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.'"
They are, ghowever (Score:5, Informative)
trying to use bailout money to build a bridge between their campuses.
Yeah, that sounds like an AF joke, but I read it a day or two ago.
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Yeah right. With our tax dollars, MS would build a maglev monorail around their campus, furnished with Italian leather chairs, open bars, 42" plasma TV's hooked up to XBox 360's and wifi.
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You left out blow and hookers...
Re:They are, ghowever (Score:5, Funny)
You forgot blackjack. Actually, forget blackjack.
Re:They are, ghowever (Score:5, Funny)
True, but the blow would only be in the MVP rail car and the hookers would stop to ask you if you want to pay extra to upgrade your experience, and when you're done she would ask you to fill out a survey about your experience.
Re:They are, ghowever (Score:5, Informative)
It's a bridge that connects two public roads and will reportedly do a great job lessening congestion on the other nearby bridge.
Despite people billing it as a "Microsoft bridge" it's not. It's a public bridge on a public road. I think Microsoft is being kinda generous by offering to pay for a huge chunk of it.
Re:They are, ghowever (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/31/bridge.microsoft/index.html [cnn.com]
"We're not a one-company town," [Mayor] Marchione says. "Our traffic studies show that Microsoft traffic would be about 42 percent of the bridge, yet Microsoft is paying for about 50 percent of the bridge, so we think we are getting fair value."
Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith wrote: "As the largest employer in Redmond, Microsoft takes its responsibility to the surrounding community seriously. We have spent over $50 million to assist the City of Redmond and other local governments with street construction, transit facilities, water and sewer facilities and fire equipment."
"Any time you can include the private sector in funding transportation projects, it's a win-win situation," Ennis explains. "The state has a monopoly on our roads system. Even if Microsoft wanted to pay for this project on their own, legally they are required to work with the public sector."
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Talk about killing the goose that lays the golden eggs...
Or at least chasing it away.
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and all those people using it are taxpaying residents, regardless of where they work. There are plenty of reasons to rag MS, this just ain't one of them, unless you are just a zealot who looks for any opportunity to find fault in MS, in which case, your opinion is worthless.
Sounds like a good plan for the city, a good offer by Microsoft, and a win/win for the taxpayers. On all other points, yea, Microsoft sucks, just not on this one.
Re:They are, ghowever (Score:5, Informative)
The bridge in question connects one publicly accessible area to another publicly accessible area where there are limited ways to get across the freeway in question. While Microsoft accounts for about 40% of the expected traffic on the new bridge, they [i.e. Microsoft] are actually footing the bill for approximately half the cost of the bridge. Those bastards! Fleecing the public by paying half of something that is a publicly owned structure that will provide a few hundred jobs for 2 years, that they won't own but will be able to benefit from, and will encourage people to WALK rather than drive everywhere. How dare they. And it's a shovel ready project. Yah.. horrible idea.
Oh sorry. Slashdot. My bad. Go on with your uninformed hating.
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The bridge in question connects one publicly accessible area to another publicly accessible area where there are limited ways to get across the freeway in question.
Would the bridge make the list of projects if Microsoft weren't involved? No? Then the public shouldn't pay a dime for it.
While Microsoft accounts for about 40% of the expected traffic on the new bridge, they [i.e. Microsoft] are actually footing the bill for approximately half the cost of the bridge.
All the non-Microsoft traffic might simply b
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Meaning "It's a public road and the public will use it".
The counter-argument is absurd and very akin to this: "Why should we, cityfolk, build a highway that goes around the city? The people who benefit most are the people driving on it!"
The people who benefit are also the people who have reduced traffic on their roads as people use the new infrastructure.
Just because Slashdot hates Microsoft doesn't mean this is absurd.
Re:They are, ghowever (Score:4, Informative)
The city of Redmond recognizes it and wants it, probably 50% of the tax revenue for that city derives from Microsoft and it's employees. Microsoft recognizes the value and wants it, hence footing half the bill. It eases up congestion on the TWO other overpasses across the freeway in the area (there's a third well away from the campus, apartments and tons of housing throughout that area that rarely gets used). So yes.. there are literally thousands of homes, people at businesses (not just Microsoft, though they are the ONLY business directly contributing), and public and private transit that can use, as well as the numerous bike and foot commuters in the area. As I said. Uninformed. You just want a reason to hate them. The fact that you've got your underwear in a bind about obfuscation code done in a beta build of an OS over 25 years ago is possibly the saddest justification for MS hate I've seen on Slashdot in a long time. So no, I don't need an explanation. You need a Xanax.
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Please Stop! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Holy crap, that (troll?) was funnier than the article!
100% Real! (Score:4, Funny)
Weird. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Weird. (Score:5, Funny)
Dont put windows on your desktop. Trust me, its just a distaster. It may seem like a cool idea, but all the crashes and breaking and the cleanup, its just not worth it.
Oh, where you talking about the OS?
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I once put windows on my desktop while installing Windows...not a pretty sight
Strange, I had the opposite effect when I installed Windows in the walls of our house. All that blue was a rather lovely change from the opaque glass of my neighbor's bathroom. Hiding the USB dock in the sill was a bit of a challenge with that counterweight coming down and smashing the plastic and all, but overall I thought it was a good use of real estate.
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Thanks to fake bailout article, MS stock drops slightly, but enough to make the people who knew about the upcoming article a nice chunk of change by shorting it.
What do you mean April 1st story? (Score:2)
This just sounds like a translation from "CEO" to "normal human being English" to me... Now everyone can know how bailout money and CEOs function!
The Timecode Reader say 092:00:50:44 (Score:2)
So it might just be ZULU 092, or April 2nd, in ZULU land - here in the Central United states it's still 091:19:50:44.
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Last time I checked there are only twenty-four hours in a day [wikipedia.org]...
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Well, I know how to tell time.
It's the 91st day
The 19th hour
the 50th minute of that hour
the 44th second of that minute.
Here's a picture [snapmylife.com] of the very same time code reader I looked at the time on. This picture was taken the last day of last year - guess how you can tell last year was a leap year?
Slashdot was useless today (Score:2, Insightful)
At least it was funny with the pink ponies thing. Today it's just useless.
Re:Slashdot was useless today (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah, me too.
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Shameless achievement whoring.
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This is just horrible.
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achievement whore-able?
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You got that right. I don't know how I look at myself in the mirror.
Re:Slashdot was useless today (Score:5, Funny)
Today it's just useless.
You must be new here.
The best April Fool's (Score:5, Funny)
This is by far the best april fools story posted today. I almost fell for it!
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That's because it's not an April's fool joke but a prophecy.
April saves me money (Score:2, Insightful)
Because every year I get a regular reminder of why subscribing to Slashdot would be a waste of money.
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You mean the constant dupes and bad summaries aren't enough?
Slashdot was useless today (Score:5, Funny)
Today it's just useless.
Today?
haha (Score:5, Insightful)
Too silly to be real; Too real to be fake; Too fake to be silly. So really, where does that leave the story?
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.
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Re:wait a minute here... (Score:5, Interesting)
I joke, I joke!
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Well, continuing with my auto analogy, if Microsoft is the GM of the operating systems, that makes FOSS the VW microbus.
And what is Android?
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A scooter
Thats a good analogy because you know around the world scooters are everywhere.
Re:wait a minute here... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, continuing with my auto analogy, if Microsoft is the GM of the operating systems, that makes FOSS the VW microbus.
but I thought FOSS was sort of like M1 tanks, made of space-age materials, and packed full of sophisticated technology, modified to never break down.
are you mixing up your analogies?
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Linux = M1, Hurd = Microbus. HTH, HAND. P.S. The original microbus is a fucking paragon of engineering, and anyone who says different doesn't understand time cube.
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Wait a minute here.... I read this story and I thought, well hey, a company tried to force on everyone a product that wasn't desirable for the consumer, waited a long time to deliver that product, and has a history of making some products that don't do so well, so is in deep trouble financially and might go under. Seemed pretty reasonable to me, isn't that how capitalism is supposed to work? If you don't make products that people want to buy, aren't you supposed to do poorly?
Gee, I was just thinking the same thing about GM and Chrysler, but of course they're a different story... somehow they're still in business. Capitalism at work, I suppose...
But then I remembered this is an April Fools joke.
Continually throwing money at companies that don't make products that consumers want or have the funds to purchase right now is no joke in my opinion. My children are going to be paying for our choices for many years to come, and they may not even have General Motors around to show for it.
Hypothetically, if we used Microsoft and Appl
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GM's single biggest problem is that they have huge health care and pension obligations to fund (lots of jackasses on TV 'simplify' this down to an hourly labor cost of ~$70, which is pretty disingenuous). Their vehicles are generally of market equivalent quality (they do make too many different vehicles), they just can't sell anywhere near the number of cars required to meet their obligations.
25 years ago, the union would have done well to demand that GM pay them enough so that they could meet their desired
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The alternative is that capitalism works, but can take some time.
Microsoft has a lot of cash which is why it is still so strong. It's current products are coming under increasing pressure from open source, the web etc. So this may not last forever - unless of course they get a bailout.
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B) Capitalism isn't working here
The system was manipulated, Microsoft was found to be guilty of abusing a monopoly position, then let off scot-free. Some are trying to resurrect the idea of penalties in the US gov't these days.
NEWS: Slashdot gets Federal Content Bailout (Score:5, Funny)
In a twitter based inquiry to take place tomorrow. congressmen are expected to ask Mr. Taco if he drove his own Internets to Washington DC.
An anonymous source within the White House quoted President Obama as saying that "Things are tough. They may have to make do with LOLcats for a while."
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CmdrTaco has been seen giving Congressional testimony asking for an infusion of Moderator points. Other cowardly anonymous sources have hinted at Chinese infiltration attempts w
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Re:NEWS: Slashdot gets Federal Content Bailout (Score:4, Funny)
How could slashdot possibly run out of stories? They've got over ten years' worth of them to keep posting!
But it is true (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:But it is true (Score:5, Informative)
Redmond is getting a new bridge and Microsoft is paying half.
Redmond has a population of around 46,000.
Microsoft employs about 30,000 full time workers and owns or leases around 8,000,000 square feet of - presumably taxable - office space in or near the city.
Dammit! (Score:2)
I REALLY need to stop reading the news on April 1st.
I can't decide what is a fucking joke and what isn't. This story and the CNN story about drug testing all unemployment/foodstamp recipients sounded equally foolish to me.
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Did you catch it?
Re:Dammit! (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, I know it's right in front of me, but how am I supposed to know what 13NF stands for?
The US Government asks Microsoft for a Bailout (Score:5, Funny)
Face with an ever increasing mountain of debt, the US Government today has asked Microsoft for a bailout. Under the terms of the bailout, Microsoft Windows licenses will be exchanged with holders of Treasury Bonds to help the USA reduce its debt.
The Chinese Government expressed great interest in the deal. "We were thinking about using Linux, but knowing that we now have the rights to sell 5 billion copies of Microsoft products allows us to settle the debt the Americans have with us, and helps us become a software super power." Under the terms of the new arrangement, every house in China will receive their choice of Visual Studio Team System, Windows Server, or a lot of games.
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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
The really sad thing about New Zealand... (Score:3, Insightful)
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But other than that, isn't NZ pretty f'in awesome?
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Mod parent -1 catastrophically ignorant.
There's no way our politicians would work for 363 days in a year.
This is a reach... (Score:2)
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The story would have been better if it had included the information that Microsoft plans to use the money to split themselves into two companies or integrate the Linux kernel into Windows to become more profitable.
Says the CEO (Score:2)
On financial Microsoft problems:
"We want to make it absolutely clear that this is not a crisis of mismanagement,"
- Steve Ballmer
(aka the guy who manages Microsoft)
Windows Live Bailout (Score:3, Funny)
Nobody is going to get all excited and upset about this bailout. All you need to know is that it's Microsoft's idea, and suddenly you're unable to care.
I'm not really known.... (Score:2)
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I've never seen you, and this comment gave me an image of a fellow in a black suit with a briefcase laughing maniacally.
Frightening, it is.
I'm surprised no one tried "In a surprising twist of irony, renowned lawyer Ray Beckerman has taken on a role with the Recording Industry Association of America as chief litigator".
How dare you! (Score:2)
ohmigosh (Score:2, Interesting)
What if it really happens in April 1, 2015? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a April 1 joke but spare some time to think what if it really happens in the future, especially if you are a Developer who has put all eggs on Microsoft/Windows basket. Can't happen? Trust me, it happens. If someone came and told Amiga will be dead while we use that Amiga 500 miracle, we would laugh at his face.
Look to what happened to General Motors giant, especially them since they never thought about future may change, people may really pay more money to smaller cars made by companies they joked about just 5 years before.
That's a wrap (Score:2)
Slashdot just totally jumped the shark with this one.
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You must be new here. (That's three AF comments I've found so far which are best-answered with this old saw. This is the first one by someone with a UID < half mine, though.)
Re:It's April 2 now (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:It's April 2 now (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's April 2 now (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's April 2 now (Score:4, Funny)
Noon?
Even I think that's a bit harsh. Many days, I'm still sleeping at such an early hour.
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It's 4+ more hours in Redmond WA before April 1 is over
Re:It's April 2 now (Score:5, Informative)
I've never heard that in my life. But the One True Source of All Knowledge [wikipedia.org] enlightens us:
'Traditionally, in some countries, the jokes only last until noon: like UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa, someone who plays a trick after noon is called an "April Fool".[1] Elsewhere, such as in Ireland, France, and the USA, the jokes last all day.'
Re:It's April 2 now (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, in France since we have Sarkozy, it's all year long...
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I agree entirely. Its why April Fools day was known years ago as "All Fools Day"
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Still April 1st here in California...
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Re:It's April 2 now (Score:5, Funny)
It's always April 1st in the United States.
Re:It's April 2 now (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's April 2 now (Score:5, Funny)
The Timecode Reader say 092:00:54:44 (Score:2)
So it might just be ZULU 092, or April 2nd, in ZULU land - here in the Central United states it's still 091:19:54:44
Because it's not (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe because /. is a US based site, and it's not April 2nd anywhere in the US yet?
Re:It's April 2 now (Score:5, Funny)
Funny, that. Just yesterday you were claiming it's April 1st when it was really March 31st. Stop living in the future, man!
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moran
is that an irish moron?
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