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monopolies
Posts Tagged “
Microsoft
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monopolies
breaking
Microsoft to Yahoo: Shit or Get Off the Pot
"Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) continue to play the cat-and-mouse game out in the open, even on the weekend: MSFT has send a letter to Yahoo board, and has set a three-week deadline for Yahoo to accept its current $31 a share offer or Microsoft will take its case to Yahoo shareholders. This could also mean a lower offer from Microsoft in case of a proxy war." More »
rumors
New Microsoft Guy: Johnny Knoxville?
Now this would be an interesting potential genius move/ mistake: According to an unverifiable leak to Gawker-approved blogger Cajun Boy In The City, Microsoft might be thinking about Johnny Knoxville as its cool new answer to Mac's young annoying hipster spokesman, Justin Long. You'll recall that Microsoft recently hired a new, more with-it ad agency in a bid to stop getting humiliated in 30-second spots. Is this what they came up with? We've emailed the company for comment [UPDATE: Microsoft's PR firm emails us: "Microsoft is planning a consumer advertising campaign with Crispin Porter & Bogusky. We have no other details to share at this time." Thanks!]. After the jump, the entire email [via Cajun Boy] from someone who purportedly attended a Microsoft focus group and saw it all firsthand. More »
evil corporations in action
Angry Rapper Partners With The Man
Troublemaking "gangsta" rapper Ice Cube made a video taking aim at white-collar wrongdoers like Enron and Halliburton, then promptly partnered with another white-collar, white-run wrongdoer, Microsoft, which has been punished for antitrust violations on two continents and has fomented a virtual army of haters. The business deal, which includes software for Ice Cube's new internet TV network, is quite a turn for a rapper who started out in the late 1980s with raps like "Fuck the Police" and "A Bitch is a Bitch" before moving on to albums in which he called white people "devils," Korean storekeepers "little chop suey ass[es]" and basically issued repeated calls for the overthrow of various levels of government. Of course, Ice Cube and Microsoft executives do share a certain disdain for U.S. law enforcement authorities. After the jump, the press release announcing Ice Cube's hard core partnership with "the Man" of the computing world and an excerpt from his new video, in which Ice Cube name-checks Allah and makes fun of corporate criminals like the one he just went into business with. More »
microsoft
Jeremy Piven Groupies Crash Geek Party
For some reason, Jeremy Piven and other Entourage people were hanging out last night at a party for Microsoft's new Office Live Workspace product. A CNET reporter went "hoping to find some people willing to talk about whether Office Live Workspace really is a formidable answer to the Google Docs that I've found myself using pretty frequently," but instead found a bunch of models there. Way to screw up a good Microsoft gathering, Jeremy Piven. [CNET]
advertising
Microsoft Hires Too-Cool Ad Agency In Brilliant/ Dumb (?) Move
Microsoft has finally figured out that, despite being one of the world's most powerful corporations, it is getting its ass handed to it in the advertising arena. As annoying as those "Mac vs. PC" ads are, it's pretty amusing that the richest man in the world is having his company's consumer credibility shredded by the cultivated stubble and shrugs of Justin Long, who isn't even funny or anything. Now, Microsoft has struck back by handing a $300 million consumer advertising account to Crispin Porter & Bogusky, the HOT and HIP young Miami agency that brought us campaigns like the Miller Lite "Man Laws" and Burger King's scary, big-headed "King" figure. Things are about to get weird. A guide to what to expect, after the jump. More »
tony kornheiser
The Top Ten Enemies Of Bloggers
"They're toads," Tony Kornheiser recently said about bloggers on a radio show for which he is paid good money. "They're little toads. Actually, they're pimples on the behind of the greater body politic in this country and in this city. And because, because they have access to airwaves and three or four people read them, they think, 'Oh, I'm very important.'" Kind of like radio hosts! But enough of that goofball, there are nine bigger blogger-haters who deserve derision — not because bloggers don't deserve constant mockery, but because insulting an entire class of people always guarantees failure. More »
oped
Why Microsoft-Yahoo Would Be Bad News For Media
In internet land, everybody's very excited about the Redmond software giant's bid for Jerry Yang's languishing internet directory. Where would a combination leave AOL? (Answer: without an obvious acquirer or partner.) What about the challenge to Google? (Finally, a competitor, financed by Microsoft's profits from its bloated operating system and office applications.) Most of the commentary is overblown. Fusing two mediocre internet units, Microsoft's MSN and Yahoo, will not magically produce a dynamic challenger to Google; merely, if business precedent is any guide, mediocrity on a greater scale. Unfortunately, the petrified traditional media companies don't know that. (They don't know anything really.) And that's why the creation of another internet behemoth would be so pernicious. More »
They couldn't get it together, leaving Rupert Murdoch's offer the only bid on the table for now. [WSJ]
media bubble
Thomson Corp. has made an overture to take over Reuters. Will they? Is good for stock price so far! [Globe & Mail]
Microsoft wants to take over Yahoo! But will they? [NYP]
Did the NYPD leak documents concerning the city's surveillance of protesters at the Republican national convention to Judy Miller? Could be! [VV]
It's deadline time for bids on the Primedia Enthusiast Group. Could the titles go to Ron Burkle? Possibly! [NYP]
Did former Illinois governor and Hollinger International board member Jim Thompson approve millions of dollars in payments to Conrad Black? Stranger things have happened! [NYT]
Is Campbell Brown really going to leave NBC for CNN? Today is so Friday! All questions, no answers! [TVNewser]
More »
Merger Fever And Rampant Speculation
bill gates
Bill Gates: "I Have Never Seen This Ad That I Can Describe With Total Accuracy"
The Microsoft chairman gets a little testy with Newsweek:Are you bugged by the Apple commercial where John Hodgman is the PC, and he has to undergo surgery to get Vista?Gates went on to note that he "couldn't find the humor in Justin Long getting whacked in the head by the wrench in the film Dodgeball, which I am also unaware of." More »
I've never seen it. I don't think the over 90 percent of the [population] who use Windows PCs think of themselves as dullards, or the kind of klutzes that somebody is trying to say they are.
How about the implication that you need surgery to upgrade?
Well, certainly we've done a better job letting you upgrade on the hardware than our competitors have done. You can choose to buy a new machine, or you can choose to do an upgrade. And I don't know why [Apple is] acting like it's superior. I don't even get it. What are they trying to say? Does honesty matter in these things, or if you're really cool, that means you get to be a lying person whenever you feel like it? There's not even the slightest shred of truth to it.
