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hc
Post Roaster
Joined: Apr 04, 2007
Posts: 4545
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  Posted:
Nov 15, 2007 - 04:48 PM |
 
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| Post subject: Microsoft Sales Are Up, and Gates Is Off |
Regardless of what you think about Microsoft, we have to hand it to Bill Gates that he created an incredible company.
How do you grow a giant 27% is beyond me.
True, they do have some not so good products, but if you ever developed software and used some of their tools you also know they are capable of producing some amazing tools.
And for the guy to take off and focus on philanthropy, I think it's pretty cool.
Well done Bill Gates.
Microsoft Sales Are Up, and Gates Is Off
There was little sentimentality at the co-founder's last meeting as full-time chairman, but plenty of bullishness from Ballmer
by Jay Greene
In his last shareholder meeting as a full-time employee, Microsoft (MSFT) Chairman William Gates spent little time dwelling on the significance of the moment. It's been more than a year since Gates said he'd step down from his role at Microsoft to focus on philanthropy (BusinessWeek.com, 6/16/06) beginning July 1, 2008. But it was only toward the end of presentation at the company's annual meeting on Nov. 13 that Gates briefly reflected. "This is the dream we started Microsoft 30 years ago to pursue," Gates said of the long-term bets being placed by Microsoft researchers. Next year, he noted, he'd be at the meeting as a "part-time chairman."
As the company heads into the final year of Gates' tenure, Microsoft is regaining part of the luster it has lost since the beginning of the decade. It still trails rivals such as Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) in key new markets, including online advertising and digital music. Still, sales jumped 27% in the quarter ended Sept. 30, a gain analysts consider astonishing (BusinessWeek.com, 10/26/07) considering Microsoft's size.
Buoyant Shares and Sales
And CEO Steven Ballmer said planned introductions of products—ranging from the second generation of the Zune digital music player to software developer tools to servers for running corporate networks—will help the company continue growing. "I believe we've laid the foundation for significant growth for Microsoft," Ballmer said.
That, coupled with the $31 billion returned to shareholders last year through stock repurchases and dividends, has helped push shares to levels not seen since the early part of the decade. Earlier this month, the company's stock rose as high as $37.50, the highest since July, 2000. "We're confident we can continue this momentum throughout the fiscal year," Ballmer said.
Indeed, shares closed on Nov. 13 at $34.46, up $1.19 for the day and almost $5 since the beginning of 2007. Recent results have been buoyed by better-than-expected PC sales, which, in turn, boost sales of Microsoft's Windows and Office software monopolies. Researchers at Gartner (IT) are projecting 11% growth in PC shipments in 2008 and 11.6% growth in 2009. Microsoft's Halo 3 video game title scored the best entertainment title opening ever when it debuted Sept. 25.
10,000 millionaires
What's more, Microsoft isn't standing by as Google seeks to widen its dominance of online advertising. Microsoft made its largest acquisition ever this year, buying Internet advertising network aQuantive (BusinessWeek.com, 5/18/07) for $6 billion in May, to expand in the burgeoning market for selling and placing ads on Web sites. It also beat out Google in a contest for a stake in the social network Facebook (BusinessWeek.com, 10/25/07).
Like most annual meetings, Microsoft's is largely a scripted affair with Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell zipping through an agenda that included introductions of directors and brief presentations of the handful of matters on which shareholders vote. This year's meeting was held in the cavernous Washington State Convention & Trade Center in downtown Seattle and was attended by about 500 shareholders.
There was none of the fanfare that might befit a founder of a company that in fiscal 2007 crossed the $50 billion annual-sales threshold and generated $14 billion in net income. That's up from a profit of $24 million on sales of $140 million a little over two decades earlier. On Gates' watch, Microsoft became the world's largest maker of software, employing more than 78,000 people and creating the code that's used on some 1 billion personal computers around the globe. Along the way, Microsoft locked horns with the Justice Dept., the European Union, and an untold number of competitors new and old—from Google to IBM (IBM). By 2000, around the time its market value peaked, it had created an estimated 10,000 millionaires, according to an economist hired by Microsoft to study its impact on Washington State.
No autographs
Instead, the shareholder meeting provided its share of offbeat moments, particularly when shareholders had the chance to ask questions of executives. One investor wanted to know if Microsoft would increase its share repurchases. Ballmer's response: The company spent 175% of cash flow on buybacks in the last fiscal year, something he said clearly wasn't "sustainable."
Shareholders offered only modest gripes. Two shareholder proposals, both focused on addressing alleged human rights violations in China, were roundly defeated, winning only 3% and 4% of shareholder votes, respectively. The Reverend Ken Hutcherson, who in the past has leaned on Microsoft to oppose gay-rights legislation, threatened to turn up the heat on the company once again. "I am one of the worst nightmares that this company has had," Hutcherson said to more hisses than applause.
A few shareholders queried Microsoft management on competition with Google, both in online search and in the mobile-phone business. Ballmer pointed to the efforts Microsoft is putting into search and noted that Microsoft is a leader in mobile-phone software (BusinessWeek.com, 11/06/07), a business Google has yet to enter.
Finally Gates, who typically stops at the end of shareholder meetings to autograph annual reports for shareholders, simply walked offstage, his last appearance as a full-time chairman.
Greene is BusinessWeek's Seattle bureau chief.
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*CheerLeader*Mao
Post Roaster
Joined: July 07, 2004
Posts: 4678
Location: frenCh belgiuM
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Nov 15, 2007 - 05:46 PM |
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cool article,
man imagine if mobile phones ever take off in the usa. jobs has really positioned himself well on this one. |
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MyNameIsPablo
StreetBeater
Joined: Sep 06, 2007
Posts: 2455
Status: Offline
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Nov 16, 2007 - 08:56 AM |
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Yeah and imagine if people actually bought cars. Ford will make a mint. |
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Quiet - Or Papa Spank. |
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leidelaohu
Wonder Wit
Joined: June 11, 2007
Posts: 3781
Status: Offline
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Nov 16, 2007 - 05:50 PM |
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| Post subject: Re: Microsoft Sales Are Up, and Gates Is Off |
| hc wrote: |
| .... Researchers at Gartner (IT) ... |
This is the group that just claimed phones costing 3500 rmb would be a "very small niche product in China" ?
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| ...according to an economist hired by Microsoft ... |
True to form 
| Quote: |
| Greene is BusinessWeek's Seattle bureau chief. |
What was that about 75,000 employees ? Main office is where ? This man couldn't possibly be a cheerleader, could he ? |
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hc
Post Roaster
Joined: Apr 04, 2007
Posts: 4545
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Nov 16, 2007 - 07:39 PM |
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MyNameIsPablo
StreetBeater
Joined: Sep 06, 2007
Posts: 2455
Status: Offline
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Nov 17, 2007 - 07:28 AM |
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He could have been responsible for a massive shift in the education of Chinese people had they not been more interested in downloading porn and playing online computer games with the thousands of computers he donated to the rural areas of the country.
Don't you just love my long sentance structures? |
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Quiet - Or Papa Spank. |
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rayfish
LoopKicker
Joined: June 11, 2006
Posts: 987
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Nov 17, 2007 - 08:19 AM |
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| MyNameIsPablo wrote: |
He could have been responsible for a massive shift in the education of Chinese people had they not been more interested in downloading porn and playing online computer games with the thousands of computers he donated to the rural areas of the country.
Don't you just love my long sentance structures? |
Your long sentance structure could have been loved had it not included a massive shift in 'educated' logic about how self-styled philanthropists get cheated out of their guilty consciences by vulgar peasants downloading porn and playing online video games instead of taking cyber-courses in English to learn how to say 'thank you Bill, you changed my life.' |
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bougie
Board Buddha
Joined: Nov 20, 2004
Posts: 13323
Location: Wuhan Hubei China
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Nov 17, 2007 - 08:20 AM |
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rayfish
LoopKicker
Joined: June 11, 2006
Posts: 987
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Nov 17, 2007 - 08:31 AM |
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thank you bougie, you changed my life |
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MyNameIsPablo
StreetBeater
Joined: Sep 06, 2007
Posts: 2455
Status: Offline
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Nov 17, 2007 - 08:35 AM |
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I stand up and applaud your far superior sentence structuring, rayfish........
Didn't Gates give a load of computers to China and hook them up to the internet though? |
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Quiet - Or Papa Spank. |
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rayfish
LoopKicker
Joined: June 11, 2006
Posts: 987
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Nov 17, 2007 - 08:39 AM |
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So I heard...and your point is? |
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bougie
Board Buddha
Joined: Nov 20, 2004
Posts: 13323
Location: Wuhan Hubei China
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Nov 17, 2007 - 08:47 AM |
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Rayfish, you know you can learn alot more by listening and reading than by talking and writing ?
I know, life changing stuff |
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MyNameIsPablo
StreetBeater
Joined: Sep 06, 2007
Posts: 2455
Status: Offline
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Nov 17, 2007 - 09:05 AM |
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that's why we have two ears and two eyes and only one mouth and one hand. |
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Quiet - Or Papa Spank. |
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rayfish
LoopKicker
Joined: June 11, 2006
Posts: 987
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Nov 17, 2007 - 09:20 AM |
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So Bill's Chinese cyberhighway is connected to the leg bone? No wonder Bougie is all ears |
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leidelaohu
Wonder Wit
Joined: June 11, 2007
Posts: 3781
Status: Offline
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Nov 18, 2007 - 08:45 PM |
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| hc wrote: |
| Doesnt detract from the fact Bill is stepping down to focus on charity TT. |
Aaah, hc ... you're from backwards Brazil so perhaps you guys aren't up to modern standards in the charity biz ? In the US, charity is a nice profitable industry for those running them.
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| Credit where credit is due. |
Certainly ... |
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hc
Post Roaster
Joined: Apr 04, 2007
Posts: 4545
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Nov 18, 2007 - 08:51 PM |
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hc
Post Roaster
Joined: Apr 04, 2007
Posts: 4545
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Nov 18, 2007 - 08:54 PM |
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leidelaohu
Wonder Wit
Joined: June 11, 2007
Posts: 3781
Status: Offline
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Nov 18, 2007 - 10:38 PM |
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| hc wrote: |
| What a sad life that must be, thinking everyone deep inside is a crook. |
Are we speaking of everyone or are we talking about Bill Gates ?
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When one get's incapable of thinking there are actually good things happening out there, I wonder what's left? Bitching and whining? Covering asses, blame game? Chairs dance? Scarcity mentality?
I say this: f*** that attitude. |
Certainly. But in this case you are holding up for admiration a person who was found guilty by the United States Supreme Court of abusing their monopoly position. Let's just say that in the current climate it takes a lot to get a judgment like that. If you had lived near Sillycon Valley you would also have many friends working in companies which had dealings with Mickeysoft. Every one of them, down to the janitors, said they would prefer to deal with the Mafia. I'm not talking little whiners, I'm talking Xerox, Sun, Apple, Lotus. Microsoft got where it is today by being ruthless, by trampling anything and anyone who stood in their way - both legally and illegally.
So let's flip your question around. When one believes that the only thing that counts is the amount of money in someone's bank account, what is left ? If Auguste Pinochet set up a foundation to give scholarships to the underprivileged of Argentina (which he and his wife ran and controlled, of course), should we immediately drop to our knees and worship the man ? After all, he's doing it for charity !!
Talk about politically correct ....
Of course there are people and organizations to admire. Talk to someone who was in the Katrina fiasco. Salvation Army came in; brought clothes, food, blankets, tents, had people fed and sheltered immediately. Red Cross did nothing. Yet which organization do you hear about ?
What you need to remember in dealing with any news out of the US is that the press is owned by plutocrats who promote their own. There is no conspiracy because they don't need one. They are all the same.
So if you promote the Red Cross, I'll nail your ass. Praise the Salvation Army, no complaints. The principle is extensible  |
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hc
Post Roaster
Joined: Apr 04, 2007
Posts: 4545
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Nov 18, 2007 - 11:39 PM |
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Not a lot of people are giving a fk about diseases that are easily curable (no money on it), and Bill "the crook" and the "ruthless" evil man is helping on this front. Is that a bad thing?
should the little kid dying from malaria not take his drug because he is a crook? He is in a very different position from someone receiving a grant from Pinochet (bad example amigo).
He can be a crook, have abused from his monopolistic position (Rockefeller?), etc, etc, we can even put a * in his hall of fame induction saying he was ruthless, but when it comes to using his moola to reach some pretty fkd up bunch of people I say let's clap our hands to the crook, we need more of this, not less. |
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leidelaohu
Wonder Wit
Joined: June 11, 2007
Posts: 3781
Status: Offline
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Nov 19, 2007 - 12:09 AM |
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| hc wrote: |
| Not a lot of people are giving a fk about diseases that are easily curable (no money on it), and Bill "the crook" and the "ruthless" evil man is helping on this front. Is that a bad thing? |
Personally, I don't find it so admirable that a person extorts fifty gazillion dollars then sets up a charity to hand out thirty-five bucks a month. Zhou en lai was admirable, Bill Gates is not, to me. But not a big thing ... right now I am too happy over the realization that there's less than one year before the biggest failure we've ever had in the White House will be GONE !! Yay !!
http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford/
well put  |
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hc
Post Roaster
Joined: Apr 04, 2007
Posts: 4545
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Nov 19, 2007 - 12:47 AM |
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leidelaohu
Wonder Wit
Joined: June 11, 2007
Posts: 3781
Status: Offline
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Nov 19, 2007 - 02:25 AM |
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| hc wrote: |
"Extorts"?
We both know that half the reason he is able to "extort" is because 95% of CIOs of any company are complete gullible lazy idiots.
Lazy people are never victims. |
No, it wasn't CIO's or anything like that. That company definitely had the Mafia tactics down pat. Most of what they did was illegal, unethical, immoral, vicious, rapacious, whatever you want to call it. If you get really bored you can read the testimony - and even that was muted because the other software companies were terrified of Mickeysoft. Still are, if they have any sense. If all the information on the Internet didn't expire after six weeks you could find a lot.
True, most companies are not bastions of ethical behavior but Microsoft was over the top. Way over the top. It was so bad the judiciary forced the Justice Department to haul them into court. Now that is bad. This was during the Clinton Booming Business Anything Goes years, too. You know that Microsoft didn't pay a nickel in federal income taxes during those years, right ? Nor did Cisco. Cisco was worse, if you can believe it. So we did have reason to be upset ... Sick.
But you're right, it's water under the bridge now so ... the Shrub's last year in office is more worth rejoicing over |
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babebibobu
LoopKicker
Joined: Sep 29, 2007
Posts: 946
Status: Offline
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Nov 19, 2007 - 01:11 PM |
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Laughable |
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rayfish
LoopKicker
Joined: June 11, 2006
Posts: 987
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Nov 19, 2007 - 09:48 PM |
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From "License to Bill" by Lila Rajiva, who also wrote "The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American media":
Billing the Public
And racket it is. Here's what Gates himself had to say about intellectual property in 1991:
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today...A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose."
Of course, that was way back when before Gates himself became one of the giants. Now he labels anyone who says exactly the same thing a communist. And he's not shy about roping in government agencies to work his protection racket. I let you take some of the swag; you enforce my license..
One of Gates' tricks is to lump patent protection with copyright, although patents have nothing to do with copyright protection, which is granted automatically when someone writes a programs or code, and which no one, not even Stallman, disputes. Software patents, on the other hand, don't cover programs or code but things that are much more general and vague--ideas, techniques, algorithms. If each of those were patented, every large program would generate hundreds of lawsuits against developers and even users. So, the only beneficiary of patents are mega-corporations that each hold thousands of them and can afford cross-licensing with other mega-corporations. Everyone else loses. Small companies haven't the resources to keep up and since small companies have historically been the innovators, that means innovation gets hobbled.
None of this can be passed off even by rabid free-marketers as private enterprise. At every step the state has to be shanghaied into the game to preserve and extend the company's monopoly in the cyber-community through licenses, patents, and the whole intellectual property regime.
That's why few keen observers think that Microsoft really fouled up with the Feds in 2000. How on earth could someone who owns the Feds be in any serious danger from them? Here's just a partial list of the powerful people connected with the government's anti-trust case against Gates in 2000:
Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee (which questioned Microsoft about the antitrust settlement): Received funds for re-election from Microsoft.
Phil Bond, Undersecretary of Commerce for Technology and the highest-ranking appointed official dealing with technology: Former top aide to U.S. Rep. Dunn (R-Wash.), whose district includes Microsoft's hometown of Redmond.
Connie Partoyan, Bond's top aide at Commerce: Former executive vice president of TechNet (a Microsoft-funded trade association) and lobbyist for the law firm Preston, Gates, Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds (the Gates in the firm is Bill-g's father).
William Kolasky, Appointed deputy assistant attorney general for international enforcement for the Justice Department's antitrust division in October 2001: One-time lawyer for the Association for Competitive Technology, whose largest contributor is Microsoft; wrote an amicus brief supporting Microsoft in its antitrust lawsuit.
Ed Gillespie, Former head of the Republican National Committee: Once a Microsoft lobbyist; partner in Quinn Gillespie & Associates to whom Microsoft paid $1.2 million in lobbying fees between 2001 and 2003.
Richard Wallis, Chair of the American Bar Association's antitrust section: Microsoft's associate general counsel. The antitrust section influences how much oversight federal judges have over antitrust settlements. In late June 2005, a U.S. appeals court rejected a ruling that Microsoft's 2001 deal with the government was too lenient.
Microsoft also finances or influences droves of candidates and lobbyists either directly or indirectly, through the Business Software Association--a trade association for software developers that makes sweetheart deals for Microsoft--or through Daddy Gates' expanded law firm, Preston Gates & Ellis, where former Democratic Congressman Lloyd Meeds, and Emanuel Rouvelas, former counsel to the Senate Commerce Committee, can both be found roosting. The list of lobbyists for Bill is tediously long and familiar: Dick Armey, Vin Weber, John Podesta, Bob Archer, Vic Fazio, Lloyd Bentsen....
And talking of roosting, guess who's on the board of the Washington Post? One Melinda Gates....what are the chances of the press doing any real outing of William the Monopolist? (
Here's how the game gets played. In June 2000, a US judge, Thomas Jackson, rules that Microsoft used deceit, coercion and software sabotage to gain its monopoly. Then, only three days later, at the European Business Summit, Mario Monti, the Europeans Community's head honcho for busting up cartels and monopolies, parties it up with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer--well-known for his obscene anti-GNU+Linux rhetoric--all the while indoctrinating assorted Shills for Bill in government and business in the art of forming 'strategic alliances' between corporations to 'promote innovation'--the Softies' latest PR gloss for racketeering. (9)
So much for private enterprise.
What the claptrap about free-market amounts to is that Gates profits off computer and Internet technology developed almost completely at public expense by the Pentagon, the publicly-subsidized engine that drives the American economy.
The same goes for Gates' new-found love, India, where the knowledge-base that's attracting private business was developed soon after Independence through the completely public system of IIT's (Indian Institutes of Technology). The seven IIT campuses, which accept less than 2% of the almost 200,000 applications they receive and have perhaps the most rigorous engineering curricula in the world, churn out graduates who play leading roles at companies like Microsoft, Intel, and Sun Microsystems. But they cost students only $700 a year for tuition, room, and board. The rest of the nearly $3,000 bill--well over a hundred thousand rupees, a huge sum in India--is footed by the government, i.e., the Indian public. Meanwhile, every year, almost 2000 IITans, 2/3 of its graduates, vanish into the private sector in the U.S.
So when Bill-g talks about working with the Indian government and scientists and giving away Windows to school-kids, we have to wonder who's really the benefactor.
Maybe it's the Indian public, which is subsidizing a system that fattens American multinationals and subsidizing it twice, first by paying for government-issue Microsoft licenses and then by paying to train the brains that Microsoft siphons off into its lucrative patent regime.
Is this ungenerous? Perhaps it would be if we were talking about some other company. It would be ungenerous if we insisted, say, on bringing up WalMart's dealings with labor when it was rescuing people so magnificently during Katrina.
But Gates is a late-comer to philanthropy, who adopted it from all appearances to refurbish an image battered by incredibly predatory business tactics and Gates' charity work has an inexplicable way of following him to places where he has business interests.
No one denies the great good that donations to the poor and sick do in India and else where. But consider that the money for that philanthropy came from ruthless business practices; consider that the ideas Gates claims as his own were largely stolen from countless unsung others; consider that by driving out leaner and more innovative talents from the software industry, he's hampered software development and increased the costs of software operation enormously, kept prices far higher than they should have been, and in effect denied vital technology to masses of people. Consider all this and perhaps we can hold off on canonization for a bit. |
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babebibobu
LoopKicker
Joined: Sep 29, 2007
Posts: 946
Status: Offline
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| Posted:
Nov 19, 2007 - 09:57 PM |
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What a bunch of nonsense. Now Bill Gates "stole money from countless unsung others"! Pathetic! |
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I'm dancing with tears in my eyes... 'cause the girl in my arms is a boy |
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