Class-action Suit Filed Against Microsoft Over Surface Write Off 212
New submitter used2win32 writes with news that at least one investor is unhappy with the Surface inventory write off, claiming that Microsoft mislead investors who purchased stock during Q2 and Q3 by not announcing just how slow inventory was moving at the time "The class action lawsuit claims false and misleading information regarding sales performance of Windows RT based tablets. Microsoft has earned a U.S. $900 million write off and a market share of less that 1% to show for its Windows RT endeavors. Asus, Lenovo, HP, Samsung and HTC discontinued their models leaving Dell as the only OEM producing a Windows RT tablet."
How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stockholders win the lawsuit and each get 10 bucks. Microsoft stock takes a huge hit. Stockholders lose a lot more than 10 bucks.
Nevermind, I forgot about the lawyers. The lawyers always win.
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes to poor business decisions, it's ultimately for the shareholders to decide amongst themselves if they want the business they own to be operated by people who make such poor decisions. And if you're only a minor shareholder and the other larger shareholders don't agree with your position then that's that. You knew this *before* you bought these shares, and still decided to buy. Buying shares is gambling, if it doesn't pay off them you have only yourself to blame.
When it comes to lying however, those responsible should be held criminally accountable. Lying in order to secure investment (ie to make your shares appear worth more than they should be and get people to buy them) is fraud and should be treated as such.
As to wether the business decisions were really poor, the problem here is that far too many shareholders are taking a short term view - they want profits NOW and don't care about the long term viability of the company. The fact is MS may currently be highly profitable, but the majority of that profit comes from mature and declining markets, and eventually that source of revenue is going to dry up, and if they have nothing ready to replace it then they will end up bankrupt.
They have generally shown themselves to be rather incompetent at entering new markets, with products that are mediocre to poor and in many cases refusing to fully embrace the new market for fear of getting too far away from traditional markets, and thus being held back. The only real advantage they have is huge cash reserves allowing them to keep slinging enough mud until some of it sticks.
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
Unless there are allegations of insider trading, in which case you should go after those individuals who profited unfairly, not the company.
Re: (Score:2)
wha wha whaaaaaaaaaaaat? you think that if there's not an (re)issue of stock you can just sit on information relevant to the stock price and not inform the public ?? in a company where the board who is informed of this shit consists of stock holders themselves?
Re: (Score:2)
All good points, but bear in mind MSFT was not trying to get people to buy shares for the benefit of MSFT... this is not an IPO situation. At this point it is all shareholders trading amongst themselves. So whatever information is known, is known to all - and sellers as well as buyers both make their decisions on the same reports..
Correct that this is not an IPO, and shareholders are trading amongst themselves (i.e., a "secondary" stock market). However, MSFT and all corporations, public and private, have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders, even minority shareholders. Telling the truth is part of that duty, and breach of that duty is grounds for a lawsuit.
Problem is, where a majority of a company's shares are held by people in league with management, suing is pretty much the only way for minority shareholders to voice their
Re: (Score:2)
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree that such a lawsuit makes no sense, since the MS board represents the shareholders, and the MS officials - CEO and other VPs - report to the board, so indirectly, the decisions made by the company were endorsed by a majority of the officials. The short term vs the long term attitudes of the investors is a major reason these companies are under pressure, and make decisions that look great short term, but are inane long term.
I don't think that MS is unwilling to embrace new markets - look at Windows 8, where they've jeopardized a decade long interface for something that looks good on a Lumia, but is absolutely strange on a laptop. Essentially, they're showing the finger to their long time customers of PCs, while trying to get into bed w/ phone & tablet customers who're not interested. Somehow, market segmentation doesn't seem to be MS' strong points, or they would have made Windows 8 look like Windows 7, aside from the underpinnings, while letting Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT be something else totally, and called something else totally, like Metro.
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, market segmentation is their key weakness when it comes to phones/tablets...
Windows mobile was their first attempt, put a desktop like interface on a phone - it was terrible, despite not even having any serious competitors at the time.
They need to get away from "windows", and market different products... It worked with the xbox.
MS are generally far too arrogant, they think that everyone loves windows and that users will put up with any old trash because they love the brand...
The reality is that people hate windows, and put up with any old trash on the desktop because they don't feel there is any alternative.
When it comes to other markets, like phones and tablets, users *do* realise that other alternatives exist and so they aren't willing to put up with the usual crap that MS put out.
Think of it like east german and soviet cars... People wanted them, and would join multi year long waiting lists to get one, because they were the only option available... Once the berlin wall fell and users found out about the alternatives, noone wanted an east german car anymore.
Re: (Score:3)
They're willing to embrace new markets just like a fat sweaty guy is willing to embrace a hot chick. The problem is not the fat sweaty guy's willingness to embrace, he loves embracing. The problem comes from hot chicks (markets) not liking embracing fat sweaty guys.
Re: (Score:3)
The issues are considerably more substantive than just poor decisions. The thing that really jumps out at me is the allegation that the Surface RT sales situation was concealed in the previous quarterly report, when Microsoft already had the data and shareholders should have been informed of it. Never mind Ballmer's shameless posturing for the press.
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
I have a new word, for the English language.
"Ballmer"
As in "We've been completely ballmered."
or
"Bend over, and take your ballmering like a man!
Re: (Score:2)
Or:
"I had to get stitches after that guy ballmered me with a chair ... man, he was pissed."
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
'with a chair' should be redundant.
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know where you got your numbers from. but from http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Microsoft_(MSFT)/Data/Market_Capitalization/1999/Q4 [wikinvest.com]
when Ballmer took over in Jan 2000 at that point the market capitalization of microsoft was 407 billion it is currently 227.4 billion,
Ok so there could have been share by backs and other stuff I am not aware of so I will assume you a right and he did put 40 billion dollars of values on since Jan 2000
so the company must have been worth 187.4 billion so that is an average rate of increase per year of 1.5% I can get more than that in in the bank in an on call account. From these figures (maybe wrong of course) he has clearly done an outstanding job.
Clearly such a skill level he has a well deserved 15.2 billion personal wealth (wikipedia).
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
...by showing them that they can't just do any shit they want?
if you didn't see this coming the day they announced the writeoff on their report then you weren't thinking. huge advantage to insiders, hugely misleading to investors. almost a billion dollars, they knew they were going to write it off and by the rules they should have announced it. you can't with a straight face say that they expected to sell off the inventory in the last month...
it's a shame the sec didn't penalize them straight away.
Re: (Score:3)
You're missing his point. Stockholder suing the company they hold stock in get paid *with their own money*. "We're so angry that we're gonna make you write a us a check drawn from our own bank account!" Yeah, that'll show 'em.
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
most of the shareholders are pension and mutual funds who can't just sell all their shares on a whim. the amount of shares they own, it takes months to buy and sell enough shares to get in or out of a stock. they also depend on the dividends to pay their bills to retired folks and don't like to be screwed by management
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there no value in making illegally lying to investors and potential investors a riskier and potentially more costly activity?
Obviously, in an ideal world, the penalties exacted from Microsoft would fully compensate the wronged parties, even after the potential hit is taken into account; but even if that isn't possible, never enforcing anything that might cause stock prices to fall means never enforcing anything. It's the publicly-traded equivalent of 'we can't punish anyone because it might make their family sad!'
Re: (Score:2)
The problem here is that the owners of the company are suing their own company for damages, which doesn't really do them any good, since the company they own will have to pay any damages!
Re: (Score:2)
Only some of the owners (the proposed class consists of people who bought stock during a specific period when the allegedly false/misleading reports were made) are suing the company, which also has (many more) owners who aren't in that class.
I have no opinion over whether the suit has merit or not; but it would be a fairly simple matter for the members of the class, a smallish subset of the owners, to be compensated by the company at the expense of the people who owned the company during the time when it al
In theory, savers. In reality, probably lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
in the second quarter should have been included in the first quarter statements, they say. If it's true that Microsoft executives knew about the problem and
concealed it in from the investors / potential investors (the owners of the company), that's unlawful, as it should be. That's a fraud on people trying to save
for retirement.
The lawyers will take half the money, so people who were victims of the fraud won't recoup their loss, but punishing fraudulent behavior may tend to
discourage Microsoft and other companies from perpetrating similar lies in the future.
Of course it'll be up to the judge or jury to decide if Microsoft actually did know about the problem by the end of March, in such a way that concealing it
in the first quarter reports mislead investors.
Re: (Score:2)
Stockholders win the lawsuit and each get 10 bucks. Microsoft stock takes a huge hit. Stockholders lose a lot more than 10 bucks.
Nevermind, I forgot about the lawyers. The lawyers always win.
Yeah, Microsoft can't even lose money properly. Uh.. Does this mean someone can sue me if I take a lower paying job?!? Lawyers are the new worms.
Re:How does this help anyone? ACCOUNTABILITY (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is that they are not being accountable. The company is being sued instead of the executives who decided to publish the deficient reports.
Re: How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Legally, Microsoft has to tell everybody about a write down at the same time. They certainly aren't going to discuss a price drop with investors while still selling them at stores... That would be stupid. They aren't going to publish news of poor sales 2 quarters early while paying for a media blitz either.. The Internet laughs at that stuff.
What Microsoft did was correct. Hang on as long as possible and drop the price when they are forced to cut their losing streak off.
They should sue over US government compromises (Score:4, Interesting)
It is unquestionable that Microsoft's compromise by the US government has threatened Microsoft's position in the global marketplace. There may not be an obvious reflection of this damage right now, but things are in motion even now to move away from Microsoft products all over the world. In the past, when governments and business sought to move away from Microsoft, they were drawn back in with special pricing or other deals. And specifically, when the initiatives to move away were pushed by specific individuals, those individuals found themselves attacked and discredited in some way. And when the initiatives were a matter of policy or law, such as a requirement to favor ISO standards compliance products, the Microsoft had set about changing law, policy or forcing through new ISO standards which aren't even being complied with.
None of these tactics are expected to work against the current cause for Microsoft mistrust.
Re: (Score:2)
There's very little that the management could have done differently in that case... As a US based company they are beholden to US law, and the shareholders cannot demand that they break the law.
Re: (Score:2)
None of these tactics are expected to work against the current cause for Microsoft mistrust.
However, Microsoft keep trying hard, nevertheless. Until last month, every ad on opening Slashdot was how AccuWeather was generating better weather on Windows Phones compared to Android phones. About how some news agency was able to generate better news on Windows phones.
If the Slashdot crowd were deemed gullible enough to buy into such meaningless ads; what about poor stockholders?
Amazing ... (Score:4, Interesting)
A near $1 billion write off. That would put most companies out of business, and even Microsoft can't keep taking losses like that.
Windows 8 is under-performing, people are pulling out of making Windows Phones, the XBone is facing a lot of backlash, their own tablet is becoming a huge flop, and the hardware makers are deciding they want to focus on other things.
Increasingly it's looking like Microsoft is asleep at the switch and just assuming they'll keep selling as much as they always have.
Either they need to start fixing some fundamentals, or Microsoft is going to face some serious long-term problems.
Re:Amazing ... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's strange that everyone except microsoft saw this coming. None of the tech folks I know thought those tablets were gonna go anywhere---why in the world did Microsoft spend so much on such a bad idea? Same with the phones...
Re:Amazing ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, maybe they assumed "we're Microsoft, people will buy anything we make", or they were completely out of touch with what consumers actually wanted and missed the mark completely, or maybe they're losing a lot of good-will with people who no longer care about them or their products. Tough to say.
But Microsoft really needs to be asking themselves this. Because this is now several products which are proving to be failures in the market, and the investors aren't going to stand for a company which keeps making billion-dollar gambles on stuff nobody buys.
Right now, except for maybe Office and the enterprise market -- it's hard not to think that Microsoft is losing money on every product they make, and trying to make it up on volume.
Re:Amazing ... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is just an opinion, so please don't badger me for evidence. I'm not trying to troll anyone, so do reply if you disagree with me.
It seems to me that Microsoft has no idea why people have been buying their products this whole time. In the last few years, they've been banging on about the "experience" of using Win7/8/Phone, as if the people who buy Microsoft products do so for the unique Microsoft Experience. In other words, that they buy Microsoft products for much the same reason as one might buy an Apple product. I would argue that this hasn't been the case since the excitement of Windows 95. Even XP was only a small step up from 2000 at the time. By and large, people buy their products because a) they believe it to be pretty solid and/or b) it's the standard. If more solid alternatives exist, and the MS product isn't the ad-hoc standard, they don't make a big impact in the market.
Now, you might say that no, they've been talking about the "experience" because that's what all the cool, profitable kids are up to. That may well be the case, but if you watch their adverts, it goes a step further than trying to convince you of a top-quality experience: they tend to allude to "the Windows/Office/MS Bob experience you love", as if it were an existing truth. It's always struck me as curiously arrogant, coming from a company which deliberately strangled the competition to gain its dominant position. What I don't know, however, is whether they've misread the market that badly, or they're trying to get people to believe there already is such a demand for a specifically Microsoft experience, in order to create this demand.
Re: (Score:2)
Now, you might say that no, they've been talking about the "experience" because that's what all the cool, profitable kids are up to. That may well be the case, but if you watch their adverts, it goes a step further than trying to convince you of a top-quality experience: they tend to allude to "the Windows/Office/MS Bob experience you love", as if it were an existing truth. It's always struck me as curiously arrogant, coming from a company which deliberately strangled the competition to gain its dominant position. What I don't know, however, is whether they've misread the market that badly, or they're trying to get people to believe there already is such a demand for a specifically Microsoft experience, in order to create this demand.
I would have to say I agree more with this than your first idea. I think the only reason they try to make it sound like it's always been about the experience is pure marketing. They know it hasn't been about the experience, but they want it to be. So they make it sound like it always was because in marketingland, if you say it enough, it eventually becomes true.
Maybe it doesn't make sense on the face or when looked at objectively, but there is a psychological effect where confidence and repetition will m
Re: (Score:3)
Now, you might say that no, they've been talking about the "experience" because that's what all the cool, profitable kids are up to.
Also I think MS has a tendency to put all the blame on their partners when things don't work out. Then MS does it on its own only to find out that it is not as easy fix. They must have thought PlaysForSure didn't sell well because their partners had inferior players. While the Zune wasn't a bad player, they clearly took too long and didn't offer an advantage. Tablet PCs didn't sell much for years because they were uninspired convertible laptops. MS thought they could do better than the iPad with their
Pretty much agree (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Have you ever met a rep from a company who wasn't so besotted by the Kool-Aid as to be a useless source of information? If they're paid a commission, even more so. They're paid to be enthusiastic, not objective.
We once had a vendor rep offer to give a demo to our user group about an upcoming product release.
I flat out told them there was no way in hell I'd let a salesman tal
Re: (Score:2)
I'm guessing MS learned the wrong lessons from the Zune and Windows Phone.
MS: Zune's only problem was we didn't to market it right. Okay, spend tons of money with dancers in commercials to make Surface cool.
MS: WP7 and WP8's only problem was that their hardware sucked because of the OEMs. Okay, let's make Surface ourselves.
There were multiple reasons neither of those products got many sales. Namely both of them didn't offer much of an advantage from the competition but priced almost the same or more. S
The Many Billion Dollar Question (Score:2)
why in the world did Microsoft spend so much on such a bad idea? Same with the phones...
The why is actually easy...money, and by money I mean Apple Money + Samsung Money + Google Money + American Express + Old Abusive Monopoly For years. Imagine if Microsoft had 95% share of Phone and Tablet Market share, with everyone else having to use them as their store for electronic goods.
Re: (Score:2)
Who are these Tech Folks? (Score:2)
Yeah, and none of the "tech folks" I know thought an oversized iPhone was gonna go anywhere, ..."tech folk" on this very website thought a certain device that lacked wireless and had less space than a Nomad
Ironically many "tech folks"(sic) not only predicated the tablet, but looked forward to it, and own many of its ealier iterations. The iPad was the most expected device ever, there were surprises...*price* for one. As for the Mp3 quote. The fact that a prominent "tech folk" thought technology would win over brand is maybe misguided in retrospect, although I took advantage of cheap better alternatives. Ironically he can sleep easy now Android dominated 80% of the smartphone market while Apple cling to 14% th
Re: (Score:2)
Like another poster so eloquently said in another thread, the Windows and Office divisions called all the shots at Microsoft since they raked in the dough and subsidized money-losing divisions. Now those sources are drying up and this is what happens.
Re:Amazing ... (Score:4, Insightful)
They never made decent products. In fact they've made their best products ever.
Don't believe me, windows 95, MS bob, etc...
They have had a string of bad products because people more or less had to buy them to get a computer.
Typical cycle (Score:2)
All 500 companies in the Fortune 500 have greater than $1B in revenue per Quarter. Sure, $1B is a big deal, but not devastating for any major corporation.
Windows 8 was pretty lackluster, Vista sucked mightily, Millenium Edition was awful. NT, XP, 7 all turned out to be fabulous, stable OSes. Everybody hates a new paradigm in the GUI when they're used to an older one. iOS7 looks like dog shit with a side of cat puke. But we'll all get over it.
MS is super-late to the mobile app party, and they've got nothing
Re: (Score:2)
Yet none.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Were clearance priced / firehouse sold. I'll buy one for $99.00 I need something new to hack on and try to get android/linux running on.
Re:Yet none.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that part of MS' struggle with RT arises from the desire to not cannibalize their cash cows, I'd be surprised if they ever let something with a copy of Windows(even a gimped one) and a copy of Office (even with restrictive license terms) baked in out the door for $99. Even if they were OK with that, I suspect Dell wouldn't be amused, nor would the various sellers of (modestly less doomed) Atom-based Win8 mostly-tablet things.
I'd honestly be unsurprised to see them sold wholesale to be stripped for components, or debranded and flashed into mysterious pacific rim non-brand Androids, or otherwise quietly disposed of rather than dumped on the retail market at more than a modest discount.
HP's little fire sale, to the degree it made sense at all, only made sense because they had no less-doomed products in potentially competing areas, so if blowing them out at retail was the best deal they could get, per unit, it was the best thing to do.
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't necessarily bet on them doing so; but MS has the private key needed to sign payloads that the firmware will boot. If they wanted to get rid of them, it would not be a significant challenge to either 1) create a signed firmware update that removes the signature requirement, or 2) create a signed firmware update that adds the public key of the outfit they are selling the things to, or 3) offer a signing service to whoever buys the things, so they can whip up a Tegra3 Android image and have it boota
No thank you (Score:3)
Were clearance priced / firehouse sold. I'll buy one for $99.00 I need something new to hack on and try to get android/linux running on.
Why? Why would you promote at anti-consumer device over the many open and cheap ones out there? Why would you help a company that calls you a criminal for doing just that. I remember the xbox and how excited it was to run xbox media center and linux, and hell quake on my TV. Now look at at Microsoft on their latest xbox its the most anti consumer device in existence. Microsoft has gone back on many of its overreacting and draconian practices, but not because people have worked around them, but because they
Re: (Score:2)
why would you buy one for $100 when dual/quad core chinese tablets with newest android and access to 5mil of apps cost ~$100?
$200 gets you 9.7' Retina quad core tablet.
Summary: My bad judgement is your fault (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical sue-happy mentality of the USA: My bad judgement is your fault.
If these people had made money with the stock, do you think they'd be offering to pay Microsoft part of their profits?
Re: (Score:3)
Not so sure ... Microsoft publicly said "everything is fine" during this. If they knew stuff which was materially relevant and they didn't disclose it, it might be that this has merit.
I have no idea if that's the case, since I don't know enough about the relevant laws (which will be long and complicated and interpreted differently by all parties).
But, I do know that when you do your quarterly filings you're supposed to list business ris
Re:Summary: My bad judgement is your fault (Score:5, Informative)
That's pretty much the point of disclosure rules:
My bad judgement is my fault; but if you are allowed to lie through your teeth to me, the quality of my judgement becomes nearly irrelevant: maliciously crafted garbage in? Garbage out.
Re:Summary: My bad judgement is your fault (Score:5, Insightful)
You're probably right, but...
It's shocking how little effort shareholders in the tech sector are willing to put into scrutinising the products of the companies they are investing in and asking the crucial question: "how many people are going to pay money for this?"
We saw it back in the first dotcom bubble - investors ploughing money into businesses which had no plausible path towards generating substantial revenues, let alone turning a profit.
We've seen it with social networks whose business plan boiled down to "erm... advertising?".
God knows we've seen it in the video gaming sector, where all investors seem to want to here is the appropriate catchphrase, which, depending on the year in question might be: "the next World of Warcraft", "the next Call of Duty" or "free to play with microtransactions". This usually results in a lemming-like dash towards bankrupcy unless the company in question is one of the industry giants.
And now we've seen it with a "next iPad" tablet.
Seriously, is it that hard to look at the product line of the company you're investing in and ask yourself "can I imagine any significant number of people parting with their cash for this?".
Oh, and look at their marketing strategy as well. If it involves breakdancing, that's probably a bad sign.
Re: (Score:2)
The stock market stopped being about strong fundamentals before the .COM bubble, as you said. The last decade or more has been about hype.
Look at Facebook and their IPO -- were there solid financials to merit their price? Or was it just hype? I honestly don't know, but I suspect there was a lot of hype.
Sadly, this isn't all that different to what led to t
Re:Summary: My bad judgement is your fault (Score:4, Informative)
Be that as it may, there are certain legal obligations placed upon companies as far as what information is and is not provided to investors. That's what this is about. The fact that the write-off was 900bn is actually more of a side-fact on this one.
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that the write-off was $900bn is actually more of a side-fact on this one.
Umm, it was $900 million, not $900 billion. Microsoft is a big company, but no corporation has $1 trillion. That's still a staggeringly huge amount of money, but it's nowhere near, say, what the US spends on its military every year.
Re: (Score:2)
Typical sue-happy mentality of the USA
Totally agree, but TFS does state "false and misleading information" as sustance for the lawsuit. You gotta admit, Microsoft is no stranger to bending the friggin truth.
Anti American fun :) (Score:3)
Typical sue-happy mentality of the USA: My bad judgement is your fault.
Except that *Judgement* was based on information that is deliberately and intentionally misleading. The Judgement was good.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What's the old saying? (Score:2)
"A drooling imbecile and his money soon go separate ways?" Seriously, if they hadn't been softed by Microshaft, they surely would've been by somebody else... :p
Microsoft Lied (Score:3)
if they hadn't been softed by Microshaft, they surely would've been by somebody else... :p
Except it was Microsoft. I would love to see Murderers and Rapists using a similar defence.
Re: (Score:2)
The point is that "He shoulda known I was a con artist, Your Honor" has never been a defense to fraud.
How come... (Score:2)
In addition, win8 was universally panned by everyone PRE RELEASE!.
Could they not see that the ARM version... RT, meant "Really Terrible"?
This is the problem with paper ownership (Score:2)
what about the poor slobs that work there?
Do they deserve money?
Compare with Enron (Score:3)
Welcome to the stock market! (Score:3)
These people are like ambulance chasers, and their intended customers are big institutional investors like pension funds and hedge funds. Mom and Pop investors will likely never see a dime. I've been notified about being in-class in two stockholder class action suits like this, and even though I owned the stock in question during the stated period and spent time filling out and filing paperwork in both cases, I was rejected on some capricious technicality both times. A pipefitters local in Ohio and Calpers made out big time, though. Go figure!
I now regard these actions as akin to Samsung suing Apple over the dimensions of rectangles. And let the casual stock buyer beware, as usual. You ain't getting nothing out of this.
Limit Lawyer fees to the actual compensation (Score:4, Interesting)
If the lawyer fees are limited to 30% of the amount actually distributed to the claimants, it would go a long way in creating an incentive for the lawyers to actually make sure the claimants get some money. Right now, once the settlement is done, they lawyers collect all their money and send a form letter to claimants and move on to the next target.
I think we should make lawyers subject to malpractice laws too when they usurp the right to represent a class of claimants. Due diligence in locating all possible claimants to the class, making sure they all get due compensation, making sure the costs are not inflated etc all should come under malpractice provisions. If the lawyers screw up, the claimants should be able to sue them for malpractice.
Re: (Score:2)
Great idea, but the problem with it is that the lawyers are the ones who write the laws. Even if they did pass something like what you're suggesting, they'd word it so carefully that basically nothing would change.
This was always part of the plan (Score:2)
This was always part of the plan, they took a page directly out of the Xbox playbook, in that they knew the only way to get into the tablet market space was to subsidize their way. The Wintel market has stagnated as a result of maturity, and Microsoft has to do whatever it takes to get into this new market space. Remember back when they missed the boat with the Internet? They licensed Mosaic for millions and then developed and gave away Internet Explorer for free just to fix that problem. Their a bunch of f
I hate Microsoft just like anybody else (Score:2)
But I hate stupid investor lawsuits like this even more.
It is tiresome when a company underperforms to have investors want to sue them for being "mislead".
Last I checked, the stock market was volatile and therefore some care and actual thought should go into where you invest your money.
I mean even if a company blatantly said "Hey, we are going to triple our profits in only one quarter", any investor throwing their money against that claim deserves to lose their shirts in the investment because someone that
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, earnings reports do have a legal obligation to accuracy and deliberately omitting certain kinds of currently-available information is actionable. If you know that your company's sole manufacturing sites got hit by meteors you can't just leave that out of the earnings report. Now, you might disagree with the idea of legally regulated reporting, but that doesn't mean it's not true.
Re: (Score:2)
Misled? (Score:5, Funny)
investors who purchased stock during Q2 and Q3
Investors didn't know RT was going to be a dog by this time? What's the matter with them? Don't they read Slashdot?
scratch beneath the Surface (Score:2)
There's fraud and then there are MBAs (Score:4, Insightful)
This creates many amusing situations such as MBA types issuing Mortgage backed bonds based on mortgages issued to people with such bad credit that they usually missed their very first mortgage payment. It is the typical MBA's difficult relationship with the truth that resulted in GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices) limiting their truth distorting ways.
So any investor that invests in an MBA dominated company should know that they are dealing with a den of thieves who have degenerated into Bottom Line dominated monsters. So the only change that I would ask is that stock ticker symbols come with a super-script that tells you what percentage of the upper management has an MBA. (or used to be in real-estate / used car sales)
Re:Boo Whoo! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
And what if they had only reported numbers at the annual shareholder's meeting instead of throughout the year?
It's far from uncommon for it to take six months for the numbers to perculate through a company to the point where they can be reported. It's neither misleading nor lying -- it's just the slow movement of behemoth organizations.
People who invest in the stock market are not guaranteed a return on investment of any kind. It's legalized gambling. Always has been, always will be. And as long as
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I have never understood why listening to morons on CNBC, Fox Business, or anywhere else was any different from listening to some guy screaming on a street corner.
Re: (Score:2)
"I have never understood why listening to morons on CNBC, Fox Business, or anywhere else was any different from listening to some guy screaming on a street corner."
Two differences. For the guy on the street corner, you have to go outside. Secondly, said guy screeming about the impending space eel apolcalypse because people have lapsed from believing in the book of Jed The Holy Phebotomist could possibly be right. That is about the sum of the difference if you don't count such tangential things as looks, sho
Re:Boo Whoo! (Score:5, Insightful)
It is very hard to see what technologies make it and what doesn't.
Usually you get the following factors I call it the 6P(mostly).
Price
Performance
Power
Portability
Programs
(Ph/F)eatures
Now at any given time there is a demand for some balance of these, however it isn't usually sure where the sweet spot is as it can change.
Price, sure the lesser the better... However if you are selling these things you want to make as much money as possible per unit, People are willing to spend so much for something until it becomes too big of desion and will need to weigh the other 5 P's
Performance, Yeah we want the fastest, but how much is that going to cost, and do we really need it to be fast for our use for it.
Power, how long will the battery last, will it affect its portability.
Portability, how small and light is it. Is is rugged enough for my daily use, does it have the Features that will allow me to be portable with it, does it look good to have on my person...
Programs, like features, however you can add your own. How good are the programs available, how many of them are their.
Features, what does it do what doesn't it do. Can I live with what it doesn't do.
Now different stuff has a different balance of this stuff. I have a crossover Lenovo thinkpad laptop/tablet. I have gained in Performance, Features, and Programs, but I lost out portability, power, and price. But I like it, because it fits my needs.
However we really don't know what the people want until it is out. You can have as many checks to see if people like it as you want. But you will never know until it is released.
Re:Boo Whoo! (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I despise Ballmer, he is a bean counter/finance guy. I don't think you can lay all blame for all decisions in Win8 at his feet. The issue with Win8 is that what works about tablets: Security/simplicty/stability etc weeded out the bulk problems of users. Making Win8 a full OS forced onto tablets took away all of those and left behind the pains of legacy cruft. Now tablet users get to worry about Virus' and malware and services that conflict. New device same problems. Plus the added confusion of WinRT and the fact that you need to jump back and forth to a desktop mode (entirely schizophrenic in practice)
Re: (Score:2)
The first tablets ran windows 95, and were powered by pentiums.
the first smart phones ran windows CE.
Somewhere around 1999/2000. This is back when a "tablet" was called a "PDA". They gained cell modems and became phones long before android or apple.
Somewhere around 2005, Archos and nokia started selling internet tablets with wifi and linux.
Re: (Score:2)
Has archos ever managed to release a bug free product? I only ask because i've not seen one yet that doesnt promise more than it delivers.
The latest disaster seems to be the gamepad which is so bad they are claiming they are out of warranty even thou they first released them for sale on the 6th of December last year.
After a long series of emails and resets I finally got them to issue a rma since the camera didn't work even without any "buggy" third party software to cause random crashes and freezing and re
Re:Boo Whoo! (Score:4, Interesting)
The first tablets ran windows 95, and were powered by Pentiums.
Actually, somewhere around 93/94 time-frame the company I worked for was looking for a device for our customers to use as a carry around input device. I remember one of the devices we considered was a windows 3.1 based "tablet" computer, although I think it was called a "pen" computer back then.
I sort of wish I still had the thing, because it would be good for a laugh now. It was about the size of a laptop (in other words it was about two-three inches thick) and was just a rectangular box with a (12" maybe) touch screen on one side. IIRC it had a floppy and assorted ports arranged around it.
The handwriting recognition was a PITA though. You tapped where you wanted to input text and it popped up a little dialog with a grid (like some paper forms a few years ago) and you were expected to write one letter per box and it would generate the letter it thought you entered below it.
Of the 3 or 4 of us that tired to use it, none of us could get a reasonable recognition rate out of the thing. I think we ended up trying to use it with one of the accessibility keyboards on screen. That by itself was a PITA, but for a device intended to be used while standing up/walking around it was impossible. Holding it in a position with one arm while entering data with the other got tiring really quickly. Probably, because it weighted something like 10 lbs.
In the end I think we ended up using a little calculator sized device with a keyboard. It wasn't great but you could hold it with two hands and type with your thumbs at a pretty decent rate.
BTW: I think it was a 486, and poking around on google I noticed that "Windows for Pen Computing" which is what it was running was released in 1991, a few years before we were trying to use it.
Re: (Score:3)
Check out this video: ~2.50 mins in. Its Bill Gates talking about their "tablet" circa 1991.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eenDjMXfVBQ [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3)
"The first tablets ran windows 95, and were powered by pentiums."
Absolutely wrong.
the FIRST tablets ran Windows 3.11 for pen computing and were powered by 386 processors. I had one, Dauphin DTR-1 the very FIRST tablet ever made. I then had others that ran on 486 and on up. Win95+ pentium was well into the 3rd generation of tablets.
Re: (Score:2)
I certainly don't think EVERY ASPECT of it was a failure. Much of the physical design was very nice. the kickstand seemed well designed and that keyboard/cover thing wasn't perfect but was clever and from what I read did the job quite well. The hardware in general was good, if not great. It's the software part of things that sucked, which doesn't bode well for the biggest software company in the world.
Re:Boo Whoo! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Which shop sells an "Android (Froyo)" phone? All the phone shops round here sell Samsungs or Nokias or HTCs etc. I suppose I could get confused between a Galaxy S4 or a Galaxy S3, but they both do pretty much the same thing.
I can almost see your point about different cities, but it's obvious that cities in different countries are named by different people and that's why you get name collisions.
Microsoft on the other hand are almost deliberatel
iPads not that popular. (Score:2)
Am I dumb and missing the sarcasm? People don't normally carry their iPads everywhere with them, but I know TONS of people who have them. Most don't even bother with their PC's anymore.
In the context of your quote iPads sales are plummeting. Those may be Android tablet Kathleen Sullivan.
Android Market Leaders (Score:3)
Android sales are high because everyone starts with the 80 dollar Android tablet and discovers it's junk before they upgrade to something better.
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24253413 [idc.com] Sorry those are the latest figures. That is Apple having a sales drop of 14% Year On Year while Samsung rise of 277%, In a market that raised 60% YonY.
The bottom line is Apple need to start competing on more than brand.
Re: (Score:2)
No the problem is it's hard to sell a new ipad to someone that already has an ipad that works just fine. I know a LOT of people that still happily used their ipad1's They dont have nerd ADHD and must have new shiny every times one comes out.
Re:Shareholder lawsuits (Score:5, Informative)
Only if the company misled about the existence of the lawsuit.
But because even microsoft isn't completely retarded you'll find their 10-K will always have something like:
"""
We have claims and lawsuits against us that may result in adverse outcomes. We are subject to a variety of claims and lawsuits. Adverse outcomes in some or all of these claims may result in significant monetary damages or injunctive relief that could adversely affect our ability to conduct our business. The litigation and other claims are subject to inherent uncertainties and management’s view of these matters may change in the future. A material adverse impact on our financial statements also could occur for the period in which the effect of an unfavorable final outcome becomes probable and reasonably estimable.
"""
in it.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll note that they didn't disclaim the existence of lawsuits, only their outcomes.
Re: (Score:2)
"We are subject to a variety of claims and lawsuits"
Clearly states the existence of lawsuits. And then the rest is "guess what, if we lose some it could cost us lots of money" (since that's what the SEC actually cares about).
Big Bucket of Cash (Score:2)
I've always wondered... let's say the court finds for the plaintiffs. Shouldn't the current shareholders then be able to sue for the loss of investment from the company having to pay off the past shareholders?
In theory the accountants lay away a certain amount of cash to deal with various lawsuits. It should just be an adjustment next quarter. The current shareholders are suing over being deliberately mislead, which Microsoft Management is not allowed to do to shareholders. Current shareholders could not sue over that :). In theory they could sack the management.