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94 Comments
- angelmartini77, on 10/12/2007, -7/+47Sorry my first submission,I'll try to be less "retarded" in the future.
- bieber, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24Poor Bill lost 3 billion in one day...
...and I dropped a nickel while I was crossing the road yesterday. Same difference. - AJRiddle, on 10/12/2007, -4/+26Come on man, who doesn't love Costco?
- diggless, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18he didnt lose anything unless he sold his stock.
- bonzai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14You're total net worth is $0.83?
Youch - wilf_brim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12The real story here is how generally screwed up Wall Street can be about stock valuations. The MS board made (I think) a good decision to increase spending on research so they can compete, especially against Yahoo and Google, rather than declare higher profits in the next few fiscal quarters. Overall, that is the correct move in order to remain competitive. So what did Wall Street do? Flip out and cause the loss of several billion dollars in sharholder value. What the message here is: "We don't care what happens in 10 (or even 5) years, just so long as the next 2 fiscal quarters look good."
How completely moronic. Thinking like that is how we ended up with fiascos like Enron and Worldcomm. - idean360, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Unless it's "Bill Gates eats poor young children for lunch."
- mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10..actually, being the largest donator in the world, he feeds poor young children lunch.
- theone3, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11@snlildude: Here's a much better graph:
http://www.google.com/finance?q=MSFT - positron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11That's only because he needs to fatten them up before he feasts.
- threepio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I bought a box of straws back in 1993.
I'm willing the rest to my grandkids - they might have a hope of getting through them. - CornStarch, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14I wish I had money right now because I'd use this opportunity to buy as much MS stock as I could before it rebounds. Sure MS is cutting up right now but at some point they'll have to stop making dumb decisions and when that happens it's time to cash in. Vista alone will bring the price back or higher than before even if it has a shaky launch.
- zatrix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9the words "Bill Gates" and "poor" should NEVER be used in a sentence. hear me?
- buss, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13Walmart and sam's club are the same entity, costco is separate
just thought I should clarify for you - RT55J, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Bill Gates is not poor.
>.> - paulchu, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10He said "Your description" was incorrect, not the reporting of the story. Microsoft lost enough to buy Costco, but it makes it sound like Bill lost enough to buy it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Am I the only one who thinks listening to kramer is a bad idea?
- jpt62089, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8@mattd123: Oh ok I understand, thanks for pointing that out =)
- jpwhitmore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I was just thinking the same thing.
- snlildude87, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7for anyone interested, here's a nice graph: http://www.sharebuilder.com/sharebuilder/Research/StockDetail.asp?Mode=Charts&Symbol=MSFT&sid=3140
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13walmart- costco is Sams Club's only real competiter
and its not like you can have a monopoly in "buying 10 pounds of skittles for 7 bucks" - ScottMitchell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5MSFT is not the place to go looking for quick profits, IMO. Their stock price has been pretty flat since the dot com bubble (see http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=my). Microsoft USED to be able to attract talent with the "promise" that one's options would make them millionaires in as little as five years. I don't think that's been the case for 8 years or so, now.
I was an intern there in 1999 and there were some grumblings from recently hired folks (last two to three years) who were a bit disheartened that they weren't going to be paper millionaires anytime soon. - quadvods, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6So this is the perfect time to buy buy buy then right?
- ScottMitchell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Very good point. An interesting read, which is along the lines of your sentiment, is The Number : How the Drive for Quarterly Earnings Corrupted Wall Street and Corporate America (by Alex Berenson). As you can guess by the title, it examines how Wall Street's focus on a single metric - quarterly earnings - drove CFOs and the like to use "fuzzy accounting" and implement very short-sighted goals to hit "the number," at the expense of morality and long-term fiscal thinking.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7FTA: "Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, who had about 978 million shares in February, lost more than $3 billion on paper. But don't worry. He's still the richest person on the planet with a net worth of about $47 billion after Friday's loss, using estimates published by Forbes magazine last month."
- ramiro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5It is dangerous to try to catch a falling knive.
- Flooq, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6hammydude, if you're going to get picky about it then the perfect time was 20 years ago ;)
- mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4moylan, they do pay dividends.
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/FAQ/faqdividend.mspx
as of november 17, 2004 when they announced an initial dividend of 3 dollars per share, there is a quarterly 9-cent dividend to shareholders. - buss, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Not if you follow Kramer's investment strategies. If you bought Microsoft, you would have to wait a year or more to see profits, Kramer focuses on three week to three month purchases.
- Dorkbot101, on 07/15/2009, -2/+6Bill IS a philanthropist... havent you ever heard of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation? They give away hundreds of millions of dollars away every year..
- jpwhitmore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Currently I am worth around... $380, and Bill Gates was Worth 50 billion. Gates lost about 6% of his net worth. So that means if I had a day like Bill Gates I would lose $22.80... kinda makes me want to cry.
- mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4i think it's quite novel of microsoft to relocate money in order to improve their company's outlook, instead of trying to make all of it's shareholders happy by making as much money as fast as possible.
- zombie-m, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'm no fan of Microsoft, but I just don't see that happening. This is simply a result of investors' behavior when they hear that Microsoft is going to try to do something else INSTEAD of trying to absolutely maximize their profits.
I wouldn't read anything ominous into it. It's not like the drop was because of any technical failing or anything. - einfeldt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5hi,
This is really interesting. Not to beat up on Microsoft while it's stumbling, but IMHO this is not even the beginning of Microsoft's decline. The stock has been stagnant since 2002. Microsoft still has good earnings, but the problem is that their business model is old. Every year, people say that "this is the year for Linux on the desktop, but IMHO, 2007 will be a very hard year for Microsoft. In fact, I am making a movie called the "Digital Tipping Point" about the changes the cultural migration to open source software. IMHO, if you look at the work of Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen, you can see that open source software is a disruptive technology which will probably hammer Microsoft in the same way that Sony (yes, Sony!!) hammered then-market leader RCA with transistors back in the 1960s and 1970s. RCA has never recovered.
IMHO, Linux is like the printing press being reinvented all over again. The last time that the printing press was invented, it ushered in a renaissance. I think that will happen again, which is why I am making the movie. The film is an open source project, and so if you want to email me video snips of why you think that we are approaching a Digital Tipping Point, you can do so by emailing me at einfeldt at gmail dot com. We will incorporate submissions into the film! Don't email me the actual video, snip, of course, because gmail can only accept 10 MB of email attachments. Instead, email me and we can arrange to get the video from you.
I personally think that this is really an interesting subject, because we started filming in 2003, and now it is starting to look like our hunch about Linux clobbering Microsoft is starting to come true. - jasqwerty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"after the Redmond software company indicated plans Thursday to invest more in its businesses — including a battle for the Internet with Google and Yahoo! — at the expense of higher short-term profits."
LOL. Someone over at Redmond needs to buy an intro to econ textbook. Investor interest is VERY STRONGLY correlated to short term absolute gain, regardless of company's past, health, and outlook. Oh well... - miaow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I can't see how microsoft can ever be so dominant again. apart from xbox, they are in markets that are being eaten into or becoming free. They were a necessity when we wanted the system to work in the early days, but now that the net has matured, everyone wants away from them.
- CornStarch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I think there are many opportunities for MS to explore out there. Everyday we move further and further away from hardware and more and more into software and that's where MS is reigning king like it or hate it. DRM software alone is going to be big business and the most logical provider of that software will be MS (provided they don't screw things up by excluding Apple).
So the future is not so dim for MS, in fact I can see them growing another tenth if they make the right moves. - tyruth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I have quick question on economics?
If Microsoft loses 3 billion, where does that money go?
Doesnt this mean other people are 3 billion richer? - MySchizoBuddy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2buying a stock while it is dropping is the worse thing u can do. Every stock teaching book will tell u never ever do that. Wait till it has dropped all the way and is in a slight rebound. thats when u buy.
- ramiro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1rtwolf, dont be a moron. Even if the market is overreacting, your bad advice could cost people's retirement.
It is not wise to buy a stock while it is falling because of things you may not be familiar with, such as momentum and the shaking of the weak hands (short term especulators et all). - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You'd be better off putting your investment into AAPL instead of MSFT. AAPL has better prospects and a brighter short-to-near term outlook through 2008.
- mcbesq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Enron and Worldcom happened because of fraud amongst the Board of Directors.
The Rigas family raided the corporate coffers. And Enron - Enron lied on all of its filings and when people said that the reports made no sense, Enron claimed it was because the people questioning it were idiots. - mcbesq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You should. Bargain hunters will be out.
- Phoenyx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Money isn't the same as matter: it can change form and be created and destroyed (depreciation, for example.).
- tylerni7, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I love Linux, but I think this is more because of Apple's success. Linux is still great and free, but we have a while to go before we start to see declines like this because of Linux. Servers are already mostly Linux so now they just need the desktop market, and let's face it, that is going to take a very long time. I'm still waiting though! You know, that is just IMHO.... IMHO....IMHO... oh and IMHO...
- drizek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ya, their marketing can cover all the technical failings so that cant be it.
- drizek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1maybe he, and i cant believe im saying this, actually wants to make computers better and innovate?
Its not all about the money, especially when youve got the stuff coming out your ass. Im sure he found another goal in life and working at MS is obviously a part of it. - sam10685, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2oh poor baby... bill is a looser.
- dynasty, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I am quite sure Microsoft would not engage in such intensive investment (in R&D as the article notes) unless they were either confident that 1) the expected rate of return for their investment is greater than the interest rate, or 2) their current investment, while not helping out short-term profits and therefore the desires of stockholders, would lead to much greater production capabilities or product quality in the future (thus, long-term prosperity). Though an oversimplification, according to economic theory, these are the incentives to investment. This may seem to be hurting Microsoft, but it will undoubtedly pay off soon.
In short, Microsoft is not going anywhere. And to think Linux will ever effect Microsoft's demise, or even to assume its demise will occur in the foreseeable future, is naive. Besides, the subject of this article has nothing to do with OSes as it only refers to R&D and search engines in particular so your comment is off topic. - Zephiron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Nothing retarded about the description or title, just some people with mental challenges to overcome trying to understand it.
Keep the good work! -
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