Microsoft Asks Fed For Bailout 346
snydeq writes "Microsoft requested on Tuesday some $20 billion in bailout funds from the federal government, claiming that as the company controls an overwhelming share of the OS market, it is too big to fail. Low adoption rates for Vista, the ensuing ad campaign trying to convince people that they really do like Vista, and the increased need for development resources to rush Windows 7 to market to make people forget about Vista have necessitated the bailout, the company said. 'We want to make it absolutely clear that this is not a crisis of mismanagement,' said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in a prepared statement. 'This is simply a crisis of dollars — a crisis of not having enough dollars coming our way.'"
Re:They are, ghowever (Score:2, Interesting)
wait a minute here... (Score:5, Interesting)
But then I remembered this is an April Fools joke. Since it's not true, and Microsoft is doing just fine, I thought about why it isn't true: either A) Microsoft really is making products that people want or B) Capitalism isn't working here. Regarding A, I suppose MS does make more decent products than bad ones, but I can't help but think of Microsoft as the GM of the auto-world 20 years ago in that they have a much larger market share than the quality of their products warrants (suggesting B). So I wonder when the Toyota of the operating system world is going to come along and eat MS' lunch? It must be nice to be a monopoly.
P.S. Please MS fanboys, try to remember that the troll or flamebait mods are not a substitute for an "I disagree that Vista was a failure" mod.
Re:wait a minute here... (Score:5, Interesting)
I joke, I joke!
Re:They are, ghowever (Score:1, Interesting)
ohmigosh (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The US Government asks Microsoft for a Bailout (Score:3, Interesting)
I know this is supposed to be a joke, and I'm sick today so maybe my brain isn't working quite right... but something actually seems rather insightful about this suggestion.
Software is something of genuine market value (in any country that has effective copyright laws to create artificial scarcity, at least) that can be reproduced virtually for free. Seems like the perfect thing to get someone out of debt. Invest in it once and then rake in the dough.
Perhaps the US Gov't could arrange licences with certain highly successful software companies to trade *them* (the software companies) treasury bonds in exchange for licences to distribute those highly successful software packages (perhaps only internationally, reserving the domestic market to the private sector). Use the proceeds from that to pay down foreign debt. That still leaves the US Gov't with debt to some major US companies, which is a less than ideal situation, but certainly preferable to debt to foreign states: at least when that debt gets paid off, the money goes to business in the US, and therefrom to the employees of those businesses, and back around into the US economy.
Re:It's April 2 now (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's April 2 now (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's April 2 now (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree entirely. Its why April Fools day was known years ago as "All Fools Day"
Maybe April Fools, but why not? (Score:1, Interesting)
Microsoft has obscene amounts of cash in the bank and they are a company which whether slashdoters like it or not is a major integral part of the U.S., it seems to me that dumping $20 billion into Microsoft (as a loan of course) is an excellent way to try and recoup a portion of the bail out money they're splurging everywhere. Seriously, $20 billion in Microsoft's hands focuses on growth and development certainly doesn't sounds like money lost.
Besides the obvious financial benefits of investing in Microsoft, the democratic government can grow industry in IT instead of in weapons. There is a huge amount of talent in defense jobs on the west coast that will almost certainly be unemployed in the near future as the democrats begin chopping military funding. Microsoft I'm sure could certainly find a home for them using this money.
Also, Obama has a great opportunity to bring advanced research to America. America's advanced research has suffered tremendously over the past decade (even with Bill Clinton) since NSF funding for advanced research has been limited as basic research yields profits much faster. Advanced research often never directly yields profit, however the papers produced by publicly funded advanced research allows many companies to profit from the results of the research. China will almost certainly begin to dominate the basic research fields over the next few years, it's profitable for them and works extremely well with their economy. The U.S. can create a knowledge gap by promoting advanced research in universities and organizations large enough to support research divisions and fellowship programs.
Place a stipulation that any organization receiving this funding would be required to make the results public and patent free and the entire nation benefits from it. Of course the organization would be able to choose areas of research to fund with this money that applies most directly to them. But a company like Microsoft can benefit greatly from research that takes 5-10 years to conduct and only "may" produce results that can be profited from.
Frankly, I'd like to see Bell Labs, Xerox PARC and many others receive funding in this direction from the government. This would let me sleep well at night knowing the government is not only trying to cover their own asses for the next 4-8 years, but also trying to help build a future for my children.