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Bootz, Beyond the press release from Apple:
It was never heard from again. No donations of those supposed iBooks for each survivors'family has ever been documented.
I'll look for the original Press release & see if I can still find it.
dilleet, ordinarily I wouldn't bring this up, but in the wake of 9/11 some Windowsphiles were publicizing the fact that Jobs had supposedly promised an iBook to survivors' families and never delivered.
Anyone know anything about this and how it was ultimately resolved or not?
Just curious.
Bootz
Surely Spitza, you must've heard of it?
"Microsoft's "Windows Update" site (v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com ) is equivalent to Apple's "Software Update" capability, with the difference that it seems to require Internet Explorer (Firefox wouldn't work on that site)."
ACTIVE X... Ever heard of it? It's not in Firefox. That's why it wouldn't work for you. IE has it. Windows Update requires it.
(for what it's worth, I'm writing this using FIREFOX 1.0 on a PC )
Keep pretending you know what your doing, fixxing PCs. Ask Kurt. He could give you unbiased answers to over half the simple questions you asked. the answers are out there... if you drop your bias.
HALO2 sells 5 MILLION copies in 3 weeks!
Five million 'Halos' ...
" Three weeks after its celebrity-studded Nov. 9 debut, sales of "Halo 2" passed the five million mark. The original "Halo" took more than two years to reach that milestone proving that "Halo 2" is either that much better than the original or there that are lot more lonely guys in the world today."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6706186/
So that's what?, a quarter BILLION dollars HALO2 has brought in already? Not Bad.... That Bunjie acquisition has surely paid off many times over.
Analysts figured it out-MSFT already won:
" Microsoft Corp. has strategically nurtured its Windows Media Player, making it by far the world's most dominant program for playing digital music and video on computers. Rival RealNetworks Inc.'s product ranks a very distant second.
It's not just that Media Player has long been bundled with the Windows operating system, giving consumers an easy way to handle multimedia files without the need to download others.
There's another big reason:
Many companies in the fast-growing market of digital media _ from online music providers to the makers of portable audio players _ have already chosen Microsoft as a primary multimedia format.
One example of the many partnerships Microsoft has successfully pursued: users of Napster's online music service must have recent versions of the Windows Media Player in order to play downloaded songs, create a song library or transfer any tunes to a portable player.
The Redmond, Wash. titan has also worked hard to win the backing of Hollywood for distributing digital movies and other entertainment using Microsoft's copy-protection technologies. Such partnerships later ensure that Windows software will be needed for playback.
And in the same symbiotic ecosystem, many consumer electronics companies are thus including components that will support Microsoft's multimedia technologies.
That's why analysts think the EU's ruling _ ordered implemented immediately by a European court on Wednesday _ that Microsoft be forced to offer a Windows version in Europe without the Media Player will do little to tame the software giant.
"Microsoft is basically establishing itself as the most popular technology, and I don't expect this decision to change that much," said Paul DeGroot, an analyst with independent researchers Directions on Microsoft.
Microsoft's multimedia technology is now simply too ingrained in the industry.
The scenario is not unlike the Web browser monopoly issue with which U.S. authorities grappled.
By the time Microsoft settled the antitrust case with the Justice Department in 2002 _ including giving customers the ability to hide Microsoft programs like its Web browser and only see competing products _ Microsoft's Internet Explorer was already the predominant browser.
Not just European consumers, but also PC makers will hardly have a reason to choose the pared version of Windows over the standard one, said Rob Enderle, an industry analyst.
"Without a financial incentive, why would they want to leave it off?" he said.
What's more, manufacturers are catering to consumers who, in part, have been trained by Microsoft's one-stop shop strategy.
Officials at Dell Inc., the world's largest PC maker, would not discuss which Windows version they would put on their computers if offered a choice.
"We're not going to speculate on what effect, if any, this will have on Dell at this point in time," Venancio Figueroa, a Dell spokesman, said of the EU ruling.
Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's No. 2 PC maker, declined to comment.
DUH. Mario's Mafia screwed this decision up, for sure...
By the way, Happy Holidays to all the MSFT users out there, and the readers of this board.
Indian tech city turns to Microsoft
Microsoft Corp. won a battle against open source software supporters in India's technology hub of Bangalore, with local authorities choosing its software for networking the state's utilities and services.
An e-governance project for the 55 million people of Karnataka state, of which Bangalore is the capital, will begin April 2005 and will be powered by Microsoft's proprietary software, an official said Monday.
"We will initially put 24 citizen services online and more later," said Rajiv Chawla, secretary of Karnataka's electronic governance department.
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, on a visit to India in November 2002, wooed the federal and state governments in India, offering to sell his company's software at prices much lower than market rates.
Microsoft sold software at 45 percent of the market price to the private company executing the Bangalore project, Chawla said.
Microsoft's critics have opposed the plan, saying it was only a trick to tie large populations to proprietary software.
"By using proprietary systems, you are locked into a technology over which you have no control," said Frederick Noronha, an activist who supports greater freedom for software users.
"But Microsoft is quite popular even in villages. Let open source become so popular, then we will have no problem using it," Chawla countered.
Open source applications come without any restriction on use, copying and modification of the software, while proprietary systems impose several restrictions.
The government will initially open 15 centers across the city to provide services including utility payments, banking, passport applications, travel booking and social security applications. Internet access will also be offered. About 2,000 centers will be established across the state in two years, Chawla said.
Each center will have 20 staff members who will help citizens, including the illiterate, transact their business with the government online. A Web portal for the services will also be launched.
A nice counterpoint to the EU thing. It should be interesting to see if any OEM makers in the EU actually try, or want to bother trying to sell machines with a version of Windows that's had the Windows Media Player yanked out... A pointless exercise in my opinion.
Altaire, this was the MOST CLUELESS response from you yet.
"The leader in the desktop OS market: MSFT - expenses it options and even pays a dividend, yet its valued less than half that of AAPL"
Wanna try that again? Or are you so stupid as to equate the per share cost as the viable detail? I suppose you think BERK is priced too high too.
I'll take the company with almost 38 BILLION is sales, & over 8 BILLION in profits, over a company that had sales of 8.28 Billion, yet only had profits of 276.00 Million. Sheesh! MSFT made about as much in pure profits than Apple did in gross revenue. Time & time again, you prove you personally DON'T get it.
Microsoft Corporation: Highlights
Financial data in U.S. dollars
Financial Highlights (All data for latest 12 months)
Sales 37.81 Bil
Income 8.08 Bil
Net Profit Margin 21.40%
Return on Equity 10.60%
Debt/Equity Ratio 0.00
Revenue/Share 3.48
Earnings/Share 0.74
Book Value/Share 6.99
Dividend Rate 0.32
Payout Ratio 32.00%
Revenue - Quarterly Results (in Millions)
FY (06/05) FY (06/04) FY (06/03)
1st Qtr 9,189.0 8,215.0 7,746.0
2nd Qtr NA 10,153.0 8,541.0
3rd Qtr NA 9,175.0 7,835.0
4th Qtr NA 9,292.0 8,065.0
Total 9,189.0 36,835.0 32,187.0
Earnings Per Share - Quarterly Results
FY (06/05) FY (06/04) FY (06/03)
1st Qtr $0.23 $0.24 $0.25
2nd Qtr NA $0.14 $0.24
3rd Qtr NA $0.12 $0.26
4th Qtr NA $0.25 $0.18
Total $0.23 $0.75 $0.93
Apple Computer, Inc.: Highlights
Financial data in U.S. dollars
Financial Highlights (All data for latest 12 months)
Sales 8.28 Bil
Income 276.00 Mil
Net Profit Margin 3.30%
Return on Equity 5.40%
Debt/Equity Ratio 0.00
Revenue/Share 20.59
Earnings/Share 0.71
Book Value/Share 12.63
Dividend Rate 0.00
Payout Ratio 0.00%
Revenue - Quarterly Results (in Millions)
FY (09/04) FY (09/03) FY (09/02)
1st Qtr 2,006.0 1,472.0 1,375.0
2nd Qtr 1,909.0 1,475.0 1,495.0
3rd Qtr 2,014.0 1,545.0 1,429.0
4th Qtr 2,350.0 1,715.0 1,443.0
Total 8,279.0 6,207.0 5,742.0
Earnings Per Share - Quarterly Results
FY (09/04) FY (09/03) FY (09/02)
1st Qtr $0.17 -$0.02 $0.11
2nd Qtr $0.12 $0.04 $0.11
3rd Qtr $0.16 $0.05 $0.09
4th Qtr $0.26 $0.12 -$0.12
Total $0.71 $0.19 $0.19
"In reply to: BlueDjinn
"I presume ..."
You presume wrong. Go back and check how the market reacted after MSFT put it in practice. It will be most unpleasant for those who don't pare back their giveaways. Keep in mind that relative to its earnings, Apple's current options pace is more than twice as large as Microsoft's was when they took their hit."
Yes, BD, I think Langostino is on the right track here. And the question regarding a theoretical restatement of earnings taking in to account the giveaways SJ gives to himself would be of interest to you, if you hold this stock. Guess Not.
" C'est La Vie "
P.S. You might want to take Lango's suggestion & put it in practice. Tell me what you find.
Companies must expense options by mid-2005
After years of wrangling, accounting standards finally
The Associated Press
Updated: 2:39 p.m. ET Dec. 16, 2004
NEW YORK - The nation’s accounting rulemaker decided Thursday that companies will have to begin deducting the value of stock options from their profits next year, a move cheered by shareholder advocates but scorned by many companies who rely heavily on options to beef up compensation packages.
The Financial Accounting Standards Board’s long-awaited decision means public companies will have to start expensing options beginning with their first annual reporting period after June 15, 2005.
FASB chairman Robert H. Herz said the new rules will “provide investors and other users of financial statements with more complete and unbiased financial information.”
FASB did not specify a particular method of valuing options, or the formulas companies use to assign costs to the options.
The new rules have pitted the technology industry, which relies on options to attract and retain employees, against some highly influential officials who advocate expensing options, including Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson, billionaire investor Warren Buffett and the Big Four accounting firms.
Stock options are perks given to employees that allow them to buy shares of their company’s stock in the future at a set price. If the stock rises before the options are exercised, the employee can buy the stock at the predetermined, lower price, then sell it at the higher, current price and pocket the difference.
Many employees of companies like Microsoft Corp. and America Online famously became millionaires in the 1990s thanks to stock options.
Under current accounting standards, a company’s cost of issuing options only needs to be disclosed in a footnote to its financial statement, not deducted from the net income it reports to investors.
The new rules will instead force companies to subtract the option expense from earnings, which could dramatically knock down profits at some companies.
Now there's a lump of coal in Stevie's stocking... Anyone care to restate the last years earnings according to this new ruling?
ROFL!
What? No WokMan? EyePod? RiceARoney?
Funny stuff, Duke.
Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
George Bush's Answer
We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or it is against us. There is no middle ground here.
John Kerry's Answer
While serving in Vietnam, I was in favor of the chicken crossing the road.Then later I realized that there were those who needed the chicken on this side of the road. Now I would like to see the chicken on the other side of the road, unless of course it would be better served to be on this side of the road. Ideally, I think the chicken should be in the middle of the road.
Bill Gates' Answer
I have just released eChicken 2004, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook and Internet Explorer is an inextricable part of eChicken.
Jon's Answer
Since 1997 the chicken has been crossing the road, and I alone, told you how bad it was for the chicken. Due to the illegal use of "chicken feed jar" accounting. Surely you're not believing that the chicken had actually crossed the road as successfully as had been reported. Bill Parish & I are certain that one day the truth will come out, & the chicken will be exposed as squashed on the highway. Yah.
Dr. Seuss' Answer
Did the chicken cross the road?
Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, But why it crossed, I've not been told!
Ernest Hemingway's Answer
To die. In the rain. Alone.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s Answer
I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.
Grandpa's Answer
In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.
Barbara Walters' Answer
Isn't that interesting? In a few moments we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting and went on to ccomplish its life-long dream of crossing the road.
Ralph Nader's Answer
The chicken's habitat on the original side of the road had been polluted by unchecked industrialist greed. The chicken did not reach the unspoiled habitat on other side of the road because it was crushed by the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV.
Jerry Seinfield's Answer
Why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place anyway?"
Pat Buchanan's Answer
To steal a job from a decent, hard-working American.
Aristotle's Answer
It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.
Captain Kirk's Answer
To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.
Bill Clinton's Answer
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by chicken? Could you define chicken, please?
Albert Einstein's Answer
Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken?
Sigmund Freud's Answer
The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.
L.A.P.D.'s Answer
Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.
Louis Farrakhan's Answer
The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed the "black man" in order to trample him and keep him down.
O.J. Simpson's Answer
It didn't. I was playing golf with it at the time.
Blinders on, I see...
"Rudy was a terrible mayor before 9/11, but he rose to that occasion and he was rightfully honored for his comportment at that time. OTH, he made a ton of money from it, which grates against my grain. He handled some of the funds for it and took a huge fee: fees in the millions of dollars if I remember correctly. It reminded me of Grasso, in a way. What he did was legal in taking those fees, but something should have stopped him from being so extremely self-serving about a matter like that."
Interesting how you'll berate Guilliani , saying "he made a ton of money from it, which grates against my grain" But in the same breath, praise Steve Jobs for taking a free jet, another 40 million to pay the windfall taxes, and add that to an obscene options package with no accounting for actual performance, while shafting the average AAPL shareholder over the last 4 years.
VERY Interesting...
And disingenuous.
What was your 1st clue?
"I think the Michael Moores and moveon.orgs turned off many more people than they brought in. Americans are a decent people and not easily impressed by self appointed elitists."
YA THINK?????
It should be amusing
to watch you extract your Kerry lovin' foot from your mouth for this.
A pretty decisive victory for "W."
Thanx for the spec details, Duke!
Nice to know.
Pretty much treadin' water...
Google stock it ain't.
MP3 losing steam? WMA on the rise!
By John Borland CNET News.com October 15, 2004, 4:00 AM PT
After years as the unrivaled king of the digital-media world, the venerable MP3 music format is losing ground to rival technologies from Microsoft and Apple Computer.
MP3 is still the overwhelming favorite of file traders, but the once-universal format's popularity has been going quietly but steadily down in personal music collections for the last year. According to researchers at The NPD Group's MusicWatch Digital who track the contents of people's hard drives, the percentage of MP3-formatted songs in digital-music collections has slid steadily in recent months, down to about 72 percent of people's collections from about 82 percent a year ago.
"People are still getting MP3s and putting them on hard drives but are deleting them at a rate faster than they're acquiring them," said Isaac Josephson, a researcher at NPD MusicWatch Digital. "People tend to think that downloads are more disposable than rips (copies from a CD), and currently, the lion's share (of MP3s) are downloads."
The slow shift in MP3's role is part of an ongoing change in the digital-music industry, with the focus moving slowly away from the anarchic file-swapping networks and toward money-making stores and services such as Apple's iTunes Music Store.
Indeed, the big winners over the past year have been the two formats backed by Microsoft and Apple, each of which has gained about 5 percent "hard-drive share" in the past year, according to the ongoing study by NPD MusicWatch Digital. The project surveys the hard-drive contents of 40,000 different people to track Internet and software trends.
Researchers say the data does not show that MP3 is losing much of its popularity--files encoded in the format are just more disposable than rivals. People are still downloading boatloads of MP3 files--but they are discarding them at an even faster rate, the researchers said.
NPD researchers estimate that there was a net loss of about 742 million MP3 files from U.S. hard drives between August 2003 and July 2004, despite people acquiring billions of songs from file-trading networks and their own CDs. By contrast, Windows Media files showed a net gain of 537 million files on U.S. hard drives, Josephson said.
Some analysts say MP3 is evolving into a different role as a format many people use to sample music or keep temporarily, while the rival formats from Apple and Microsoft are being used for permanent digital-music collections.
A separate study, by Net-monitoring company CacheLogic, early this month showed that MP3 still dominates song trading on file-swapping networks.
The company tracked two major ISP networks for two days last weekend and found that MP3 files made up more than 88 percent of all audio files traded, with just 5 percent in Microsoft's format.
Maturing digital-music market
Analysts say the changing patterns of music consumption are a sign that the digital-music market is maturing beyond its Wild West beginnings.
In the years since the rise of Napster, millions of people have swapped billions of songs online, mostly in the MP3 format; though most of that time, the most popular music players also "ripped" music from CDs into the MP3 format.
The rise of music stores such as iTunes has been contributing in part to the growth of these alternative formats--but this trend is still muted.
The sum total of purchases from these stores remain low, compared with the overall consumption of digital music, making up about 3.5 percent of all digital music on hard drives, according to NPD. But iTunes and other services do help push hardware makers to support alternative music formats in their portable music players.
The bigger shift has come as more people have begun building their own digital-music collections by ripping their CDs into files on their computer, analysts say. Many mainstream users, who are less tech-savvy than the early adopters of digital music, use whatever format is built in as the default option in their music software, instead of selecting MP3.
For Microsoft Windows Media Player users, this has helped create Windows Media Audio (WMA) files, leading to a steady increase from 10 percent of the market in March 2003 to about 20 percent today. Apple's iTunes software was released into the Windows market in late 2003, and its default format, AAC, has gained nearly 5 percent of the hard-drive share in just seven months.
"Many consumers ripping (WMA or AAC) may actually think they're ripping into MP3," said Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg.
Analysts say that for the most part, consumers often don't care what format they're using--or even know--as long as it works with their hardware.
Indeed, a March 2004 Jupiter Research study on portable devices found that MP3 remained far more important in consumers' minds than any other format but that most weren't thinking about formats at all.
About 20 percent of people in the study said MP3 support was important to them when selecting a portable media device, while just 7 percent said support for Microsoft's WMA was important. Close to zero percent said AAC, the file format supported by Apple's iPod and iTunes, was essential to them.
One thing remains clear, however: Even if its usage patterns are changing, MP3 remains the one necessary format for hardware and software companies.
Some big companies that have resisted this notion for years are finally adapting to the MP3 world.
Last month, Sony confirmed that it would at last let its digital music players support the MP3 format directly, instead of making consumers convert their files into Sony's own proprietary ATRAC format.
Microsoft also recently added the ability to rip CDs into the MP3 format to its new Windows Media Player, after years of sending users to third-party plug-ins if they wanted to make MP3s.
Analysts say those moves are recognition that consumers demand MP3 support,even as they're experimenting with other options.
"As far as we can see, there are no devices without MP3 support," said Henri Linde, vice president of new business and licensing for Thomson, which oversees MP3 patents. "I've been told for 10 years that MP3 is going to die in six months. We're still waiting."
Lango, They still do...
"Is whether we'll ever get to hear "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" ever again in a 7th inning stretch. Enough all-friggin-ready with the 9-11 overdose of "patriotic" b.s. You get to fawn all over yourself with the national anthem. Enough. It's a BASEBALL GAME. We sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" at these things, during the 7th inning stretch. Or at least we used to when we were a free country"
They still sang it at the Dodgers-Rockies game I went to about 2 weeks ago. All is not lost. Except for a post season berth.
Altaire:
"Security through Obscurity... works for Me !!!!"
Buona foreclosure, dude.
I'll be sure to remind you of that the next time I see you whine about another Adobe program being EOL'd on the Mac Platform, OR the next time you cry about Microsoft monopolizing the profits in some sector.
I'm sure there's still a few Commodore 64 users out there that are as close minded as thou.
Won't need your wishes, Altair:
"If Apple Mac OS X ever had the security issues that Microsoft Windows has had most Mac users would abandon the platform."
If OSX had anything over 2% of the amount market share that Windows has, than it'd be more of a target for virii writers & hackers. As it stands now, OSX's best security feature is it's relative obscurity. No one wants to bother writing viruses for a system that there is not a viable amount of users for. And if you hadn't noticed, that percentage of marketshare has continued shrinking every year. It's Kind of the same thing as what's happening with actual program writers,Adobe has cancelled HOW MANY products for the Mac platform in the last 2 years due to lack of a viable user base to make it worth it for them?
"Mac OS X 10.3.5 is about as secure an operating systems can be."
Until someone decides it's got enough users to make it worth their while to attempt to mess with. Rest easy, signs indicate that OSX will continue to remain a relative "less than 2% marketshare" curiosity.
P.S. If Windows is, as you say, such a "poor imitation of the original MAC OS", HOW COME Windows has kicked Apple's ass in the marketshare, profitability & sales arenas, so completely, year after year, after year?
textbook definition:
"It's all about justifying the investment they've made into the platform and basic human nature.... many people fear change."
What a TEXTBOOK DEFINITION of the standard, everyday Apple user. Check your bias, See if you can spot the irony.
Fender Tweed is NOT a model, it's an era.
The word you seek is Champ
Must..not..troll spray:
"witness their Palm top, which is a "they lose" scenario"
Hmmm... and to think the MSFT Pocket PC platform is in WHAT sales position these days? #1, isn't it?
Smart Phone... Remains to be seen... nascent sector.
"witness their XBOX, which is a "they lose" scenario"
Wow. Tell that to the Nintendo Game Cube (who?) developers. XBOX has turned Nintendo, a former sector leader, into a 3rd place "also ran" .
Amazing that for all the "they lose" B.S.,MSFT STILL is the company with the largest market capitalization.
How does a company that supposedly makes all these mistakes manage to make all that money?
It's simple. This "They Lose" whitewash is total crap.
Jon, instead of cherry picking,
Why not post the link to the original article?
It's so much more believable when you post entire sentences that can't be taken out of context. Past performance is usually a pretty good indicator of future intention, if you catch my drift.
MSFT launches Plays For Sure Campaign:
Devices that are compatible with the new MSN Music Store will carry a special "plays for sure" compatability label.
.
.
.
.
.
.
oh yeah, & it's a sensuous grub.
Did MSFT snag a Beatles Exclusive?
Microsoft to Debut Store
The download market will get more crowded in September
Apple's iTunes music store is about to face some serious competition, as online giant Microsoft prepares to roll out its own music store on September 2nd. With the ability to funnel 350 million users a month to the store via its Hotmail, Messenger and MSN sites, Microsoft will likely become the number-two player in the market for legally downloaded music and ultimately could challenge Apple's reign at the top.
The company has kept details of the Microsoft music store under wraps and declined to comment for this article. But according to sources close to Microsoft, the store will open to the public with somewhere between 600,000 and 700,000 tracks for sale at ninety-nine cents apiece. Within a couple of months, it will match Apple's 1 million offerings. Reports that Microsoft will use its financial clout to become the first site to offer the Beatles catalog (the band reportedly demands tens of millions of dollars for a long-term exclusive arrangement) could not be confirmed.
Microsoft is joining an increasingly competitive field. In the past year, high-profile stores have been launched by Wal-Mart, Napster and RealNetworks. Wal-Mart sells songs for eighty-eight cents, eleven cents less than iTunes or Microsoft. Many of the online stores seem to be timing promotional efforts to coincide with Microsoft's launch. Real began charging forty-nine cents a song for a limited time, losing money in the short-term in an attempt to gain new customers. In the coming months, Sony will be pushing its Connect store with television tie-ins, such as almost instant downloads of performances on the Jimmy Kimmel show and a new ad campaign featuring Macy Gray. In July, Napster launched an online-music store with Best Buy; by September, the download company will have kiosks in more than 600 stores for customers to try out the service.
Some sources speculate that Microsoft will bundle its new music store with future versions of Windows, much like Apple bundles iTunes with its operating system. Ted Cohen, EMI Worldwide's senior vice president of digital development and distribution, has seen Microsoft's site and describes it as "a better mousetrap" because it integrates the company's search and instant-messaging technologies. "I think it will be a serious competitor quickly," he says.
One source close to the matter says that Microsoft has made several overtures to Apple to make its store compatible with the industry-leading iPod but has been rebuffed. (Apple declined to comment.) Manufacturers of players that support Windows Media -- essentially all of them except the iPod -- are excited about the new site. "Any store selling music that our machines support is a great thing," says Gary Byrd, a spokesman for iRiver, a top-selling manufacturer. "When it comes to the market with Microsoft's might, that's a double bonus."
(and a shout out to our Texas friend, who posted it first, elsewhere. )
Shouts out to Bootz who found it first. KUDOS!
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story?id=6450450&rnd=1093454032293&has-player=unknown
I'll have to listen to the replay.
And call me cynical, but shouldn't the #1 techno-superpower be able to get a flippin' conference call link hooked up?
Still, I saw the CFO on CNBC saying that MSFT had increased their profits "by the size of 2 eBays, or 2 Yahoo's" .
Pretty descriptive. I like it!
ACE
LINK? What Link?
Micorosoft GOOFED. Big time. They failed to post the link.
The normal MSFT Presspass link didn't work either.
Hopefully , they'll get it up & posted for the replay.
It was a very nice earnings report. I'd love to hear the audio.
Baldrick: Firefox. Is there an easy way to import multiple bookmarks?
YES:
FILE>IMPORT>IMPORT SETTINGS AND DATA>FROM INTERNET EXPLORER.
Bits of Ballmer's Memo to the employees:
In FY04, we made strong progress on several fronts that are essential for our future. We delivered some amazing products that were widely recognized as delivering great value to our customers and creating opportunity for partners — including Office 2003, SharePoint, MSN Messenger, Windows Mobile devices, MBS releases with Office UI and SharePoint integration, Xbox Live, enhanced Web services, Microsoft TV Foundation, and improved Tablet and Media Center PCs.
We improved customer satisfaction amongst key audiences this year (and our focus on security remains paramount), and we made great strides in much more deeply connecting with our customers. We favorably resolved the lion's share of the 150,000 customer issues in our field response system for non-technical issues. We have fixed nearly 70 percent of crashes and hangs experienced by customers in our key products this year by relying on our Watson technologies to statistically target our service pack work. Products like Small Business Server 2003 really show how great customer understanding and segmentation leads to better products and customer satisfaction.
As a result, in the 12 months through Q3 of this year, we grew faster than key competitors such as IBM, AOL, Sun, Oracle and Sony. Windows with .NET surpassed Java in number of new projects. Xbox is approaching PlayStation's share in many markets, and Office 2003 is being deployed faster since launch than Office XP. We know how to compete with Linux through innovation, quality support execution, and facts-based customer education. We gained server market share (as did Linux) and are poised for more progress. OSS products have yet to provide meaningful customer value on the client compared with our offerings.
We put most of our legal issues behind us in a year marked by the significant affirmation of our Consent Decree by the U.S. Court of Appeals, the framing of the EU case for appeal, and milestone agreements with key competitors...."
Agreed: No Story Here.
I don't shy from my polital affiliation, either.
Maybe
you should ask the guy who was President at the time the records were destroyed.
William Jefferson Clinton is his name.
"Think this is like the missing minutes on Nixon's tapes?"
Then you should have looked for the article:
LJK writes: "Here's the article I was looking for"
BUT YOU DIDN'T look for the article.
Instead you copied & pasted it from the post of someone you claim to have on ignore, and in the process exposed yourself as someone who lied about it.
The dead giveaway? The line ""Gee, sounds a bit like the "world's fastest computer" claims, doesn't it?" was commentary added by the poster you claimed to have on ignore.
Fascinating pictures, Cotton.
That's one huge fish, too.
Ace
Say WHAT?
"This was the kind of incredible bungling that no one could anticipate."
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING!
THis is the kind of incredible bungling that ANYONE who's ever watched Apple flub a product rollout has come to expect.
This kind of flub is "Par for the course" for them.
( or did you forget the original G4 rollout, iMac2, G5 rollout, Titanium Powerbooks, iPod mini,Panther, etc. etc. etc. ?)
To actually roll out a product, & NOT screw it up would be major accomplishment for Apple!
We are in agreement Michael Moore is a left-wing propagandist
"Acesteele, We are in agreement Michael Moore is a left-wing propagandist, unfortunately four of the six sites you recommend for info are nothing more than right-wing propaganda. spinsanity and politicalusa I thought were worthwhile. michaelmoorehatesamerica is embarrassingly lame. That young man's movie is destined to quietly fade away.
I find the Michael Moores and the Rush Limbaughs of the world equally repulsive."
I merely posted the links & let you draw your own conclusions.
I made no claims to the validity of any of the thoughts expressed.
Unlike Micheal Moore, I saw no reason to edit things a certain way to make them appear to be what they are not.
RE:Micheal Moore's Propaganda
Looks like Mr. Moore has issues, and trouble telling the truth, the whole truth, & nothing but the truth.
Here's a few more info sites on the subject:
http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/
http://www.michaelmoorehatesamerica.com/
http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20020403.html
http://www.politicalusa.com/columnists/schlussel/schlussel_014.htm
http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2002/10/18320.php
http://www.americaisgreat.com/mm.htm
"You've got jail!"
Now THAT'S Funny!
Bootz, I believe you.
And it looks like next year's Lakers will bear little resemblance to this years team.
Shaq wants to pack, Payton, Malone, & Kobe all iffy, & the owners' daughter's boyfriend will no longer be coach.
Who knows what'll happen next. On the plus side, since the Lakers lost, there were no fires, riots, or looting around the Staples Center.
P.S. Thanks for the $20, the irony is I'll have to spend $10 in gas just to go get it. Like I said, you're a man of your word. =)
Bootz - I'm told envelope has arrived.
Your honor as a man of your word is "stainless".
(now all's I gotta do is go get it.)
Ace
How much should they charge to "feature" an artist for 3 days?
About 5-7 years for each offense.
That's the average sentence handed down for RACKETEERING.
Which is what you're describing. Rethink it again.