Continue reading Is Microsoft Floundering with Steve Ballmer at the Helm?

Is Microsoft Floundering with Steve Ballmer at the Helm? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Closing Bell: late-day greed trumped fear (CIT, RIMM, HGSI, MSFT, ETFC)

Closing Bell: late-day greed trumped fear (CIT, RIMM, HGSI, MSFT, ETFC) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Microsoft's Ballmer: Windows 7 software won't increase PC sales

Microsoft's Ballmer: Windows 7 software won't increase PC sales originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Microsoft's Ballmer slams IBM's potential purchase of Sun Microsystems

Microsoft's Ballmer slams IBM's potential purchase of Sun Microsystems originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Microsoft job cuts are another sign of the times

Microsoft job cuts are another sign of the times originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) gets ready for another round of talks with Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) about buying its search business, the news that CEO Steve Ballmer killed two chances to get into search several years ago has emerged.

While there is some chance that the new chief of Yahoo! may elect to keep the portal company's search business, there is little reason not to at least hear Microsoft's latest offer.

Ballmer had the opportunity for MSFT to build online search empire almost ten years ago. According to The Wall Steed Journal, "In 2000, before Google married Web search with advertising, Microsoft had a rudimentary system that did the same, called Keywords, running on the Web. Advertisers began signing up. " For reasons that are hard to fathom, the world largest software company thought that an ad business built on search could hurt revenue from its other businesses. Microsoft also had the chance to buy a relatively small search company and passed.

Continue reading Steve Ballmer killed Microsoft's big chance at search

Steve Ballmer killed Microsoft's big chance at search originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As we begin the trek to grandmother's house, it's worth reflecting on what we have to be thankful for. The answer? When it comes to money, most of us have a lot less than we did a year ago. But for those of you who have your health and your families to comfort you, it will cost much less to buy the gasoline to visit than it would have in July. And as you're driving to visit those families -- consider how much less you lost in the last year than the world's 10 biggest losers.

According to the web site, The Business Sheet, those unfortunate people suffered a mind-boggling $176 billion in lost stock market value in the last 12 months. It turns out that 52% of the losses were suffered by three executives based in India. Here they are:

• Anil Ambani - $32.5 billion. Ambani heads Reliance Communications that invested $500 million in Dreamworks earlier this year.
• Lakshmi Mittal - $30.5 billion. Mittal heads ArcelorMittal which has suffered from a decline in the price of steel.
• Mukesh Ambani -$28.2 billion is Anil's brother and controls Reliance Industries, a petrochemical manufacturer.

• Sheldon Adelson -$30 billion. I did consulting work for Adelson about 22 years ago and he is quite a character. His Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) casino is suffering from the economic slowdown and he's had some trouble with debt.
• Warren Buffett -$13.6 billion. As I posted, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) has had some problems this year.

Continue reading The world's 10 biggest losers

The world's 10 biggest losers originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Wall Street Journal must have better things to do with its time and all that expensive newsprint. The paper reports that CEOs of 175 large US companies have lost over $42 billion in net worth from the end of their most recent fiscal years though last week.

By this calculations, Warren Buffett is down $9.6 billion. Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) has seen his piece of the software company drop by almost $5 billion in value.

The reason that the data is foolish is that a loss is not really ever a loss unless and until the underlying securities are sold. People like Buffett and Ballmer don't need billions of dollars now, and they are still extraordinarily rich.They are unlikely sellers Two years from now, their net worth may be higher than they were in 2007. Who knows?

The calculation of wealth, made popular by the Forbes 400 is an exercise in futile math. What the rich are worth, especially if their money is in liquid securities is a snapshot in time, and one which can change hour-by-hour.

Why bother to eat of the time of good reporters?

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

How poor are CEOs now? Is Buffett going broke? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 23 Oct 2008 04:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Microsoft thinking about Yahoo once again? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

CEOs have been doing the old soft shoe at quarterly report time since the market first form, but dancing now seems to have become a favored pastime of CEOs include Steve Ballmer of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Jerry Yang of Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) and (surprise? hardly) Mark Cuban (also a yahoo).

Yang busted some moves recently dancing with the star of Where the Hell is Matt?, the outstanding internet feature following adventurer and dancer (I use the term loosely) Matt Harding. Don't miss the video at the end of this post, if you're not familiar with Matt. - it's perhaps the most charming, uplifting video I've seen in years.

Of course, who can forget Steve Ballmer's dance at the podium during a Microsoft presentation? And, of course, Mark, 'Gimme the Cubs" Cuban performing on Dancing with the Stars?

Come to think of it, many CEOs are already quite accomplished at performing the fan dance with their balance sheets. Ex-Gov. Spitzer has shown his fondness for the hustle and the shag, while Donald Rumsfeld is still waiting for the cakewalk to begin. Senator Craig seems to favor the swing, while President Bush appears dead-set on taking on the Persian Dance before he waltzes out of the White House.

And me? Having lived through the Vietnam Era, I'm doing the Time Warp again.

Thanks to Portfolio.com

CEOs practice the old soft shoe originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• DJIA 11,227.72 (-60.82)
• S&P500 1,252.64 (-10.26)
• NASDAQ 2,243.11 (-2.27)
• 10-YR T-Note 3.93% (-0.043%)
• 52-Week Lows
• Top 10 Analyst Calls

Continue reading Closing Bell: Late day recovery fizzles as we enter earnings season

Closing Bell: Late day recovery fizzles as we enter earnings season originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Many Wall Street analysts thought that when Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) lost its bid for Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) that it would take the $45 billion it was going to spend and buy other online companies.

Think again. Microsoft's management says it is not so. According to the FT, "Steve Ballmer, chief executive, scotched talk that Microsoft would turn to a `plan B' of other acquisitions to boost its online presence." Ballmer feels that buying more internet companies will not improve its share of the search market. He is not simply after more pageviews.

The news is probably disappointing to several large online companies. AOL, Facebook, Monster (NASDAQ: MNST), and Digg might all have been part of a Microsoft plan to improve the size of its presence on the web.

The Microsoft comments send another message. Search is important. Display advertising is not. Search is an efficient way to make money. Display advertising's best growth years are behind it.

If Ballmer is right, the online world is about to go through a major upheaval.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Microsoft (MSFT) to give up on buying big web companies originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In a bit of investigative reporting that no one will care about, The Wall Street Journal has discovered that a series of disputes between Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates eight years ago caused a changing of the guard at the company. The paper writes that "The conflict between the two men paralyzed business-strategy decisions that the company still wrestles with today. Board members stepped in to try to mediate a truce."

The piece in the Journal is a nice human interest story, but that it would be the top story at the paper is a bit odd. That is until the reader considers that the cult of personality is still alive and well in American business. Chiefs like Lee Iaccoca and Jack Welch have written best-selling books. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) customers and shareholders worship Steve Jobs.

All of that, to a large extent, takes the eye off of the ball. The people who run large companies, even those that are fabulously successful, are only doing the jobs that the investing public expects of them. Even if they are founders. Gates and Jobs decided to take their companies public. After that, the only reasonable question is whether they made shareholders money.

In many ways, the transition from Gates to Ballmer has been a failure. Eight years ago, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) traded at $53. Now its stands at under $28. Gates may have turned the CEO job over to Ballmer, but neither has done the stockholders any favors.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

How Steve Ballmer got his job originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Recently I posted a Serious Money metrics story that included Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) comparisons along with six other stocks. Until now I have not felt very strongly about the merits of Microsoft's offer to acquire Yahoo! and merge assets and features.

I was leaning toward the price is too high camp, but now, after Microsoft has withdrawn the offer and I have looked at the current state of affairs of both companies, I think it did the right thing and may have avoided a nightmare.

To bring Yahoo! into the fold, Microsoft would have had to find enough cost savings by eliminating overlapping departments or it would have had to hope it could double Yahoo's earnings. If not, the acquisition would unduly weigh down the mother ship, because Microsoft's P/E Ratio of 17.08 is half that of Yahoo!'s 34.25.

Continue reading Serious Money: Microsoft may have escaped Yahoo disaster

Serious Money: Microsoft may have escaped Yahoo disaster originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 14 May 2008 15:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• The Wall Street Journal reported that an alliance of cable, Internet and chip titans will announce plans to invest $3.2B in a company that will deliver Web access for laptops and cellphones using WiMax. The venture, valued at over $12B, includes Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S) and Clearwire Corporation (NASDAQ: CLWR) and will be backed by Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Time Warner Cable Inc (NYSE: TWC), Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) and Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG).
• According to people familiar with the matter, Robert Verrone, one of the most zealous commercial real-estate lenders during the industry's boom, will leave Wachovia Corporation (NYSE: WB) within the next week, the Wall Street Journal reported.

• Bloomberg reported that the Department of Justice is probing whether UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) helped clients evade American taxes. In an e-mailed statement, the firm said one senior bank employee was "briefly detained" by authorities.
• Bloomberg also reported that Vallejo, California's city council voted to go into bankruptcy. Officials said that after talks with labor unions failed to win salary concessions from police and fire fighters, the city does not have enough money to pay its bills.
• According to a rumor, TechCrunch reported that the Yahoo Inc (NASDAQ: YHOO) board of directors yesterday authorized Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock, rather than CEO Jerry Yang, to call Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer about re-starting negotiations.

Newspaper wap-up: Tech firms to invest in wireless originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 07 May 2008 08:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading The brilliance of Steve Ballmer and the uncertain future of Yahoo!

The brilliance of Steve Ballmer and the uncertain future of Yahoo! originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 06 May 2008 17:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I was convinced that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) would go hostile on Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO). Microsoft is known as a tough player, right? And Yahoo seems to be a good strategic fit.

But of course, Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, has thrown in the towel on the $31 buyout offer. Apparently, he lobbed $33 per share - but the folks at Yahoo wanted $4 extra.

I can certainly understand why Ballmer doesn't want to overpay. After all, many M&A studies show that this is often deadly for dealmaking.

At the same time, Microsoft had the option of a proxy fight and a direct offer to Yahoo shareholders. However, Ballmer thought such things would be too distracting. But doesn't Microsoft have legions of attorneys and investment bankers?

Continue reading Ballmer wimps out

Ballmer wimps out originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 05 May 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Once again investors get left holding the bag.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) shareholders should breathe a sigh of relief for not overpaying for an internet search company, Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) where CEO Jerry Yang let his ego get in the way of handsome profits. Yang rejected the $47.5 billion offer that Microsoft put on the table. Why? Because he thought the company is worth more than $50 billion. As reported by the AP: "Clearly there's frustration," said Darren Chervitz, co-manager of the Jacob Internet Fund, which owns Yahoo stock. "I am not even sure if Yahoo cares about its shareholders because they didn't show much regard for shareholders' best interests in this process."

Yang actually thinks that a more sophisticated advertising platform is the secret sauce needed to produce a spike in revenue growth. Keep in mind that revenue grew by only 12% last year, and there is no indication that that number is going to be much higher in '08. Yang thinks that he will be able to grow revenue's by 25 percent in 2009 and 2010. Uh Huh!

I think that today's selloff in Yahoo stock will be an indication of what the public thinks of Yang's plan.

Could it be that in the long run he will be proved correct? I doubt it but only time will tell.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer's fund has no position in any stock mentioned, as of 5/5/08.

Yahoo CEO Yang sells out -- shareholders that is originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 05 May 2008 08:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The New York Times reports that Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer may raise his bid for Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) to $32.

That number may not be enough. Currently, Yahoo is valued at $29.06 a share but Microsoft is considering an offer in the $32 or $33 range. However, that's short of the $35 to $37 range that Yahoo shareholders want for their holdings.

Yahoo continues to hold out hope for remaining independent, including a combination with the BloggingStocks parent, AOL, a unit of Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) and a search advertising partnership with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). And so the drama continues.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

Will Ballmer raise his Yahoo offer by $3? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 01 May 2008 08:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Discretion is the better part of valor

Microsoft vs Yahoo!: Knowing when to back off originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.