On Sun, 2002-02-03 at 10:40, Ged Haywood wrote:
> Guys, things are the way they are. Bill Gates just gave $17M to a
> charity here in the UK which might, just might, stop AIDS from getting
> a grip in the heterosexual population (read: my family). He probably
> wouldn't have been able to do that had he never left his basement.
Okay, I don't know what started this thread, but *I'M*GOING*TO*END*IT*!
[ I was just commenting before on how DR-DOS was worth the cost. ]
Did he give cash? Or just software?
Over here in the US, Microsoft's "finances" are getting under review.
You'd be surprised how much they "donate" just for tax write-offs and
"create money" out of "thin air." It is just insulting!
E.g., the Gates foundation reguarly gives hundreds of millions of
dollars to libraries, schools, etc... Actual cost to Microsoft?
Usually under $1M total in software materials. Total tax write-off?
Hundreds of millions of dollars as they get "market equivalent". They
invent money!
Again, it is just insulting. People over here in the US think Microsoft
is "good for the US economy." BS! The only thing "good" about
Microsoft in our economy is the over-inflated stock price drives most
people's "artificial" worth -- and everytime their stock price drops,
people lose money. Microsoft is a _bad_ stock to have and/or is
_no_good_ for our economy because:
A) Microsoft has _never_ paid dividens in its 15-year public history
B) Microsoft has _never_ paid taxes in its 15-year public history
[ Most of this is due to the "false" tax write-offs, as well as
non-preferred stock options and their over-inflated price ]
C) Microsoft almost always hires temporary employees with no benefits
D) Their P/E ratio sucks (was over 120 when their stock was
over 100! Still not very good.)
But because every little "growth-focus fund" has Microsoft stock, people
think they are important. You know how I got by in this whole drop in
the US stock market? I picked medium growth funds with good dividens!
That mean 0% Microsoft stock! My mutual funds and other fund
investments never dropped more than 10% overall!!! But if you had heavy
Microsoft stock, yeah, you got fried by 25-50%!
So people think Microsoft is important for our economy. Yeah, because
stupid investors have made them that!
> FWIW I agree that W1nd0ze sucks as an OS for my purposes, but there
> are hundreds of millions of satisfied customers out there and you
> can't take that away from the most successful business of all time.
Microsoft software has always been 3rd best or so. Usually because they
buy out the 3rd best competitor or so. Then they take #1 and #2 down
with bundling, 2+ year prior-to-launch marketing, per-model pricing
(which was already ruled to be illegal in the 1995 decree), etc... IBM
used to do this to in the '70s and they got slammed for it (restricted
bundling, no announcements more than 6 months in advance, etc...).
I mean, how do you think Microsoft Office got so popular?!?!?!
Bundling! They bundled it for free! Heck, if a OEM bundled a competing
suite, Microsoft paid a "rebate" to them to drop it! In traditional
sales terms, that's known as "dumping."
-- Bryan
--
Bryan J. Smith, Engineer mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc. http://www.linux-wlan.org
SmithConcepts, Inc. http://www.SmithConcepts.com
---------------------------------------------------------
1999 IRS Data: The top 1% of income earners pay over 36%
of the taxes, but have less than 20% of the total income.
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