“Microsoft Corp is playing defense with a $2 billion loan to help Dell Inc’s founder buy back the world’s No.3 PC maker as it seeks to shore up support for Windows and beat back the march of Google Inc’s Android,” Bill Rigby and Poornima Gupta report for Reuters.
MacDailyNews Take: “The march of Google Inc’s Android?”
Fools.
Unit share for the sake of unit share is a fool’s errand. See, ahem: Dell. We’re sick of fool’s like these Reuters “reporters.” Do your jobs. Report what’s actually happening, not some fiction spun in the name of some misplaced quest for “balance” or whatever is motivating you.
Apple owns the tablet market; might as well just call it the iPad market. And, phones? Puleeze, there is only one real company on the march and it certainly isn’t Google.:
Apple dominates mobile phone makers with 72% profit share worldwide in Q412 – February 6, 2013
Rigby and Gupta report, “The investment in the landmark $24 billion buyout led by Michael Dell marks the latest step in Microsoft’s plan to gain more influence over the hardware supply chain – a departure from the decades-old, software-centric philosophy that helped it dominate the computing world but is now increasingly under threat… The company that built its fortune on making high-priced software to go in other companies’ computers is inching closer to Apple Inc’s belief that software and hardware must be closely integrated for the sake of the user experience.”
MacDailyNews Take: Hey, they got something right. It’s old news, but at least it’s right:
Microsoft tries to match Apple’s vertical approach – October 11, 2006
Rigby and Gupta report, “In the face of declining PC sales and the onslaught of Apple’s iPad, ‘Microsoft has taken more unconventional measures than they would have in the past,’ said Sid Parakh, an analyst at investment firm McAdams Wright Ragen… Still, there is no guarantee that Microsoft’s loan will give it any sway over Dell at all. One former Microsoft executive said the deal was pointless. ‘I know Michael (Dell), he will continue to run his empire the way he has always done – without any outside influence’ said Joachim Kempin, once Microsoft’s top executive in charge of its relationships with PC makers, who left the company in 2002.”
MacDailyNews Take: Dell will continue to run his empire the way he has always done – straight into the ground.
“‘Microsoft has every interest to keep such a key player in its ecosystem alive and well,’ said Al Hilwa, an analyst at tech research firm IDC. ‘Dell supplies a large number of Microsoft customers with hardware, and it is important that their confidence is bolstered in the overall Microsoft ecosystem.’ … ‘This investment might help Microsoft influence whether Dell adopts Android or not, that is likely the goal behind this,’ said Parakh,” Rigby and Gupta report. “PCs are clearly in decline, with sales falling last year for the first time in a decade as the popularity of tablets surges.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, “tablets.” As in, Apple’s iPad and iPad mini:
Apple’s iPad dominates tablets with 81% Web usage share; Amazon Kindle Fire distant 2nd with 7.7% – February 6, 2013
Rigby and Gupta report, “‘Apple is the model, and Microsoft can’t become Apple overnight,’ said Bartels at Forrester.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft can never become Apple.
And Reuters‘ serial Mossbergian compulsion to elevate the knockoff Android to Apple’s level, or simply ignore Apple wherever possible, and to focus exclusively on unit share while totally ignoring profit share is tiresome and does a disservice to their readership.
Contact Reuters: https://reuters.zendesk.com/anonymous_requests/new
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Rainy Day” for the heads up.]
Google buys a hardware manufacturer for $12B.
Microsoft “loans” a hardware manufacturer for $2B.
Thousands of analysts “tell” Apple what they must do to regain their luster.
Hmmm….
What I’d like to see is Wall Street catch a clue and learn from all of this that Apple’s “hardware” business is worth many multiples of current P/E.
Breath. Holding. Not.
The inevitable result of this era of Apple-Bear-Stupid is a scouring out of the analcyst scum. We just have to sit back and watch the culture return to sanity once again.
MS recouped its piddly $150 million investment in Apple with a tidy profit in 5 years.
Any bets on how long it will take to recoup the $2 Billion it threw at Dell?
+1 … and how about ROI on M$ other investments of late? wow–paying back that $2B by volume sales … wowowowowow….
bad money chasing bad money..thank you, Jeezsus.
Remember the Big Lie that Microsoft ‘saved’ Apple back circa 1998?
Here we actually have Microsoft saving Dell. How incredibly twisted. Michael must have the biggest hemorrhoids over this mess. Send him Preparation H for Valentine’s Day.
Now I know who the beta testers were for Preparations A through G — Microsoft!
=:~)
That would be hilarious if everyone sent a tube of Prep-H!
I say DO IT!
“Report what’s actually happening, not some fiction spun in the name of some misplaced quest for “balance” or whatever is motivating you.”
They report what makes their advertisers keep on advertising. It is pretty straight forward. Apple doesn’t advertise on these sites so Apple has to be put down or diminished to make the Samsungs and Microsofts and Dells look good.
In other words, say anything that works to draw eyeballs and page hits, because that’s what pays the bills.
This wonderful system is self-sustaining: an audience that’s largely uncritical, ignorant, or biased; corrupt reporters with a cynical disregard for truth and public service; and soulless advertisers who shamelessly buy and sell people and their personal information.
And all three groups pose as righteous paragons of human values and achievement, while unwittingly giving away their Neanderthal origins.
Amen.
Celebrity CEO Death Match: “Steve Ballmer vs. Michael Dell” bring it on!
Rules: No chairs Mr. Ballmer.
Can’t see Mikey taking orders from Monkey Boy, just ain’t goona happen.
I wound be curious to know what the other computer makers (Lenovo, HP, Toshiba, etc.) think about this arrangement. After all, Microsoft is shoring up their competition more than it is Apple’s.
In the end, when this sorried PC mess collapses, Microsoft et. al will become a mere footnote in the evolutionary spread of technology. Anyone care to write the Obit???
What a waste of $2 billion! They need to invest in their own products – Office for Mac is a piece of sh!t (just an example).
In 50 years Windows will still support legacy floppy drives and “feature” the much admired blue screen of death.