<story><title>Microsoft Expected To Post First Ever Quarterly Loss In Its History</title><url>http://www.cbs19.tv/story/18940632/consumer-corner-microsoft-could-post-first-loss-in-20-years</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alttab</author><text>&quot;Microsoft is extremely competitive with apple and google, even in 2012&quot; makes a good sound bite. All you have to do is ignore context.&lt;p&gt;Ballmer should have been fired ages ago. Clearly he has dirt on the board or something. The guy is a bafoon.</text></item><item><author>bunderbunder</author><text>The news is somewhat less disastrous in that it&apos;s because Microsoft had to write down a purchase they made a while ago.  So they didn&apos;t lose money this quarter so much as acknowledge that they had previously lost a lot of money and put that on their books this quarter.&lt;p&gt;What&apos;s really disastrous, though, is Steve Ballmer&apos;s recent comments about how they are determined to compete with Apple on every single front, regardless of whether they have any other reason to be in that portion of the market.  This aQuantive debacle is a result of Microsoft trying to do exactly the same thing with Google.  With that statement, Ballmer indicated in no uncertain terms that he has learned absolutely nothing from that mistake.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>brudgers</author><text>&amp;#62;&lt;i&gt;&quot;or something&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ballmer is the second largest shareholder in Microsoft, after his friend and 30 year business associate, Gates.&lt;p&gt;To put it another way, there isn&apos;t a Wall Street analyst who works for a company or fund with a greater stake in Microsoft than Ballmer.</text></comment>
<story><title>Microsoft Expected To Post First Ever Quarterly Loss In Its History</title><url>http://www.cbs19.tv/story/18940632/consumer-corner-microsoft-could-post-first-loss-in-20-years</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alttab</author><text>&quot;Microsoft is extremely competitive with apple and google, even in 2012&quot; makes a good sound bite. All you have to do is ignore context.&lt;p&gt;Ballmer should have been fired ages ago. Clearly he has dirt on the board or something. The guy is a bafoon.</text></item><item><author>bunderbunder</author><text>The news is somewhat less disastrous in that it&apos;s because Microsoft had to write down a purchase they made a while ago.  So they didn&apos;t lose money this quarter so much as acknowledge that they had previously lost a lot of money and put that on their books this quarter.&lt;p&gt;What&apos;s really disastrous, though, is Steve Ballmer&apos;s recent comments about how they are determined to compete with Apple on every single front, regardless of whether they have any other reason to be in that portion of the market.  This aQuantive debacle is a result of Microsoft trying to do exactly the same thing with Google.  With that statement, Ballmer indicated in no uncertain terms that he has learned absolutely nothing from that mistake.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cpleppert</author><text>The iPhone bashing was just pathetic, I remember watching the presentation and thinking that it was going to change everything and then Ballmer responded by talking like a delirious apple-hater and mocking the price.&lt;p&gt;It is hard to innovate if you are always one step behind and need to shoehorn everything into Windows and Office.</text></comment>