We hate our Ipod. Its always broken. No matter how new it is. We're pretty sure one day we'll lose all our music because we can't be bothered to properly back up all 9,000 songs we carry on our hard-drive. Despite all this, somehow we've bought at least five of them. Everyone we know has a couple, including at least one that doesn't work. No wonder Microsoft wants in on this kind deal-the Ipod is basically made the Microsoft Way. What's that? In short: sell an unreliable product that is nonetheless so useful you cannot really live without it.
The Big Picture today takes a look at the Zune and sees it as a reminder of what Microsoft is really about.
Let's get a few things straight about Mister Softee. First, forget all the chatter coming from Redmond about innovation. They are now and have always been uttery shameless copycats. They do not innovate; They do not create cool products; They are boring code writing cubicle dwelling drones -- and that's what they should be.
The second thing you need to know about Microsoft: They print money like they were a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department.
Hasn't everyone read Microserfs yet? If you want to know about Redmond, you'd better pick it up. Doug Coupland's insights are worth a thousand analysts. Zune, Microsoft and Corporate Culture [The Big Picture]
Martin Taylor, a top marketing aide to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, has been fired abruptly left the company. Microsoft was notably tight-lipped about Taylor's departure, which had the effect of opening the door to widespread speculation about what might have gone on behind the scenes. Blogger ArsTechnica, for instance, speculates that Ray Ozzie, who is set to take over the product development duties from Bill Gates over the next two years, might be behind it.
A possible reason for Taylor's dismissal could be the fact that Ray Ozzie is set to take over Bill Gates' position in 2008, and he may want to assemble his own team of executives. That would make sense, especially at a time like this when the Live services are in their early stages.
Bill Gates isn't dead, but people are already sharing their favorite Gates stories as if it were a wake. Rich Karlsgaard today offers this:
So here's my favorite story, and maybe it tells us why the rich are different. On the 11pm shuttle from Boston's Logan to New York's La Guardia, Gates sat in 27D. With one arm he worked on his Compaq 486 notebook. With the other arm, he held Benjamin Graham's classic 1949 investment book, The Intelligent Investor. Graham, who died in 1976, was a Columbia finance professor who taught Warren Buffett... then in 1993 America's richest man, ahead of Gates.
Graham's Intelligent Investor is one of the founding texts of "value investing." It famously begins with the distinction between an "investors" and a "speculator."
An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and a satisfactory return. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculative.
Didn't he already step down? Oh, right. He stepped down as CEO of Microsoft several years ago, leaving the company in the playful paws of Steve "Dancing Bear" Ballmer. Now he runs the product development parts of Microsoft.
Or ran them. Last night Microsoft announced that Gates will step down from that job too, so he can focus on running his do-gooder charity work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But don't go looking to steal supplies from his office yet, young Microserfs, because Bill's leaving in slow-motion-"transitioning" out for the next two years. Someone they implausibly call Ray Ozzie will be taking over his duties.
Gates is not quite stepping away from the company he started with Paul Allen back in 1975. He'll still be chairman of Microsoft. Until the next "Bill Gates Steps Down" announcement comes along.
Eric Savitz has launched a blog over at Barron's, Tech Trader Daily. From the initial post.
Well, here it is, the first-ever post of Barron's first-ever blog. It's been a long time coming: Barron's has been online for a decade now, but our approach until this point has focused largely on writing stories for the Web that look a lot like the ones we write in the magazine: in-depth company stories with an investment angle. And the site will continue to do a lot of that. With Tech Trader Daily, however, I'll try to apply some of the same Barron's logic to daily coverage of the tech sector. Like other bloggers, I'll be linking off to interesting stuff around the Web, from both other print publications and various places in the blogosphere.
Today he's more or less live-blogging from the Wall Street Journal's"D Confernce" and provides this quote from Sony CEO Howard Stringer: "Microsoft whips out patches like hot meals."
Paul Kedrosky says it's time for the Microsoft honcho to go.
With today's news that Microsoft's Vista could indeed slip further into next year, as I had promised would happen, there is only one rational response from Microsoft's board: Fire Steve Ballmer. He has long been an erratic force inside the company -- someone with real strengths, but also horrible deficiencies (among which is being utterly tonedeaf) -- and it is finally clear that the latter permanently outweigh the former. Of course, Ballmer had any decency he would simply resign. The odds of that happening, however, are very low.
Henry Blodget on Susan Kalla's (Caris & Co) suggestion in BusinessWeek** that Microsoft taking over Time Warner would be a "great move":
I don't know Susan and it's certainly possible that she was misquoted. If not, however, I have some questions: Where was she five years ago, when AOL bought Time Warner? Would she care to expound on why a proposal frighteningly similar to what has been deemed the most disastrous merger in business history would be a "great move"? Would she like to explain how the same company will be effective at competing against IBM and Linux on one end and sitcom production companies on the other? Would she care to hazard a guess as to where the headquarters of this fantastic new $100 billion corporation will be located? Would she... Never mind.
Ah, Henry. Ever the pessimist (except That One Time.) We'd like to see a Timecro Warnersoft if only because it would be more fun for Carl Icahn to contemplate breaking up. We'd also like to see Steve Ballmer managing Jeff Bewkes.
Other than that... terrible idea!
** We've said it before, but... people read BusinessWeek?
Reuters is totally biting our rhymes** with this piece about McNealyisms, but we can still appreciate it. And we can mourn the loss of all the smartass remarks that McNealy never got to make. In that spirit, we present the Scott McNealy Memorial "Caption the Post-Truce McNealy/Ballmer Photo" Feature (not sure if this shot is before or after the hockey jersey exchange.)
Leave captions in the comments or send them to tips AT dealbreaker.com.
** Somewhere a Reuters reporter is Googling "biting my rhymes"...
We hate our Ipod. Its always broken. No matter how new it is. We're pretty sure one day we'll lose all our music because we can't be bothered to properly back up all 9,000 songs we carry on our hard-drive. Despite all this, somehow we've bought at least five of them. Everyone we know has a couple, including at least one that doesn't work. No wonder Microsoft wants in on this kind deal-the Ipod is basically made the Microsoft Way. What's that? In short: sell an unreliable product that is nonetheless so useful you cannot really live without it.
Martin Taylor, a top marketing aide to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, has 
Bill Gates isn't dead, but people are already sharing their favorite Gates stories as if it were a wake. Rich Karlsgaard today offers this:
Didn't he already step down? Oh, right. He stepped down as CEO of Microsoft several years ago, leaving the company in the playful paws of Steve "
Paul Kedrosky says it's time for the Microsoft honcho to go.
