After takin' a swig o' grog, Rex Ballard belched out
this bit o' wisdom:
> On Jan 30, 10:30 am, Doug Mentohl <doug_ment...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Microsoft founder Bill Gates has told the BBC that it could take as much
>> as four years for economies in trouble to return to positive growth.
>
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/davos/7860708.stm
>
> Perhaps this is because he knows that Windows 7, if it comes out in
> 2010, won't actually start generating serious revenue until 2012,
> almost 4 years from now.
>
> Keep in mind that Microsoft stock is widely held by pension funds,
> mutual funds, retirement funds, and other investments normally
> intended to provide income and growth of the principle so that current
> and future obligations can be paid in the future.
>
> Microsoft clearly got caught flat-footed when Vista sales (that
> weren't actually XP sales being counted as Vista sales) fell WAY below
> expectations. The problem is that because Microsoft had put all it's
> eggs in the Vista basket, corporate customers decided to terminate or
> lapse their support contracts, paying a nominal "buy-out" fee to get
> permanent licenses that could be transferred to any computer used by
> an employee of the company, or used only on company premises. What
> they actually got was a count of licenses, typically 20% more than the
> number of total employees, and as much as 70% more than the number of
> employees who actually used computers.
>
> Last year it was a nice little wind-fall and fluffed up Microsoft's
> revenues. Microsoft was even able to report them as "Vista" sales,
> since the licenses were sold as Vista licenses that could be
> downgraded to XP or Windows 2000.
>
> Now that windfall money is gone, and they can't even push any more
> stale Vista licenses into the pipe. PC sales have been so slow and
> prices so low that most OEMs are demanding substantial or full credit
> for unused licenses from the previous year. I wouldn't be surprised
> if some OEMS have enough surplus licenses to actually be able to go a
> year without ordering ANY additional licenses.
>
> There are other "Tells" that let the OEMs know that Windows or Vista
> or Steer or whatever Microsoft wants to call it, isn't doing as well
> as Microsoft might think. When people don't buy any additional
> windows software, especially Office, it's an indicator that the buyer
> might be installing something else. When they don't buy extended
> warrantees, or only buy short-term replacement contracts - it usually
> indicates that they will be installing something else - since the
> Warranty only offers Windows support.
>
> When the OEMs see these types of indicators, that's a pretty good sign
> that Vista is not a substantial "hot button" in their choice to
> purchase that computer. Some OEMs, like Dell also offer installation
> media kits, so that you can install previous versions of Windows.
>
> Finally, when machines that ONLY support Windows and Vista sit on the
> shelves and ROT, dropping in price every week, until the Retailer has
> to clear them out at below cost to avoid inventory taxes, and tells
> the OEM they will never order more of those, it's a pretty good
> indicator that Vista is not an asset to the sale.
>
> When 2 of the largest PC retailers close all, or nearly all of their
> stores, and can't pay for the inventory they've ordered. That's a
> pretty good sign that Vista is not a big asset to the PC sales.
>
> When other Retailers shut off all the PCs on the sales floor, rather
> than take the only PC they are selling for a profit, of the shelves,
> that's a pretty good sign that Vista isn't good for the market.
Nice post. If there's any factual error, it ain't obvious to me.
In a way, it vindicates DFS, who claimed "If it weren't for Windows, you
wouldn't be posting now."
Yep, if it weren't for Windows, we wouldn't be getting these jack-cheap
machines with 4 to 6 Gb of RAM and 200 Gb hard-drives that we can strip
Vista off of to install Linux or a BSD.
--
<Knghtbrd> I can think of lots of people who need USER=ID10T someplace!
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