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."
They should sue over US government compromises (Score:4, Interesting)
It is unquestionable that Microsoft's compromise by the US government has threatened Microsoft's position in the global marketplace. There may not be an obvious reflection of this damage right now, but things are in motion even now to move away from Microsoft products all over the world. In the past, when governments and business sought to move away from Microsoft, they were drawn back in with special pricing or other deals. And specifically, when the initiatives to move away were pushed by specific individuals, those individuals found themselves attacked and discredited in some way. And when the initiatives were a matter of policy or law, such as a requirement to favor ISO standards compliance products, the Microsoft had set about changing law, policy or forcing through new ISO standards which aren't even being complied with.
None of these tactics are expected to work against the current cause for Microsoft mistrust.
Amazing ... (Score:4, Interesting)
A near $1 billion write off. That would put most companies out of business, and even Microsoft can't keep taking losses like that.
Windows 8 is under-performing, people are pulling out of making Windows Phones, the XBone is facing a lot of backlash, their own tablet is becoming a huge flop, and the hardware makers are deciding they want to focus on other things.
Increasingly it's looking like Microsoft is asleep at the switch and just assuming they'll keep selling as much as they always have.
Either they need to start fixing some fundamentals, or Microsoft is going to face some serious long-term problems.
Yet none.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Were clearance priced / firehouse sold. I'll buy one for $99.00 I need something new to hack on and try to get android/linux running on.
Re:Amazing ... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's strange that everyone except microsoft saw this coming. None of the tech folks I know thought those tablets were gonna go anywhere---why in the world did Microsoft spend so much on such a bad idea? Same with the phones...
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there no value in making illegally lying to investors and potential investors a riskier and potentially more costly activity?
Obviously, in an ideal world, the penalties exacted from Microsoft would fully compensate the wronged parties, even after the potential hit is taken into account; but even if that isn't possible, never enforcing anything that might cause stock prices to fall means never enforcing anything. It's the publicly-traded equivalent of 'we can't punish anyone because it might make their family sad!'
Re:Boo Whoo! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Amazing ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, maybe they assumed "we're Microsoft, people will buy anything we make", or they were completely out of touch with what consumers actually wanted and missed the mark completely, or maybe they're losing a lot of good-will with people who no longer care about them or their products. Tough to say.
But Microsoft really needs to be asking themselves this. Because this is now several products which are proving to be failures in the market, and the investors aren't going to stand for a company which keeps making billion-dollar gambles on stuff nobody buys.
Right now, except for maybe Office and the enterprise market -- it's hard not to think that Microsoft is losing money on every product they make, and trying to make it up on volume.
In theory, savers. In reality, probably lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
in the second quarter should have been included in the first quarter statements, they say. If it's true that Microsoft executives knew about the problem and
concealed it in from the investors / potential investors (the owners of the company), that's unlawful, as it should be. That's a fraud on people trying to save
for retirement.
The lawyers will take half the money, so people who were victims of the fraud won't recoup their loss, but punishing fraudulent behavior may tend to
discourage Microsoft and other companies from perpetrating similar lies in the future.
Of course it'll be up to the judge or jury to decide if Microsoft actually did know about the problem by the end of March, in such a way that concealing it
in the first quarter reports mislead investors.
Limit Lawyer fees to the actual compensation (Score:4, Interesting)
If the lawyer fees are limited to 30% of the amount actually distributed to the claimants, it would go a long way in creating an incentive for the lawyers to actually make sure the claimants get some money. Right now, once the settlement is done, they lawyers collect all their money and send a form letter to claimants and move on to the next target.
I think we should make lawyers subject to malpractice laws too when they usurp the right to represent a class of claimants. Due diligence in locating all possible claimants to the class, making sure they all get due compensation, making sure the costs are not inflated etc all should come under malpractice provisions. If the lawyers screw up, the claimants should be able to sue them for malpractice.
Re:Amazing ... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is just an opinion, so please don't badger me for evidence. I'm not trying to troll anyone, so do reply if you disagree with me.
It seems to me that Microsoft has no idea why people have been buying their products this whole time. In the last few years, they've been banging on about the "experience" of using Win7/8/Phone, as if the people who buy Microsoft products do so for the unique Microsoft Experience. In other words, that they buy Microsoft products for much the same reason as one might buy an Apple product. I would argue that this hasn't been the case since the excitement of Windows 95. Even XP was only a small step up from 2000 at the time. By and large, people buy their products because a) they believe it to be pretty solid and/or b) it's the standard. If more solid alternatives exist, and the MS product isn't the ad-hoc standard, they don't make a big impact in the market.
Now, you might say that no, they've been talking about the "experience" because that's what all the cool, profitable kids are up to. That may well be the case, but if you watch their adverts, it goes a step further than trying to convince you of a top-quality experience: they tend to allude to "the Windows/Office/MS Bob experience you love", as if it were an existing truth. It's always struck me as curiously arrogant, coming from a company which deliberately strangled the competition to gain its dominant position. What I don't know, however, is whether they've misread the market that badly, or they're trying to get people to believe there already is such a demand for a specifically Microsoft experience, in order to create this demand.
Re:Boo Whoo! (Score:4, Interesting)
The first tablets ran windows 95, and were powered by Pentiums.
Actually, somewhere around 93/94 time-frame the company I worked for was looking for a device for our customers to use as a carry around input device. I remember one of the devices we considered was a windows 3.1 based "tablet" computer, although I think it was called a "pen" computer back then.
I sort of wish I still had the thing, because it would be good for a laugh now. It was about the size of a laptop (in other words it was about two-three inches thick) and was just a rectangular box with a (12" maybe) touch screen on one side. IIRC it had a floppy and assorted ports arranged around it.
The handwriting recognition was a PITA though. You tapped where you wanted to input text and it popped up a little dialog with a grid (like some paper forms a few years ago) and you were expected to write one letter per box and it would generate the letter it thought you entered below it.
Of the 3 or 4 of us that tired to use it, none of us could get a reasonable recognition rate out of the thing. I think we ended up trying to use it with one of the accessibility keyboards on screen. That by itself was a PITA, but for a device intended to be used while standing up/walking around it was impossible. Holding it in a position with one arm while entering data with the other got tiring really quickly. Probably, because it weighted something like 10 lbs.
In the end I think we ended up using a little calculator sized device with a keyboard. It wasn't great but you could hold it with two hands and type with your thumbs at a pretty decent rate.
BTW: I think it was a 486, and poking around on google I noticed that "Windows for Pen Computing" which is what it was running was released in 1991, a few years before we were trying to use it.
Re: How does this help anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Legally, Microsoft has to tell everybody about a write down at the same time. They certainly aren't going to discuss a price drop with investors while still selling them at stores... That would be stupid. They aren't going to publish news of poor sales 2 quarters early while paying for a media blitz either.. The Internet laughs at that stuff.
What Microsoft did was correct. Hang on as long as possible and drop the price when they are forced to cut their losing streak off.
Re:How does this help anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree that such a lawsuit makes no sense, since the MS board represents the shareholders, and the MS officials - CEO and other VPs - report to the board, so indirectly, the decisions made by the company were endorsed by a majority of the officials. The short term vs the long term attitudes of the investors is a major reason these companies are under pressure, and make decisions that look great short term, but are inane long term.
I don't think that MS is unwilling to embrace new markets - look at Windows 8, where they've jeopardized a decade long interface for something that looks good on a Lumia, but is absolutely strange on a laptop. Essentially, they're showing the finger to their long time customers of PCs, while trying to get into bed w/ phone & tablet customers who're not interested. Somehow, market segmentation doesn't seem to be MS' strong points, or they would have made Windows 8 look like Windows 7, aside from the underpinnings, while letting Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT be something else totally, and called something else totally, like Metro.