.jpg "Wall Street mutters against Microsoft -")
The cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street are furious with Microsoft as Vole started its new financial year.
The problem is Microsoft's share price, which is more stagnant than the British government's social policy.
You can pick up a low mileage share in Microsoft for $30 and it has been more or less like this for ages.
On Monday, Microsoft announced a $6.2 billion writedown of aQuantive , which was a 2007 Internet-advertising acquisition which to Wall Street means that Vole can't really do anything other than make Windows or Office.
Vanity Fair blamed the shy and retiring Microsoft CEO Steve "there's a kind of hush" Ballmer's "astonishingly foolish" leadership for a "lost decade".
But according to Reuters, Wall Street thinks that the write off proves that Vanity Fair was right.
Highmark Capital fund manager Todd Lowenstein said that the write off was a stark reminder that Microsoft's capital allocation policies in the past have not been ideal.
Vole is placing several several major bets over the next year. The first is Windows 8, the second is its tablets, the third is a new version of Office and finally there is its improved phone.
Lowenstein thinks Vole could still make a come back next year but there needs to be some reason to pay more than $30 for a stock that hasn't traded above that for any extended period of time since 2000.
Rick Sherlund, an analyst at Nomura Securities International said he saw a potential for a renaissance.
But the aQuantive write down showed that Microsoft had no plan to deal with the Internet. In fact everything it touches that is net related seems to turn to something that doesn't really glitter.
Despite deals with Yahoo, its Bing search engine has barely dented Google's market share in the three years and has cost an arm and a leg.
But it seems that any buck in Volish failure is being placed squarely on Ballmer.
Vanity Fair quotes one former Vole as saying that Microsoft had turned itself into "technology's answer to Sears".
The feeling is that Ballmer cannot manage creative talent, although there are also mutterings that Redmond has been balkinised between competing management fiefdoms which are constantly at war.
It looks like 2013 will either be the turning point for Microsoft, or the year that it turns into a RIM.
The Emperor is not only not wearing any clothes, he has no fashion sense either. And couldn't find a clothing store if his life depended on it.
MS doesn't innovate, it imitates. And having destroyed it's own ecosystem, there is little to copy.
Gaming might be second to porn as a reason to drive technology, but it sold a lot of high end hardware. MS lost focus there with the xbox and the windows live (before death) experience knocked it further down.
So, no reason to get better graphics, processor, whatever, the desktop evolves slower. Slower evolution means less reason to upgrade.
Less reason to upgrade, less excitement.
Apple comes out, different, excitement, lets buy an iFrown. Captures hearts and minds. Google at the same time ("or not" - stevie j) sees a chance to get into the next big thing. They make a phone.
MS stead fast in owning the living room when they need to focus on owning the handheld.
How do they fix it, Vist8 for a new desktop experience. it's like a tablet for the touchscreen desktop you dont own.
Phone8, it doesn't run anything!
Surface, the table is small. If you add enough stuff you get a nice laptop or a tablet to run notepad on....
Xbox8. 8's lucky in china. Maybe that will help. But as the xbox has to compete with roku and everyone else for the onlive / stream everything business, it becomes a very expensive box to do something less and less people care about. Luckily the graphics prowess is going to be just a bunch behind the desktop.
So what do we have left? Another word. Great. Office 2003 meets most needs, and the newer ones add some default things that don't look like billy g's necktie palette but it's not compelling. Maybe making it less compatible will help again.
Maybe they can give away the phone and the service for a year. Might help.
And if they pull the right trick with the xbox8, they actually could. But the vision isn't there. No phone for you.
At least there's the server market. As long as linux can firmly keep screwing up the desktop, they'll hold some advantage in the server market, after all, it's hard storing a password centrally.
"On Monday, Microsoft announced a $6.2 billion writedown of aQuantive , which was a 2007 Internet-advertising acquisition which to Wall Street means that Vole can't really do anything other than make Windows or Office"
Not only Vole can't do ANYTHING other than
make Windows which is utter crap but consumers does Not want Vole to do anything
until they get their OS Windows right once and for all . Do you think they can? How long has
it been? Time is up!.