On Jul 28, 3:31 pm, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
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> Microsoft slashes Office prices in RP
Also
<quote>
MAKATI City, Philippines -- Microsoft has slashed the price of its
Office suite for home users and students by about 40 percent, its
Philippine subsidiary said this week.
</quote>
I suspect that within the next 90 days, Microsoft will be announcing
similar discounts for lots of other markets. Bottom line, nobody
really likes Office 2007 enough to pay the premium for an upgrade.
Even premium support customers who are supposed to get free upgrades
to Vista and Office 2007 aren't installing it, because both cause more
problems than they solve.
It seems that editing a document with Office 2007, and trying to save
it in Office 2000 format is even more unpredictable than when you edit
a document with OpenOffice and save it in Office 2000 format. At
least with Open Office you get a pretty close match, with minor
formatting differences due to font substitution (can't use Microsoft's
trademarket/patented fonts).
It seems that Office 2007 can create some really ugly nonsense.
And if you save it in the OpenXML format, you pretty much leave your
machine OPEN to every imaginable sort of hacker, whether it's viewed
with the OpenXML plug-in for Office 2000/XP or Office 2007 itself.
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | "This is also part of our Unlimited Potential program," added Rivera-Moreno.
> | Microsoft's Unlimited Potential is a global program aimed at helping the
> | middle and bottom of the world's economic pyramid of about 5 billion people,
> | the software company's website stated.
> `----
It's really funny. Linux has been reaching out to that 5 billion
people for over 10 years now. When Windows NT came out, corporations
sent their Windows 95 machines, sans operating systems, to charities
that installed Red Hat, and sent them on to emerging markets. Back in
those days, those markets were India, China, Eastern Europe, South
America, and southern Africa.
It worked pretty good. India has a population of about 1 billion
people, and about 30% use the internet regularly on their own
computers, and another 20% use it occaisionally using cell phones,
public kiosks, or internet cafes. In southern India, Linux is more
popular than Windows. In Brazil, another country with a very large
population, Linux has become the "de-facto" standard for most
institutions, and the businesses who support them. As a result, the
economy has become more stable, and has been growing steadily.
Pretty much all of the markets seeded by Linux in 1997 and after have
gone from "third world" countries to "emerging markets" to "key
strategic markets" - all in less than 10 years.
> http://technology.inquirer.net/infotech/infotech/view/20080726-150885...
Ironically, most of these computers **SHOULD** have had licenses,
since they were sold with OEM licenses, but Microsoft got greedy and
claimed that the Corporate licenses nullified the OEM licenses, and as
a result, the machines donated to charity had to be re-licensed by
Microsoft (for donation receipts at full retail).
When the Linux machines came to these emerging markets, Microsoft
insisted that these machines were REALLY being turned into Windows
machines using bootleg copies of NT 4.0 (even though the reason the
machines were given away was because they could NOT run the new OS).
There were similar waves with Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
> They try to counter OpenOffice.org and Web-based office suites. They also turn
> a blind eye to infringements in this country. How telling! No wonder they
> corrupted the entire planet for a new-generation proprietary format.
This was all a matter of public record. In the Ohio vs Microsoft
trial, one of the memos indicated that Microsoft must "Win against
Linux at all costs". If this meant giving away Windows and Office for
free, or at huge discounts, and expecting nothing back, that was
better than letting Linux seed a market for millions, or perhaps even
billions of new PC users and Microsoft losing it's market share.
> Days ago:
>
> Microsoft loses 90 Billion Dollars [in less than a year]
>
> http://slated.org/microsoft_loses_90_billion_dollars
It's getting worse too.
On December 24, 2007, the price of Microsoft stock went to 36.61 per
share.
This afternoon, the price dropped to 25.50 per share, a drop of 11.11
per share.
There are currently 9.15 billion shares currently outstanding
That's a drop of just over 101 billion dollars.
Current Market cap is just over 233 billion dollars.
That means that Microsoft has lost 1/3 of it's market cap value, in
less than 3 quarters.
I don't care how much sugar you put on that turd, it is NOT going to
taste like a candy bar.
And remember, this is with Microsoft playing shell games with license
counts, revenues, and expenses to try and hide the resistance to Vista
and Office 2007.
And now Dell and HP are both introducing competitors to the ASUS EEE
with Linux. This means that, for the first time in 20 years, a major
competitor to Microsoft will be making an appearance on Retailer
shelves, Starbucks, Airports, and many other public places. Being
called "Mobile Internet Devices" these Linux machines are light, easy
to carry, and small enough to use in a coach seat of an airplane, or
in a restaurant or even the counter at a diner or fast-food joint.
It's also perfect for taking minutes in meetings, or even recording
the entire meeting for subsequent transcription.
These things could be hotter than blackberries.
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