Class-action Suit Filed Against Microsoft Over Surface Write Off 212
New submitter used2win32 writes with news that at least one investor is unhappy with the Surface inventory write off, claiming that Microsoft mislead investors who purchased stock during Q2 and Q3 by not announcing just how slow inventory was moving at the time "The class action lawsuit claims false and misleading information regarding sales performance of Windows RT based tablets. Microsoft has earned a U.S. $900 million write off and a market share of less that 1% to show for its Windows RT endeavors. Asus, Lenovo, HP, Samsung and HTC discontinued their models leaving Dell as the only OEM producing a Windows RT tablet."
How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stockholders win the lawsuit and each get 10 bucks. Microsoft stock takes a huge hit. Stockholders lose a lot more than 10 bucks.
Nevermind, I forgot about the lawyers. The lawyers always win.
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Summary: My bad judgement is your fault (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical sue-happy mentality of the USA: My bad judgement is your fault.
If these people had made money with the stock, do you think they'd be offering to pay Microsoft part of their profits?
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
...by showing them that they can't just do any shit they want?
if you didn't see this coming the day they announced the writeoff on their report then you weren't thinking. huge advantage to insiders, hugely misleading to investors. almost a billion dollars, they knew they were going to write it off and by the rules they should have announced it. you can't with a straight face say that they expected to sell off the inventory in the last month...
it's a shame the sec didn't penalize them straight away.
Re:Boo Whoo! (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I despise Ballmer, he is a bean counter/finance guy. I don't think you can lay all blame for all decisions in Win8 at his feet. The issue with Win8 is that what works about tablets: Security/simplicty/stability etc weeded out the bulk problems of users. Making Win8 a full OS forced onto tablets took away all of those and left behind the pains of legacy cruft. Now tablet users get to worry about Virus' and malware and services that conflict. New device same problems. Plus the added confusion of WinRT and the fact that you need to jump back and forth to a desktop mode (entirely schizophrenic in practice)
Re:Yet none.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that part of MS' struggle with RT arises from the desire to not cannibalize their cash cows, I'd be surprised if they ever let something with a copy of Windows(even a gimped one) and a copy of Office (even with restrictive license terms) baked in out the door for $99. Even if they were OK with that, I suspect Dell wouldn't be amused, nor would the various sellers of (modestly less doomed) Atom-based Win8 mostly-tablet things.
I'd honestly be unsurprised to see them sold wholesale to be stripped for components, or debranded and flashed into mysterious pacific rim non-brand Androids, or otherwise quietly disposed of rather than dumped on the retail market at more than a modest discount.
HP's little fire sale, to the degree it made sense at all, only made sense because they had no less-doomed products in potentially competing areas, so if blowing them out at retail was the best deal they could get, per unit, it was the best thing to do.
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes to poor business decisions, it's ultimately for the shareholders to decide amongst themselves if they want the business they own to be operated by people who make such poor decisions. And if you're only a minor shareholder and the other larger shareholders don't agree with your position then that's that. You knew this *before* you bought these shares, and still decided to buy. Buying shares is gambling, if it doesn't pay off them you have only yourself to blame.
When it comes to lying however, those responsible should be held criminally accountable. Lying in order to secure investment (ie to make your shares appear worth more than they should be and get people to buy them) is fraud and should be treated as such.
As to wether the business decisions were really poor, the problem here is that far too many shareholders are taking a short term view - they want profits NOW and don't care about the long term viability of the company. The fact is MS may currently be highly profitable, but the majority of that profit comes from mature and declining markets, and eventually that source of revenue is going to dry up, and if they have nothing ready to replace it then they will end up bankrupt.
They have generally shown themselves to be rather incompetent at entering new markets, with products that are mediocre to poor and in many cases refusing to fully embrace the new market for fear of getting too far away from traditional markets, and thus being held back. The only real advantage they have is huge cash reserves allowing them to keep slinging enough mud until some of it sticks.
Re:Boo Whoo! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Summary: My bad judgement is your fault (Score:5, Insightful)
You're probably right, but...
It's shocking how little effort shareholders in the tech sector are willing to put into scrutinising the products of the companies they are investing in and asking the crucial question: "how many people are going to pay money for this?"
We saw it back in the first dotcom bubble - investors ploughing money into businesses which had no plausible path towards generating substantial revenues, let alone turning a profit.
We've seen it with social networks whose business plan boiled down to "erm... advertising?".
God knows we've seen it in the video gaming sector, where all investors seem to want to here is the appropriate catchphrase, which, depending on the year in question might be: "the next World of Warcraft", "the next Call of Duty" or "free to play with microtransactions". This usually results in a lemming-like dash towards bankrupcy unless the company in question is one of the industry giants.
And now we've seen it with a "next iPad" tablet.
Seriously, is it that hard to look at the product line of the company you're investing in and ask yourself "can I imagine any significant number of people parting with their cash for this?".
Oh, and look at their marketing strategy as well. If it involves breakdancing, that's probably a bad sign.
Re:Amazing ... (Score:4, Insightful)
They never made decent products. In fact they've made their best products ever.
Don't believe me, windows 95, MS bob, etc...
They have had a string of bad products because people more or less had to buy them to get a computer.
Re:Boo Whoo! (Score:5, Insightful)
It is very hard to see what technologies make it and what doesn't.
Usually you get the following factors I call it the 6P(mostly).
Price
Performance
Power
Portability
Programs
(Ph/F)eatures
Now at any given time there is a demand for some balance of these, however it isn't usually sure where the sweet spot is as it can change.
Price, sure the lesser the better... However if you are selling these things you want to make as much money as possible per unit, People are willing to spend so much for something until it becomes too big of desion and will need to weigh the other 5 P's
Performance, Yeah we want the fastest, but how much is that going to cost, and do we really need it to be fast for our use for it.
Power, how long will the battery last, will it affect its portability.
Portability, how small and light is it. Is is rugged enough for my daily use, does it have the Features that will allow me to be portable with it, does it look good to have on my person...
Programs, like features, however you can add your own. How good are the programs available, how many of them are their.
Features, what does it do what doesn't it do. Can I live with what it doesn't do.
Now different stuff has a different balance of this stuff. I have a crossover Lenovo thinkpad laptop/tablet. I have gained in Performance, Features, and Programs, but I lost out portability, power, and price. But I like it, because it fits my needs.
However we really don't know what the people want until it is out. You can have as many checks to see if people like it as you want. But you will never know until it is released.
There's fraud and then there are MBAs (Score:4, Insightful)
This creates many amusing situations such as MBA types issuing Mortgage backed bonds based on mortgages issued to people with such bad credit that they usually missed their very first mortgage payment. It is the typical MBA's difficult relationship with the truth that resulted in GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices) limiting their truth distorting ways.
So any investor that invests in an MBA dominated company should know that they are dealing with a den of thieves who have degenerated into Bottom Line dominated monsters. So the only change that I would ask is that stock ticker symbols come with a super-script that tells you what percentage of the upper management has an MBA. (or used to be in real-estate / used car sales)
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, market segmentation is their key weakness when it comes to phones/tablets...
Windows mobile was their first attempt, put a desktop like interface on a phone - it was terrible, despite not even having any serious competitors at the time.
They need to get away from "windows", and market different products... It worked with the xbox.
MS are generally far too arrogant, they think that everyone loves windows and that users will put up with any old trash because they love the brand...
The reality is that people hate windows, and put up with any old trash on the desktop because they don't feel there is any alternative.
When it comes to other markets, like phones and tablets, users *do* realise that other alternatives exist and so they aren't willing to put up with the usual crap that MS put out.
Think of it like east german and soviet cars... People wanted them, and would join multi year long waiting lists to get one, because they were the only option available... Once the berlin wall fell and users found out about the alternatives, noone wanted an east german car anymore.