“Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer says he plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to fix the company’s unprofitable Internet business. His investors say they want proof he knows what to do with the money,” Amy Thomson reports for Bloomberg.
MacDailyNews Take: Uh, oh. Are they finally waking up? Here’s hoping that this is not the beginning of the end for Ballmer. In fact, everyone raise your glass: May Steve Ballmer run Microsoft for as long as it takes!
Thomson continues, “After walking away from six months of on-again, off-again talks about buying all or part of Yahoo! Inc., owner of the No. 2 Web search engine, Ballmer has left shareholders wondering if he has a plan B.”
“Microsoft, the biggest software maker, has lost about $90 billion in market value this year as Ballmer vacillated on Yahoo and failed to show how he would crack Google Inc.’s dominance of Internet advertising,” Thompson reports. “Shareholders will look for ideas at a meeting with Ballmer tomorrow, said Kim Caughey, a Fort Pitt Capital Group Inc. analyst in Pittsburgh. ‘I’m a little concerned; I’ll be honest,’ said Caughey, whose firm manages $1.2 billion and owns Microsoft shares. Ballmer needs to ‘put a hot, bright light of clarity on where’s all the money going.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Introductions seem to be in order here: Kim, Drain. Drain, Kim.
Thompson continues, “Ballmer, along with Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell and the presidents of Microsoft’s three businesses, will address analysts and investors tomorrow at company headquarters in Redmond, Washington.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oooh, goody. Big Ass Table Demo.
Thompson continues, “The company has spent about $9 billion in the past 2 1/2 years building its Internet business, according to Directions on Microsoft, a research firm in Kirkland, Washington.”
MacDailyNews Take: Uh, what Internet business? There is nothing remotely resembling what should exist to the tune of $9 billion dollars and 2 1/2 years. Building and operating a cash furnace, now that would make sense; not an “Internet business.”
Thompson continues, “The online division is Microsoft’s smallest with $3.21 billion in sales last year, or 5 percent of the total of $60.4 billion. The business lost $1.23 billion last year, double the previous year’s loss, as it hired more people, built computer data centers, and made acquisitions including $6 billion spent on Seattle-based ad company AQuantive Inc.”
“The bid for Yahoo shows Ballmer is aware that Microsoft has been lacking in ideas for the Internet age, said Andy Miedler, an analyst at Edward Jones & Co. in St. Louis,” Thompson reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Well, you’re sure as hell ain’t gonna find ’em at Yahoo!
More in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Streetool” for the heads up.]
We hereby advise Microsoft shareholders that there is nothing to see here. Everything’s fine. Relax. Ballmer has a plan. Please, just let him execute it.
(Hey, if they bought shares in Microsoft sometime in the last 6 or so years, they’ll certainly buy that advice.)
Yesss! Please!
If nearly a decade of flat stocks doesn’t have Microslop’s shareholder concerned, why are they getting their knickers in a twist now?
A little friendly advise Mr. Yang.
Mr. Ballmer only wants Zimbra. Let your stockholders in on that nugget.
Mr. Ballmer desperately wants to kill Zimbra — because killing is what he does best — and he’ll let the rest of your org rot on the vine.
I’m sure Yahoo stockholders should ask for 200 billion — or more.
Apple stockholders worry that Jobs will die.
Microsoft stockholders worry that Balmer will live.
@MDN — OK, You’ve worked in Fester’s lightbulb, now surely you can work in Gomez’s train wrecks.
maybe he’s in the garage workin on his big ass table.
Here’s hoping that Balmer stays around long enough to see Apple unveil the iTele. This way Steve Jobs can use his iTele to transport Balmer and company to Uranus.
84 Mac Guy,
well put!
Earth to Microsoft. STOP JUST COPYING WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING! The only thing I can think of that is ‘new’ from Microsoft is their wacky ‘surface’ table, which may be cool to show off but it’ll be years before it could be a product of some kind.
Everything else you do is a “me too” product or technology. DirectX = MS only version of OpenGL, XBox = MS playstation (and nice one with that HDDVD addon). Hell, even their new announcement for their DirectX-only version of OpenCL is another pathetic shot at ignoring an open standard and instead trying to hack together a microsoft-only “standard”.
Oh yeah, and maybe built products and services with your real customers in mind, namely the end-users, and not middle-men or the MPAA (the copy protection MS agreed to build in probably adds $100 or more to systems capable of playing HDDVD/BluRay discs).
And Chris Liddell is a Kiwi (Micro Me hides head in shame).
That’s just my opinion of the kind of changes MS would have to make to drive their stock up.
I don’t think they have the balls or the leadership to actually do it.
We hereby advise Microsoft shareholders that there is nothing to see here.
If only it were that simple. Unfortunately, many of us own Microsoft through our retirement plans and other indirect investments like mutual funds. That’s our money Ballmer is pissing away.
Can you say Enron? I knew you could. It’s Enron all over again.
The only good news is that since Apple is in the S&P;500, those same retirement plans and mutual funds also hold Apple. Hopefully Apple’s growth will more than offset Microsoft’s decline.
What Ballmer refuses to admit, is that having hit market saturation, MSFT is no longer a growth stock, and never will be again. There’s no shame in that, it means after all that MS has had a tremendous success. What the company should do now is start paying dividends regularly, and concentrating on their main line of business: windows and Office.
Every other venture that Ballmer has thrown billions of dollars of shareholders’ money after (zone, xbox, MSN, etc) has failed to even show a hope of going profitable. That means he’s wasting the shareholders’ money on his ego trips.
-jcr
Microsoft’s problem is that it only ever had one consistent idea and that was to destroy any and all opposition in order to make it to the top of the heap. Everything, including coding was skewed to that end.
Now it is at the top of the heap, it has no idea what to do next. The inevitable result is that the opposition in the form of people with real, tangible ideas is beginning to encroach on its patch. Like a rabbit in the headlights it doesn’t know where to run.
Long may Ballmer reign, with any luck he’ll drive the company into the ground. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.
” why are they getting their knickers in a twist now?”
Because Bill idn’t there to cover Steve’s ass anymore.
“STOP JUST COPYING WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING! “
When copying something was what the entire company was founded on (*cough* cough* DOS *cough*) you can’t just turn on a dime and instill a culture of innovation. Apple has innovation built in at the core and culture. MS doesn’t and never will. The attempted purchase of Yahoo is a perfect example of how they can’t do anything on their own from the ground up.
LONG LIVE BALLMER!!!!!!!!!
I just hope he’s not squirting any ideas to anyone.
Peace.
I have to agree with “John C. Randolph”: “What Ballmer refuses to admit, is that having hit market saturation, MSFT is no longer a growth stock, and never will be again. There’s no shame in that, it means after all that MS has had a tremendous success.”
In order to have measurable growth in certain areas, MSFT should break there enterprise up into separate independent businesses and let them live or die of their own accord. Eventually AAPL will reach this point as well … and probably in the not too distant future.
“Introductions seem to be in order here: Kim, Drain. Drain, Kim.”
LMAO!
If they are lucky, the smell of Microsoft’s decaying corpse might be enough to stop progress on the internet for a further ten years.
“Building and operating a cash furnace, now that would make sense…”
ROTFLMAO!
“Cash Furnace”? That’s being kind!
Your comments and analysis are great.
Microsoft’s new products division is best described as a cash furnace. They should invest their current profits into profitable ventures like AAPL and increase their dividend return to shareholders.
Big Ass Table Demo.
On behalf of Microsoft, I take offense. How dare you use the term “Big Ass Table”. How insulting.
Everyone knows it should be hyphenated: Big-Ass Table…
The long knives are out for Ballmy, now that Bill is no longer able to protect him. Sometime in the next twelve months, perhaps fairly soon, he’ll be gone. If there’s one thing worse than not being an innovator as CEO, it’s being a BAD innovator by spending a lot of money trying to innovate and not coming up with anything successful. When you’re doing that with someone else money, they eventually get tired of it! I bet the investors decide to just put someone in who’ll turn M$ into a cash cow by focusing on Windows and Office and paying out a healthy dividend.