Microsoft for Sale

[Kintaro]

Maybe we need a corporate affairs board.

http://finviz.com/insidertrading.ashx?oc=902012&tc=7

Gates seems to be slowly selling a lot of his holdings of Microsoft.

[Refalm]

I think Bill Gates has lost faith in the company in terms of not perusing the "embrace, extend and extinguish" strategy aggressively enough since he left.

Microsoft is in a downfall because they haven't done enough with Bill's competition destroying strategy, and now you see other players gaining momentum in the desktop, server and smartphone market.

Since Bill Gates has no income, its a very smart idea to sell holdings in a company that's falling.

[Kintaro]

Desktop market? Show me the market share numbers, I don't believe you!

[Kintaro]

Microsoft isn't holding onto its server gains at all as a webserver. Apache has a monopoly, chain them nose to toe with socialist anti-trust!

[davidnix71]

Gates has been giving away a lot of money to charity. He probably has to sell off stock to generate usable cash. I don't like his business attitude, but malaria is exactly the one disease I would eradicate if I could.

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/topics/pages/malaria.aspx
http://www.malariasite.com/malaria/WhatIsMalaria.htm

TB would be number two on the list http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2009/tuberculosis_report_20090324/en/index.html

[worker201]

It has been theorized that the rise of the netbook has undercut Microsoft's business in a serious way.  How much can you expect a manufacturer to spend on the OS for a $300 computer?  Upgrades to higher versions of the operating system, which are pure profit, are also less likely for netbook buyers.  And netbook buyers are also reluctant to purchase Office as well.

Realistically, it's likely a combination of the things we've proposed.

[davidnix71]

There are even sub netbooks out there now with Windows CE. The $300 netbooks with crippleware Seven Basic are okay for a portable.

Strangely, Best Buy will not sell the upgrade to home premium for a Windows netbook. They insisted the netbooks were too stupid for that even if you added ram. For the price of the netbook and upgrade you could get a real laptop, anyway.

[Kintaro]

Netbooks fucking suck on the other hand. The screen is so small they basically have the visual real-estate of DOS. Who cares about that market? They should just write some netbook drivers for Windows 3.11 and build it 32 bit and they already have the perfect operating system.

[Refalm]

With smartphones that have a decent browser, RDP client and a DivX player (or some video streaming service), there isn't much use for notebooks anymore.

All you want to do with a notebook is quickly check mail, type a document, or view a movie on the train.

[Kintaro]

15-16" display is like a minimum to me. Typically, I'll want to do all those things on the train, at once.

[piratePenguin]

13" display is an absolute maximum for me. 12" is probably the best if it's absolutely light like a 10" would be.

The only reason the netbook market is important to MS is because, to most people, a netbook is a supplementary computer (this wasn't the case for me). If GNU/Linux is dominating this area then people will eventually wonder why they want Windows on their primary computers. I only hope Canonical etc realize how important this is.

[Kintaro]

13" display is an absolute maximum for me. 12" is probably the best if it's absolutely light like a 10" would be.

The only reason the netbook market is important to MS is because, to most people, a netbook is a supplementary computer (this wasn't the case for me). If GNU/Linux is dominating this area then people will eventually wonder why they want Windows on their primary computers. I only hope Canonical etc realize how important this is.

Just like people look at their Nokias and go "holy fuck, all we need to do is get this onto my PC." Canonical and other vendors need to focus on application support. Until then, they will always be obscure and taken for granted as the operating system on a DVD player. Besides, everyone I know with a netbook is running Windows XP.

[Aloone_Jonez]

In my experience, most people want Windows on there notebook because it's what they're used to

[piratePenguin]

13" display is an absolute maximum for me. 12" is probably the best if it's absolutely light like a 10" would be.

The only reason the netbook market is important to MS is because, to most people, a netbook is a supplementary computer (this wasn't the case for me). If GNU/Linux is dominating this area then people will eventually wonder why they want Windows on their primary computers. I only hope Canonical etc realize how important this is.

Just like people look at their Nokias and go "holy fuck, all we need to do is get this onto my PC."

What type of an idiot remark is this? You're correct that it's important for Canonical to provide application support for its operating system, but they should also be aware that no matter how capable their OS is, they need to get it onto computers or it doesnt EXIST.

Aloone, you are correct. But in the (very) beginning Windows was, pretty much, not an option for the netbook market (too expensive). It was after GNU/Linux concoctions started gaining significant numbers through this market, that MS got worried and then made their offers to manufacturers or whatever, and now they pretty much have taken over the market (in fact, I couldn't find a non-windows netbook to suit my needs earlier this year, and I'm pretty sure I'll have to pay a MS tax)

Sure, people want windows on their netbooks, but even when they didn't have windows they were still rolling off the shelves. That could be ubuntu rolling off to thousands of satisfied customers, as it was in another life.

[Aloone_Jonez]

Aloone, you are correct. But in the (very) beginning Windows was, pretty much, not an option for the netbook market (too expensive). It was after GNU/Linux concoctions started gaining significant numbers through this market, that MS got worried and then made their offers to manufacturers or whatever, and now they pretty much have taken over the market (in fact, I couldn't find a non-windows netbook to suit my needs earlier this year, and I'm pretty sure I'll have to pay a MS tax)

Sure, people want windows on their netbooks, but even when they didn't have windows they were still rolling off the shelves. That could be ubuntu rolling off to thousands of satisfied customers, as it was in another life.

I remember when Maplin first started selling netbooks, they were inundated with enquiries,  on their web FAQ page, about installing Windows on them,