. What a concept!! This is what people have been requesting from Microsoft update for the better part of a decade.
That's what the parent is saying. China keeps their take from sales of cheap stuff mostly in US banks... the same ones that turn around and put the money back into loans for high interest credit cards and ARM home loans.
In a sense it was their money that fueled the housing boom... People borrowed to buy more stuff. Which increased Chinese profits and they make the money available to borrow so interest stays low. It works well until the bankers screw it up by fixing the books.. because they are "competing" to turn sub-prime 5% loans into 20% plus returns to investors.. take a guess how long that lasted?