First you're misquoting me, I said "not many", not "none". The question is if these people can make the changes necessary. I've been there for eight years now and it was pretty good till late 2001. Since then things have been getting worse, moral is pathetic, and we aren't producing anything that's really interesting (qualified: things that make money, so don't tell me about the XBox, or all the other cool things MS Research puts out). I remember a day when people would wait in lines over night for the release of a new MS product. Now they plan to upgrade whenever it is they get their next computer. The new revs of the old products have stopped being a 'must have' and are now a 'nice to have'. I work there because I'm happy with the work and happy with the pay. Just because those two are true doesn't mean it's a good stock investment. Sorry to sound confrontational, I mean I'd love for your predictions to come true because I've still got a few thousand stock options in the low thirties, so bring on forty dollars!, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
And Steve Jobs? He didn't steal the graphical UI concept from Xerox at Parc Place, yeah right. A quote from a quote by Steve Jobs: "good artists borrow, great artists STEAL!". enough said.
Like I said regarding HPQ, they changed one man and the stock gained 50% in value in six months. I hear you on morale, but to be frank with you I have found that when it gets like that at a company, the people they should be letting go are people like you because you are a casualty that probably has no reparation. Remember, morale can be changed really fast by hiring new samurai. MSFT needs young fresh faces that don't have your attitude. I don't mean that in a bad way btw, just my experience. If I were you I would have left long ago, but that is me. nitro
why does it have to be a profitable product? Most companies that introduce innnovations don't make money at first. I'd consider these things to be interesting and innovative, at least I don't see other companies being able to deliver at the same competitive level: 1. .NET framework, for programmers this is incredible. I've always thought Java was a crappy immitation of SmallTalk. .Net really does a great job of integrating a lot of functionality (OS level too) seamlessly across multiple languages. 2. XBOX and XBOX Live. Come on now, look at Sony's PS2. Hyped up piece of crap, powerful Emotion Engine, "Toy Story graphics", Kutaragi claimed it would be just like jacking into the "Matrix" with their online service. After 5 years, what freakin online service? They've got some rag tagged shitty service. In comparison MSFT slaps together a watered down Pentium 3, adds a hard drive and BITCH slaps the PS2 to high heavens. And then adds a cohesive online service, XBOX Live. Now with the Xbox 360 we get to buy a triple core machine for $300, amazing. I bet that is the real reason behind PS3's delay, they were shocked at how powerful the 360 ended up being, especially after all the hype PS3 touted as being 2x as powerful as 360. I didn't hear anything like that mentioned at this year's E3, stupid Sony. Although I'll still probably get the PS3. 3. Ultra Mobile PC - like the concept a lot. It'll become really nice when they shrink it further and introduce longer battery life. Why does it take MSFT to bring this to market, should have been done by Apple or Sony.
I haven't left because like I said, I'm happy with my work. The morale comment was more of an observation of many of the people I see there. But now to get back on topic... Maybe this is the right management, maybe we'll swap people to improve morale, maybe it's the right time, or maybe it will happen in some completely different way. That would make working their even better and maybe I'd invest again. But I'm not going to buy stock looking for a bounce until I see the trends reverse.
The EU's continued "hard line" on MSFT is probably solely responsible for $3 to $5 of MSFT share value. From Briefing: "05:54 MSFT EU poised to rule against Microsoft - Financial Times (22.82 ) The Financial Times reports The European Union's top antitrust regulator is poised to issue a formal ruling that finds Microsoft (MSFT) guilty of breaking EU competition rules. The ruling is likely to be accompanied by fines for the co of up to â¬2 mln ($2.5 mln) a day. According to several people familiar with the EU case, the European Commission's antitrust directorate has drafted a ruling stating that Microsoft has failed properly to implement the EU's antitrust decision of March 2004. Brussels, which has been battling with the group for almost seven years, believes this constitutes a fresh violation by Microsoft." nitro