Wes Miller has been at the forefront of Microsoft and Microsoft licensing for eons. His tweet today on the subject of Microsoft’s 68.7 BILLION (with a
[See the full post at: 68.7 billion dollars later]
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
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Wes Miller has been at the forefront of Microsoft and Microsoft licensing for eons. His tweet today on the subject of Microsoft’s 68.7 BILLION (with a
[See the full post at: 68.7 billion dollars later]
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
What’s your take on this buy out?
You may be right, but at least at first glance, I see it more as an instant legacy gaming presence to match with Xbox and VR hardware and Windows Store apps.
Custom desktop Asus TUF X299 Mark 1 16GB RAM i7-7820X
4 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2.
Laptop Clevo/Sager i7-9750H - 17.3" Full HD 1080p 144Hz, 16GB RAM Win 10 Pro 22H2 all
Could have been good 10, 20 years ago. I just see it flatlining now.
That reminded me of IBM. I used to work on their mainframes. Apparently IBM has been able to continuously re-invent its mainframes. (it relies on the idiot IT managers of the 70’s-90’s (long gone) that wrote stuff for mainframes that can’t realistically be migrated off.) I don’t see MS being able to do that with the games. I don’t see any money in trying to lock them to XBox. And how many spinnoffs of Candy Crush will now appear from other mfrs.?
- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 Pro 23H2 WU. HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.
State-of-the-art esports facility coming to Albright College Possibly they see the future with this generation more into gaming and rather then big swimming pools and gyms, colleges and universities will be doing more of this to attract students and Microsoft will be there to get a piece of the action.
Microsoft takes a humongous step closer to the future release of the game “Monopoly”? 😉
Some commentators do seem worried:
https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-xbox-activision-blizzard-consolidation-exclusives-222028443.html
https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/microsoft-activison-blizzard-monopoly/
Win10 Pro x64 22H2, Win10 Home 22H2, Linux Mint + a cat with 'tortitude'.
Like most oversized companies, they just have too much money burning a hole in their pockets.
How about they spend in on bringing out a good windows version, and wait until its fully formed, not 1/2 baked .
My take on it? Deranged. As are too many Big Business Big Decisions these days.
Also a reason I don’t rely on any MS product anymore, except for Office, that I need to use now and then and has no right substitute for me.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
I trained myself to use Open Office (now by Apache) years ago and haven’t looked back.
- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 Pro 23H2 WU. HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.
I trained myself to use Open Office (now by Apache) years ago and haven’t looked back.
LOL – I thought you were going to send me a link telling me OO was selling all my info… (note, I NEVER give my info to OO (or libre, or whomever) ).
My bad, I am actually usually using libre since I am usually on linux, though I only use openoffice on win. Yes, I could use libre on win, and maybe I will at some point but I tend not to do anything very intense on win since I basically don’t trust it as far as I can throw it, so……. I like to try to stay current on win just to stay a bit in the know, but my eggs, at the moment, in the linux basket.
When I have a prob on linux I have found it is well worth my time to find and implement a solution. Printers cause probs for some but I have found my 3 HP lasers work perfectly on that platform. (and I am finally free of ink!)
- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 Pro 23H2 WU. HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.
krism: “I trained myself to use Open Office (now by Apache) years ago and haven’t looked back.”
Good for you. I am guessing that you do not attend big meetings in distant places, some with steep registration prices, to make presentations using Open Office when the computer used to project the attendant slides has only PowerPoint installed and you are not allowed to fiddle with that computer because all sessions run on tight schedules.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
correct, I have not been faced with that issue so I have not attempted to solve it. Sorry.
- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 Pro 23H2 WU. HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.
My take on it? Deranged. As are too many Big Business Big Decisions these days. Also a reason I don’t rely on any MS product anymore, except for Office, that I need to use now and then and has no right substitute for me.
OscarCP I totally agree with you + others posting here. 65Billion ! wow!! Deranged! I am retired from AT&T and was working for them when they launched an effort to purchase TMobile, which failed and cost 1Billion. At the time, I couldn’t believe how foolish it was, but the leadership team hardly suffered any consequences that I knew of. 65B is an unimaginably huge number! What a waste, what arrogance! As others have commented, MS should focus on fixing what they have and producing quality products – if they spent some of that money on Windows??? What a difference it would make. Whatever happened to this concept: produce a quality product, care about what you do and provide service?
Oscar, I am moving to same place you are at – off Windows (lifetime user) except for MS365 suite bc I can’t find anything else that is the right substitute. I know other products work for other people. But not for me. I actually think the MS365 Suite is a great product! I find it superior to the Apple counterpart (esp excel). I had used Libre office, and it did not work for me. MS365 works well with my IOS devices, I use One Drive, Personal vault. I’m a lifetime user, so that makes a huge impact in my comfort level with the product.
I will migrate off the Windows laptop soon – still deciding if I am going to get a Mac mini or MacBook or just use IPad Pro (which I am using now). I am really ready to be done with Windows computer. I think Apple will offer a better experience, but ultimately, Apple is just another big business and they have many of their own issues we need to be concerned with too.
Yes, but, again, I don’t think MS is interested in any more than 80%. To them, if it runs, then it’s okay. If it has a few problems, that’s okay, too, and they can be slowly dealt with.
Users save MS tons of $ by finding and documenting errors/problems much faster and more efficiently than MS could ever do it on its own.
- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 Pro 23H2 WU. HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.
krism: “Users save MS tons of $ by finding and documenting errors/problems much faster and more efficiently than MS could ever do it on its own.”
I would imagine that if MS setup a QC department and funded it to the tune of US$1,000,000,000 a year, so that would be US$68,000,000,000 in 68 years, or about three generations, if they did that, then MS would find those software problems lickety-split. And not find instead itself and much sooner, in the by then post-Nadella’s Golden Parachute era, with a hyper-costly fiasco in their hands. And still have 0.7 billion left over to cover that Golden Parachute.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
“I would imagine that if MS setup a QC department and funded it to the tune of US$1,000,000,000 a year,”
Actually, having experienced MS for about 40 years,my bet is that they wouldn’t…
By and large, it seems to be the users that discover problems by using it.
- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 Pro 23H2 WU. HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.
I am prepared to concede that krism (*) might be right as to the facts, so far, but even so I am inclined to think that if at MS they did as I have recommended further up in this thread, there should be two significant benefits, compared to continuing to do things the way they seem now determined to do them:
(1) The quality of their main product of interest here: Windows, will get better, particularly for the members of the hoi-polloi, those Windows users who are neither big business nor “Enterprise”, and so are not the beneficiaries of MS idea of whom they really ought to be helping use Windows, as I understood what Susan has meant to say in her blog.
(2) The life of MS as a business shall be significantly longer than if their managers continue to throw away money like there is no tomorrow. Because if they continue doing this, there shall be no tomorrow — for them. Or else the world is even crazier than I have suspected all along.
(*) krism uses Linux. I use a Mac. That tells you something right there.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
Which move?
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
In the same way that IBM survives because of folks who wrote stuff back in the 70’s to 90’s that require the use of their mainframes, MS survives because of the multitude of folks and businesses that have jobs that can seemingly only run under windows and would (probably) cost a fortune to convert to something else. Stupidity tends to be self perpetuating. Once you throw an anchor overboard, it’s hell to pull it back in and move on. Intel and IBM simply make smaller and faster processors to make up for the problems, and IT managers don’t see a viable path to convert.
Yes, I am mostly running linux at the moment. I have tried many many times to shift to linux and failed for one reason or another. This time I have been on it for quite a while – a year? I truly forget. But if I fail, I will keep looking for ways to solve that problem and try again. I do not see a future with windows, though I know it will be around forever.
So MS has a bunch of money and is looking for ways to invest it. Investing it into windows would not yield much, if anything in the way of returns. Games? I guess we’ll see if it’s like windows phones, or ?
Remember, most people use windows and silently put up with it. It is a very small percentage of windows users who follow sites like this and try to vent their frustration. (largely to no avail!)
Bottom line? choose a path where you have fun! – no real future in self abuse.
- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 Pro 23H2 WU. HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.
The assumption that “Windows will be around forever” I think is not quite right, because:
(a) Nothing is forever. Not even the most impressive mountains, that ever so slowly are ground into sand by the weather. And much less a single human undertaking, however good, necessary and perhaps inevitable it once might have seem.
(b) Nothing that is badly managed and guided by the visions of false prophets or by the fancies of false leaders, is likely to last very long: not a company, not an OS, not even a country. But it is now and then the case that, although it might take a while, with much time being wasted in unresolute soul-searching by those afflicted, in the end people will muddle through out of the bog somebody has led them into, or has thrown them in.
In my lifetime, I have used and then outlived already seven or eight OS of various origins. And, as far as I know, no one really misses them and neither do I — except, perhaps, for Sun Microsystems “Solaris” Unix (now known as Oracle Solaris) and Win 7.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
Tem: “What’s your take on this buy out?”
I’ll assume, just for the fun of it, that your question is addressed to me. In such case, I have to tell you that I already gave my take on this buy out earlier in this thread, here: #2419283
And this is my suggestion of how, at MS, they could have used much more productively 68.7 billion US$: #2419405
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
Used to be what passed for a “gamer” several years ago and as far as I can tell Activision has been spending about the last 20 years buying their continued existence through acquisitions of game developers and mergers and throwing on the market a seemingly never-ending sequence of “Call of Duty” games (still surprises me how players seem not to get bored at always playing the same souped up game whenever a new title in the series is released).
The merger of Activision with Vivendi back in 2008, to acquire Blizzard which was owned by Vivendi, was largely regarded as Activision’s way to buy their way into the massively multiplayer online market through Blizzard’s “World of Warcraft”, in a move to get their own cut from the practices of subscription models and microtransactions (which I largely see as poisonous practices, but that’s just my personal view).
What’s my take on this buy out? Well, given the above I find it somewhat ironical to see a company who has been spending years buying other companies to stay afloat has now “suffered” the same fate. What I find interesting is that MS already has its fair share of money from subscription models and microtransactions thanks to the Xbox business, so I don’t think that’s what they were looking for by buying Activision. And I didn’t think Activision has a strong presence in the mobile world to warrant its acquisition to buy a way into that world, but I could be entirely wrong on this, seeing I have zero interest in the mobile (gaming) world and thus Activision could well be a big player there and I simply missed that bit.
Bottom line, I kind of feel sorry for gamers, who are probably going to see just more of the same stuff: more subscription models, more microtransactions, more Call of Duty. Maybe that’s what gamers want, but as far as I care that’s just boring.
I think the name ‘Activision’ has GOOD gaming pedigree which will shore-up/ gloss over microsoft’s branding. Shrewd long-term move even though the crystal ball is opaque atm..hope for gamers’ sake it’s not another flop by MSFT.
ex-PC/Xbox360 gamer POV
Re-introduction of a dedicated QA department may have benefitted more for all, for a fraction of that cost.
While entirely true for end-users and admins, Microsoft knows they’ve already got our money, even with their lousy QA. To that end, they’re investing in new things they think people will still buy even when they’ve slashed their QA departments, thereby increasing their own profit margin.
Satisfaction? We don’t need that. We only need purchases.
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I don’t know why we expect big companies to repeat, forever, the innovation that gave them a start and the clever business strategies that made them big. Large businesses typically go through a life cycle that includes a phase where their existing products are throwing off more cash than they know what to do with–meaning, in other words, that they have run out of ideas. These companies buy others in an (usually misguided) attempt to import innovation, then often smother it.
The exceptions to this experience–the companies that can keep the innovation coming–are rare and prized by buy-and-hold stockholders. Those short-termers who put more value on cash-rich behemoths will bid up their stock prices, too, until acquisitions and other forays have exhausted it.
Economic theory says that excess cash should be returned to shareholders through share buybacks or other means. But it’s a rare management that can resist the temptation to build an empire, and many too easily believe their own press releases. If management claims that they have turned innovation into a process that can be applied anywhere–that they possess the expertise to take over and grow any kind of business–run for the hills. Remember General Electric?
Companies currently are sitting on a lot of cash partly because of the 30% increase in the money supply since the end of 2019, coupled with continued negative real interest rates.
Wdburt1: “Large businesses typically go through a life cycle that includes a phase where their existing products are throwing off more cash than they know what to do with–meaning, in other words, that they have run out of ideas. These companies buy others in an (usually misguided) attempt to import innovation, then often smother it.”
One driver for buying companies that are productive in ideas, or just to buy companies that are not really so, but can be presented as being productive in ideas, is that it makes the shareholders happy, because it is in the nature of financial markets that this sort of not very original or clever trick raises the values of the company shares. If the shareholders are happy and the shares go up, then kudos! Mr. CEO, Mr. CFO, Mr. CTO, and so on down the list of “C” office occupants. And that means bigger paychecks (as top execs pay is usually tied to performance at the stock exchange), and bonuses for such “good” performance in their jobs and also more and nicer perks. There is the incentive, I think, for managers to mismanage, as long as the mismanaging raises the market value of the company.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
I’m having trouble squaring mismanagement–say, empire building for the sake of the pay increases, prestige, and perks–with long-run increases in the value of the shares. The landscape is littered with the carcasses of conglomerates like GE that appeared to make it work for a time but eventually went bust. This is not to deny that some, maybe many, shareholders are sucked in during the early part of the cycle (a/k/a the greater fool theory). Been there, done that.
Meanwhile, the standard theoretical assumption of “all other things being equal” almost never holds true–there’s lots of other stuff going on. How much of Microsoft’s valuation in the stock market simply reflects optimism about the continuing impact of technology on our lives, and the company’s leading role (deserved or not) in the industry? And I was wrong about the 30% increase in the money supply since the end of 2019. As of November 30, the increase in M2, the best-accepted measure of the money supply, was 38%.
wdburt1: “I’m having trouble squaring mismanagement–say, empire building for the sake of the pay increases, prestige, and perks–with long-run increases in the value of the shares.”
This type of mismanagement is explained by what is known as “short termism.” In other words: “let’s reap as much profit as we can while the going is good.” It also applies to the mismanagement of many other things: the environment, air and water pollution, etc. etc. It’s a set of mind that can be translated in words as: “let’s do it, whatever damage and devastation it might cause, because it is going to pay and pay until it does not anymore, but by then we’ll be reach beyond the dreams of Croesus, so just let’s double down on this and may the devil take the hindmost!”
It is not about the long-term durability of market valuation, because being able to keep it inflated for maybe the next one or two years will do:
https://www.cfainstitute.org/en/advocacy/issues/short-termism#sort=%40pubbrowsedate%20descending
Excerpt (emphasis mine):
“Short-termism refers to an excessive focus on short-term results at the expense of long-term interests. Short-term performance pressures on investors can result in an excessive focus on their parts on quarterly earnings, with less attention paid to strategy, fundamentals and long-term value creation. Corporations too often respond to these pressures by reducing their expenditures on research and development and/or foregoing investment opportunities with positive long-term potential. These decisions can weigh against companies’ development of sustainable products or investment in measures that deliver operational efficiencies, develop their human capital, or effectively manage the social and environmental risks to their business.”
Sounds familiar?
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
If the merger is approved, I think this will be Nokia 2.0. Other than a couple of games, A/B is a very toxic property and would have likely ended in bankruptcy or dismemberment as it collapsed. The scandal A/B is embroiled in is nasty. MS and others could have gone after the few worthwhile assets and let the rest wither away. As it is, MS probably could have driven a much harder bargain for the couple of worthwhile assets.
As others have pointed, MS could spent some this money on fixing chronic issues users have been complaining about for years – like a real QA department.
Sony Expects Microsoft to Keep Activision Games Multiplatform
Activision supplies some of the most popular games for Sony’s PlayStation game console, including the Call of Duty series
Sony Group Corp. said Thursday that it expected Microsoft Corp. to ensure that games from Activision Blizzard Inc. are available on non-Microsoft videogame platforms if Microsoft completes its proposed acquisition of Activision.
“We expect that Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform,”..
So “Sony vs. Microsoft” is coming to a courthouse maybe not very close to you?
That will make for interesting watching. I hope it gets streamed.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
Like most oversized companies, they just have too much money burning a hole in their pockets.
How about they spend in on bringing out a good windows version, and wait until its fully formed, not 1/2 baked .
I agree with that…
MS has become the place that brings end to good things.
MS bought Nokia….now Nokia is flatline.
MS bought Skype….now Skype is trash. MS team is horrible trash (Something went wrong…try again.
Blizzard will be a goner in a few years.
Just look at what mess was release with Windows 11…MS has lost its Edge after Bill Gates left. Bill made mistakes but most were good decisions.
Anonymous: “MS has lost its Edge after Bill Gates left. Bill made mistakes but most were good decisions.”
Bill Gates wrote a boldly inspirational article (memo? blog?) that Susan mentioned at the top of another recent thread, about how MS was going to uphold, above all, the interests of the users, particularly their security … the same year, less than seven months later, that Windows 8, the most harshly criticized release of Windows ever, decried for being inimical to the needs of serious users of PCs, came out officially, no longer in beta, with great fanfare. And Bill stayed on at the top of MS for several more years.
So it seems to me that while things might have got worse after he left MS, they were not exactly great for several years prior to his departure.
See, for example, here: #2418540
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
Mr.JimPhelps: “My take: $68.7 billion is a LOT of money.”
I agree: it is a lot of money. How big is this lot of money used to buy a computer games company that is in some kind of trouble, according to comments posted here?
To get some perspective: Based on 2017 World Bank statistics, countries with less than $68.7 billion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), listed in decreasing order of GDP:
Myanmar, Luxembourg, Panama, Ghana, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Croatia, Belarus, Lebanon, Tanzania, Macao followed by other countries that are below $40.billion, for a total of 119 countries with a GDP of less than $68 billion:
https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/
And last year’s NASA budget was around US$25.2 billion:
https://www.thebalance.com/nasa-budget-current-funding-and-history-3306321
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
I have read in today’s Washington Post that in stock markets, in the USA, the value of shares are dropping steeply, because the Federal Reserve Bank is expected to rise interest rates to put a brake on inflation, ending a free-ride companies have been having with near-zero effective interest rates. So what is the actual market value of MS, for example, is definitely a moving target:
And then again:
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
Agreed.
I see a ton of moving targets out there. I do graphs of last 2 or 3 years and they all seem to have jumped way up, and are now, perhaps, settling back down to where they were a few years back. Veeeeeery slowly!! So tempting to think they are at the bottom. NOT. They just keep going down.
so this makes this MS and Sony thing just noise in the background. (?)
Nothing seems really solid at the moment. Good time to wait and watch. Just my opinion. But I’m out totally for the time being.
- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 Pro 23H2 WU. HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.
Future prediction:
Thought I’d comment on some recent comments…
berserker “Used to be what passed for a “gamer” ” and COD…
I think gaming has passed its apex. Teens, of whatever age, have and will move on to other things that are more of a challenge and, more importantly, more “in”. Humans, as a group, tend to go bananas over something for a while, and then move on, strongly influenced by those around them.
wdburt “The landscape is littered with the carcasses of conglomerates like GE”
Hadn’t thought about that recently (occasionally I bus past a big GE plant north of here and reflect on it), but that’s mostly true. MS has windows to anchor it a bit, unlike GE, so it will be a bit more stable in the future, but, yes, sell (MS) stocks and sit for a bit looking at others as the market is still very volatile and downsizing a lot from pre election. IMHO! Things that “should be strong”, are just slowly drifting back down to previous levels. View a stock over a couple years to better understand it. again, IMHO!
Alex “Sony Expects Microsoft to Keep Activision Games Multiplatform”
-said by Sony while crying and with tears in its eyes and pleading against all hope… Things like that make the stock market an often fickle place! 🙂
Oscar “So “Sony vs. Microsoft” is coming to a courthouse maybe not very close to you?”
Yeah probably though I doubt it will do Sony any good.
anon “MS has lost its Edge after Bill Gates left. Bill made mistakes but most were good decisions.”
in 20/20 hind sight which is always much more clear 🙂 … I think Bill, though sometimes he wasn’t too sharp, saw the light at the end of the tunnel, realized it was a train, and left. Good timing.
Mike “More consolidating in the gaming business.”
yes, because, again, it ain’t what it used to be. Gaming got its start on tiny computers that just grew and grew. People were enthralled with their ability to make this thing (a mini computer) DO things. I think that is long past starting to get old. Okay, they’ve grown. Period. Now on to something else. Again, IMHO!!! (but I notice that though I went to great effort to make sure all my games would run on my platforms, I no longer play them.
Onward, but to something different. Cosmic law – all things change. Always!.
- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 Pro 23H2 WU. HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.
The potential problems re. computer games, and indirectly to those who play them, is a serious one. On the other hand, that 68.7 billion US$ is more than the Gross Domestic Product (total amount sold in goods and services in a given year) of 119 countries and nearly three times NASA’s budget is only a curious fact of passing interest here.
Understood. Thank you.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
A belief system…
In my opinion the only real motivator in this world is greed. Buddhists and others sometimes try to encourage us to live simply by being nice to ourselves and others, but virtually no one, in this “world”, in this “dimension”, in this “time”, does it. Folks excuse any aberrant behaviour by saying they are “human”.
Spiritually, the point would be to balance the self while living in a “chaos”. The soul, which follows you along, carries the baggage where you have not, and slows you down. A Buddhist might say look within for peace, not without.
You can try to change the perceived chaos into something that you perceive would be less threatening to you, but that is not likely to have lasting effect on your soul, your baggage, your anchor.
Besides greed, “down” here, we have pain, both physical and perceived. That will first drive the individual toward a perceived selfish behaviour as it tried to reduce that pain. This might well manifest as greed.
So while we can, and often do, criticize others for their behaviours and the actions they take, like buying huge game companies, and suggest that they could have done it in a different way, which they feel would make them feel better/ safer, we might do well to step back and consider what part we played in their decision. We bought windows. We bought that game, and played it!!! 🙂
No, I’m not a Buddhist, or member of any recognized belief system of this world. Just posing a thought… Bill and others all play a part in this! And I rather like Bill.
- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 Pro 23H2 WU. HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.
So, with the cost of PC hardware for gaming high. I think we will see gaming morph into a better delivery platform. Not sure it will be streaming services but certainly having locked into the library of controlling the games themselves. Much like content creators in movies and TV are now coming out with exclusive content streaming services that keep people tied to that service. If Microsoft controls the games, it can dictate how they are distributed. I think this is more to do with X box vs PlayStation then PC gaming VS consoles. But nevertheless, Microsoft will be a big player in gaming content now which is a big deal.
Recent Starcraft 2 update has broken the game. Several of my friends are having the same issues. Is this the sign that MS has taken over the company and are already breaking things like they do with Windows and other MS products?
Seems my games will not be broken just like my Windows OS is half the time. Will need to spend time searching for fixes for the fixes.
First a little diversion before I get to the issue this thread is all about.
Krism wrote here #2420008 :
“In my opinion the only real motivator in this world is greed.”
This is a common sentiment, but not quite correct: There are several great motivators and their mix varies with the times.
Right these days we can see national governments and private concerns, meaning in the first place politicians and top executives with the power to make such decisions, taking measures to punish and, one would hope, deter Russia from pursuing to the end its all-out attack on another country with the full intention of either making it a subordinate state, a compliant satellite, or make it part of its own territory.
Those punitive measures taken by the West are definitively bad for business and for the pocketbook of citizens, as we are already beginning to experience. Yet no opposing roars of money-hungry people can be heard.
Millions, displaced by this attack are flooding Europe and being received with demonstrations of kindness.
Throughout the world, people are rising to defend democracy, to reject dictators, at peril of imprisonment or worse. Members of such organizations as Doctors Without Borders are working to improve things, often at considerable personal costs: in this example helping the sick, injured and mistreated in places where it is dangerous to be. In Russia itself, many have expressed opposition to the atrocities being perpetrated by their own government, many have been demonstrating against them through the Federation, and have been, and are still, imprisoned by the thousands.
Greed alone is not the only great motivator: courage, generosity, love of freedom and fairness are too. In peacetime they might not get much space in the news, until great crises such as the one the world is in now happen, and then they do get to be heard about.
As to the topic of this thread is directly concerned with:
The purchase of a company that makes computer games for an amount larger than the individual GDPs of 119 nations, even if gaming may be big business these days, this is not chiefly an act of greed: It is the result of the loss of perspective and the consequent delusion that they can do everything and that’s OK, because they are always right, of powerful people in charge of big businesses and of those investors that cheer them along.
Is there greed here at work? Yes, but the driver is lunacy. And that is the other great motivator of human affairs.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
LOL – lunacy is simply an excuse for making bad choices. Nope, ain’t buying it.
Greed is a very basic animal urge. comes along with hunger and survival – get more food or get safer subsistence. You can easily see it in watching baby animals fight for the little food when the parent arrives. And with baby humans at child care and nursery school. Parents try to teach then to hide their greed, but it is still there. It is inate. You don’t have it you will likely die, or at the least, do poorly.
- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 Pro 23H2 WU. HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.
Lunacy is no excuse, it is real. But if one ignores all the rest, then the main motivator of human behavior is indeed greed.
I would respectfully suggest concentrating on this thread’s topic, rather than on philosophical generalities.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
Looks like the proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft Corp for $68.7 billion has encountered a sticky patch, as the UK’s antitrust watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has rejected the deal citing potential negative impacts on competition within the cloud gaming market.
Ref: https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/26/23689252/microsoft-activision-blizzard-acquisition-blocked-uk-cma
The gaming industry’s largest-ever acquisition, may not yet happen.
Wonder how the EU will respond after this response by the CMA?
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