In the wake of Microsoft’s failed attempt to acquire Yahoo, “this is now an excellent opportunity to sell any Microsoft stock you have left,” Brett Arends writes for The Wall Street Journal.
Arends writes, “The bid itself, followed by its swift abandonment, should raise serious questions about Microsoft’s leadership and direction. Does Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer really know what he is trying to do?”
“Ordinary consumers might legitimately ask if Microsoft’s corporate strategy is any better than the company’s mediocre software,” Arends writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Beautiful line! We couldn’t have done much better ourselves. 
(We would’ve gone with “mediocre-at-best,” instead.)
Arends writes, “It was always hard to see why combining Microsoft’s third-rate Internet strategy with Yahoo’s second-rate Internet strategy was ever going to take on Google. It’s like tying two rocks together in the hope they will float,” Arends writes.
Arends writes, “Private investors should ask themselves why they are bothering to own Microsoft stock directly anyway.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Make the world a better place. Get a Mac and buy some AAPL!
No questions about Microsoft’s direction or strategy here. I put in an order for another 100 shares of MSFT just this morning. Yahoo doesn’t have anything mighty Microsoft can’t create themselves. Pretty soon the internet will be synonymous with Microsoft. It’s what people want.
In 5 years Google will be a distant memory as 97% of already delighted Windows computer users will flock to the MSN Windows Live offering now being strategized at Microsoft. Imagine combining the power of Vista, xBox, Zune and MSN. The innovative geniuses in Redmond already have, and it’s gonna be great. There’s a big payoff for the wise ones sticking with Windows. Hey MAC sheep it’s not too late to get on the Vista train.
Your potential. Our passion.™
If you want to read an absolutely searing, devastating and merciless attack on the whole MicroHoo fiasco, go to:
http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/05/ballmer-now-looking-for-other-companies.html
I guess in real life the Fake Steve Jobs is not really that Apple friendly, but his take on the YahooSoft affair is brilliant. He actually outdoes Roughly Drafted on this one.
“Microsoft’s corporate strategy no better than their mediocre software”
Yeah right… with what this journalist call “mediocre software”, they took over the world!!! This is poor journalism. MS software is okay… Apple is just better, but… too damn’ closed!!!
“It’s like tying two rocks together in the hope they will float,”
Wow, two great ones in one article!
Hey ZT….too late, I had a Zune already this morning. Looks like you should have as well judging that your comment was full of Shyte.
Microsoft needs to focus on what it already does. Windows, Office, XBox. All the other stuff they need to dump.
Microsoft would like to replace Steve Ballmer, but all they could replace him with is another Steve Ballmer. I imagine Microsoft has evolved into good-old boys country club where loyalty to your boss is more important than ideas, vision and results.
If the top man (Ballmer) has neither vision or ideas, he cannot grasp or conceive of the next big thing. And he surrounds himself with “yes” boys and girls that repeatedly tell Ballmer that after it is all said and done, they still have 95% of the computer OS market and are very profitable.
I am sure most Microsoft employees laugh at Balmer behind his back.
MDN,
You should open a Ballmer photo gallery with all those flattering shots you’ve got of him. It could be the next internet sensation.
Right on, bon!
Call it Ballickr or something like that.
Even the MSM is admitting the awful truth about Macro$ucks, but the sleeples snore on …
TImbo… I almost choked on my potato chips!
I’m sure many of us have heard the parable of the Dog and the Scorpion. And I’m sure we’ve all considered MS to be the Scorpion within every partnership it enters.
MS CAN’T change. It doesn’t WANT to change. It’s time to let the Scorpion drown.
To extend some mythology, it’s time that all that energy — read: money — of MS be reborn — or give life — to a new entities. Phoenix0like, if you will.
Open-source Windows. Sell off every other IP. And watch the newly formed software companies create and prosper wildly through REAL innovations and sportsmanly competition.
Mr. Ballmer, your empire was created on misery.
Creating joy is much more profitable.
Believe it.
They do have two product that will bring them back to their glorious days. These products will be their crowning achievement!! Ask Zune Tongued In The Butt, he know.
1. Big Ass Table
2. Zune…. hahahahaha. ( sorry that product makes me laugh )
That’s right. Keep your faith in Ballmer, you mindless Microcrap followers. Just so long as I get do watch the mounting pile of shit that is Ballmer’s innovations hit the fan, let the monkey boy keep on dancing. Even Gates won’t be able to salvage what Ballmer leaves behind. Ah, the sweet smell of justice.
STRONG WORDS!
And to thinks, Gates left the company in the hands of this nut case!
Makes one thank that Gates doesn’t give a hoot, as to what happens to his life’s work…
Steve Jobs would never display such poor judgment!
Since when do we give a shiest about Brett Arends?
Time for a Wall Street bit¢h fight…
MSFT is all like, “Oh no you di-int!”
WST is like, “Oh yes I did!”
A then there’s like this cartoon dust cloud with fingernails and hair flying…
WSJ writes Ballmer’s preemptive obituary.
If Ballmer thought he could get away with it he dump everything else and just chase making Microsoft into a Google type company.
But he already got MS OUT of that business!
From the US print-edition WSJ, 5/5/08, page A12:
“Mr. Ballmer acknowledged it was he who killed Microsoft’s earlier effort in paid Internet search long before Google turned the business into a virtual mint.”
So… Ballmer was about to spend 45-some billion to get back into a market he himself fscked MS out of??
“Wow” indeed. NObody else could remain employed after such a series of bonehead blunders.
Ballmy isn’t qualified to be CEO of a garage sale. What does he have on MS’s board that keeps him from getting axed??
Jeez. Could you find a worse looking photograph? Look at that “old white man” frown.
Give him a little black mustache. Then think of April 1945…
Here are some replacement candidates that MS should consider when Ballmer finally gets the boot:
1. John Sculley
He never got to finish the job of running Apple into the ground, how perfect if he could finish the task at Microsoft.
2. George W. Bush
He will be needing a new job later this year and his accomplishments during the past eight years speak for themselves.
3. Donald Rumsfeld
No one can create a strategy like the master of the Iraq quagmire. Just think what he could do at MS.
4. Bill and Hillary Clinton
Talk about the dream team. Here are a couple that is second to none when it comes to lying, cheating, and playing dirty. They could take over for Gates and Ballmer and MS would never break stride.
5. Kenneth Lay
Too bad is is dead because his skill at Enron in bilking cash from investors for worthless stock is a perfect match for MS which bilks cash from people for worthless software.
@ye Zune Tang ya say…
“No questions about Microsoft’s direction or strategy here. I put in an order for another 100 shares of MSFT just this morning. Yahoo doesn’t have anything mighty Microsoft can’t create themselves. Pretty soon the internet will be synonymous with Microsoft. It’s what people want.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
HAHAHAHAHAHH snot and drool AHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH
HAHAHHA im choking HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAH burp HAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHA fart HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You forgot
6. Barack Obama
He is always ready to tackle the issues with his dramatic ability to take a stand and vote Present
7. Ted Kennedy
He would change the name of the company to MicroScotch. Then he and the board could sit around for a few years figuring out new ways to screw up the company. At least there he wouldn’t be wasting our tax dollars.
8. Nancy Pelosi
She would change the name to MicroScum. She’d fire the board and hire all of her cronies. The business focus would be to fleece as many customers as they can before they can empty their corporations bank accounts.
I could go on, but if you didn’t get the point by now, you never will.
6. Carly Fiorina
Just the person to head up a merger with Yahoo.
7. James McNerney, CEO of Boeing
His management of the 787 “Dreamliner” program would mesh ideally with MS’s software development practices.
8. Nero, former emperor of the Roman Empire
Someone who understood fiddling while the city burns.
9. Daffy Duck
Comparable dancing skills.
10. Bubba the local unemployed redneck bar fly.
Ballmer-like intelligence and temperament.