>From the article:
<Quote>
On election eve, November 2000, I purchased 100,000 shares of MSFT at
a split-adjusted, average price of $36 per share for a total cost of
$3.6 million. [He probably voted for Bush, too.]
In these last eight years, I have witnessed an appalling decline in
shareholder value of this extraordinary business enterprise. My
personal shareholder value has been steadily destroyed both in actual
and potential value...
MSFT should now be selling at twice the price I originally paid.
Instead, it is selling at half the price I paid. Apple, meanwhile
has experienced a nine-fold growth in share value during this period.
[Somebody better tell Ray Lopez 0.999.]
Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer each own so much MSFT stock and are
thereby so wealthy that they have no real-world sensitivity to the
unrelenting diminution of the MSFT stock price.
[Actually, they've been selling off as fast as they can.]
Microsoft... should not be in the hardware business selling low-
margin, low-volume games and devices such as Xbox.
Microsoft has no proven skills in the business of advertising, either
as a marketer of its own products and services or as an advertising
service provider in the Google space.... Compare the last eight years
of Microsoft’s own brand advertising with Apple -- the proverbial
David, relentlessly beating the clumsy Goliath, Microsoft, with a
slingshot. Imagine...the waste of $300 million on the short-lived,
inane Gates/Seinfeld ad campaign that has now morphed into a feckless
series of sophomoric testimonials with absolutely no sense of what a
brand is all about. [That's just the problem---what is the brand
about?]
How many billions has Microsoft squandered on losing legal battles
[not to mention, fines to the EU etc]
Where are the tangible results of the billions spent on R&D? [R&D?
You mean, "innovation"? How about the Zune? Don't worry! Surface
will turn it around!] Where is the accountability for the lateness of
the Windows Vista operating system and its poor design and
performance?
</Quote>
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