The Microsoft share price has been look a bit "How's Your Father" for the last, say 5 years, well actually it pretty much peaked in real terms back in late 2000 when you consider inflation and all. Usually the, "valuable IP" phrase floats out when the share price needs a pump.

The fact is that Windows Vista sales are going to be lacklustre. PC hardware sales jumped when Vista was released but ONLY BECAUSE PEOPLE WANTED TO GRAB A NEW MACHINE WITH XP before they missed the chance. Shareholders spook easily, they bought MSFT because they thought it was a sure thing, not because they understood the industry. Linux has been beating MS in the server space for years, now MS are facing pressure in the desktop space from three main fronts: Mac-OS, Ubuntu and people revitalising old XP machines with OpenOffice, Gimp, etc. Microsoft's old business strategy is in its twilight years, they need to find something new or else find a way to beat down Open Source, otherwise they will slowly but surely die.

The way our stockmarket works, even one year of negative growth in revenue is enough to start a downward slide in share price that rapidly feeds on itself. What should be a slow, graceful decline becomes a disaster.

Ballmer has just lied, as well.

Ballmer: 'We Don't Like Being Number Three'

,----[ Quote ]
| Ballmer pointed to open source as one potential source of worry.
| While the company has gained market share against Linux both on
| desktops and in the server market...
`----

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3660326

Is Ballmer delusional or is he spreading FUD like Bill Gates?

The Fear biz is the computer security biz

,----[ Quote ]
| A few days later, I saw what Bill Gates had to say in a recent
| Newsweek interview about the Mac as compared to Vista.
|
| "I mean, it's fascinating, maybe we shouldn't have showed so
| publicly the stuff we were doing, because we knew how long the new
| security base was going to take us to get done. Nowadays, security
| guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come
| out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I
| dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine."
|
| My reaction, like most knowledgeable people who read this, was
| open-mouthed astonishment. Now, either Bill is heavily drugged and
| delusional, which I don't believe, or he's just completely ignorant,
| which I also discount, or he knows exactly what he's saying and has
| an ulterior motive. That's my best guess.
|
| Bill Gates knows that he's at best exaggerating and at worst
| completely lying through his teeth. So why's he doing it? Because
| he also knows that Apple's new ads are helping Macs to sell like
| hot cakes, and that security is a big reason why a lot of people
| are throwing up their hands in disgust at Windows and switching
| to Apple's computers.
|
| Who reads Newsweek? Not computer pros, but Joe and Jane
| Computer-user, and Joe and Jane tend to believe what they
| read in the mainstream media when it comes to computers,
| especially when that nice, smart philanthropist Bill Gates
| is the one saying it. He's Mr Computer, after all, so he
| must be right!
`----

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/11/computer_security_fearmongering/

I would like to hear that spinmeister Justin guy from Novell respond to the recent rounds of Balmer and Brad Smith speaking publicly about the true focus of the partnership. Balmer, and 90%+ of the MS people that I read about, or hear, talking about the deal, always talk about the IP payment (and imply a precedent) first. Then, maybe they say something about customer interop. This deal/partnership still smells like rotting fish, and Matt you are right by suggesting MS focus on providing good technology to the market vs. protectionist models that end up sapping the morale from the company employees, harming the image of the company to customers and industry vendors, and make it less appealing for smart people to work there. It feels like MS is getting close to the perception of working for Ford or GM. Not a bad thing, if you just need a job, but if you want to change the world with technology as MS professes, do you want to be known like this ? This push by them to tax people, and slow technology innovation in software by trying to control it, will have very far reaching negative impacts on them globally. The good news is that the world is wise to this, and will not tolerate it.

In my previous avatar as a journalist, I had interviewed Bill Gates during his first visit to India in 1997. At that time, they had just crushed Netscape like a mosquito, and it seemed that Billy boy and his cohorts could do no wrong. The man seemed like a spider at the center of the web but looking back, it is the web that ended up encircling him as he cocooned himself in his desktop comfort zone. Microsoft has still not emerged from that comfort zone. They think that by bullying the open source community over the IP issue, they may scare off customers, but their noises sound like that of a bad loser, living in the past. Come on Ballmer, grow up. The global IT industry has changed and Micrsoft is no longer at its center. Deal with it, buddy!

http://google.com