H
HEMI-Powered
Today, MICHAEL made these interesting comments ...
Thanks, Michael. As I said at the end, I thought you and I were
pretty much on the same page. I mainly commented to amplify what
you'd already said especially for the lurkers who may not be as
familiar with the strangeness of operating system non-
competitiveness.
You're right on the stock; Last time, I bought it for the long-
term, or so I thought, except that the long-term started down a
steep slide during the dot.com meltdown in 1999-2000, got hit
with the post-9/11 debacle that hit all the high tech stocks, and
has never recovered. This time, I bought in much smaller and am
watching to see if Vista and other soon-to-be-released products
do or don't cause the stock to move up. If not, I'm outta here!
No matter how loud they shout it, I really cannot recall MS EVER
producing truly innovative software, whether it is O/S or
application. Right now, they're trying to convince the world they
can out-Adobe in photo editing and have even started selling
printer paper! A software house competing for people's money for
the paper their printer uses?
And, if those folks spent more time on developing good features
and debugging and less time worrying about people pirating their
code, we'd all enjoy both lower prices and more stable software.
I don't know how many people are tied on on the WGA et al biz but
it has to take away from the overall development effort plus it
greatly increases the changes of side-effect bugs and things like
false-positives where you know you're legit and MS thinks you're
not.
As to the stock price again, the market views MS in its entirety,
Windows, Office, graphics, servers, everything as a mass market
commodity and they EXPECT ever increasing revenues and profits.
As I'm sure you're well aware, stock prices move on the
anticipation of news - good or bad - not on the news itself,
unless there's a big surprise as when MS delayed Vista last year.
So, if the forecasts are met or even exceeded, there's nothing
for "the street" to be excited about, hence the price doesn't
move.
Now, if MS really did do something that is truly new, innovative,
and unique, then, yes, I believe their stock price would be
rewarded. But, adding bells and whistles to their O/S and
correcting security holes that should never have been there in
the first place is hardly what savvy investors are looking for.
Neither is me-too stuff ala MS's version of the iPod.
And, every year Gates and his entourage come to Detroit to try to
sell technocracy to the car companies, all with zero success so
far. Unlike PCs, where people are used to rebooting and always
upgrading and/or installing bug patches, cars are expected to
start and run correctly day in and day out, and NOT need
patching. So, again, if MS could come to Detroit and say "look,
here is an all-new approach to the development of YOUR computer
software and here's an all-new approach to exiting the young
potential buyers who're technology inclined, then, yes, I think
they could sell their wares.
You do the same.
[snip the previous]
Thanks, Michael. As I said at the end, I thought you and I were
pretty much on the same page. I mainly commented to amplify what
you'd already said especially for the lurkers who may not be as
familiar with the strangeness of operating system non-
competitiveness.
You're right on the stock; Last time, I bought it for the long-
term, or so I thought, except that the long-term started down a
steep slide during the dot.com meltdown in 1999-2000, got hit
with the post-9/11 debacle that hit all the high tech stocks, and
has never recovered. This time, I bought in much smaller and am
watching to see if Vista and other soon-to-be-released products
do or don't cause the stock to move up. If not, I'm outta here!
No matter how loud they shout it, I really cannot recall MS EVER
producing truly innovative software, whether it is O/S or
application. Right now, they're trying to convince the world they
can out-Adobe in photo editing and have even started selling
printer paper! A software house competing for people's money for
the paper their printer uses?
And, if those folks spent more time on developing good features
and debugging and less time worrying about people pirating their
code, we'd all enjoy both lower prices and more stable software.
I don't know how many people are tied on on the WGA et al biz but
it has to take away from the overall development effort plus it
greatly increases the changes of side-effect bugs and things like
false-positives where you know you're legit and MS thinks you're
not.
As to the stock price again, the market views MS in its entirety,
Windows, Office, graphics, servers, everything as a mass market
commodity and they EXPECT ever increasing revenues and profits.
As I'm sure you're well aware, stock prices move on the
anticipation of news - good or bad - not on the news itself,
unless there's a big surprise as when MS delayed Vista last year.
So, if the forecasts are met or even exceeded, there's nothing
for "the street" to be excited about, hence the price doesn't
move.
Now, if MS really did do something that is truly new, innovative,
and unique, then, yes, I believe their stock price would be
rewarded. But, adding bells and whistles to their O/S and
correcting security holes that should never have been there in
the first place is hardly what savvy investors are looking for.
Neither is me-too stuff ala MS's version of the iPod.
And, every year Gates and his entourage come to Detroit to try to
sell technocracy to the car companies, all with zero success so
far. Unlike PCs, where people are used to rebooting and always
upgrading and/or installing bug patches, cars are expected to
start and run correctly day in and day out, and NOT need
patching. So, again, if MS could come to Detroit and say "look,
here is an all-new approach to the development of YOUR computer
software and here's an all-new approach to exiting the young
potential buyers who're technology inclined, then, yes, I think
they could sell their wares.
You do the same.
[snip the previous]