Who's afraid of the big bad Microsoft?

[CptGreedle]

DOWN WITH MICRO$OFT!

[whippersnapper]

Originally Posted by richard lichtenfelt

If Bill would let them spend some of his income on research and development they could rip off more Apple products.

And produce crappy products such as Zune!

[tommyD]

The actual value of a company is its market capitalization (the sum of all stocks times the current stock price). The market cap as of this morning for Microsoft (MSFT) is $325B, and Bill Gates owns a big chunk of that stock, which makes him worth what he is (along with his other holdings).
Sony (SNE-$54.6B), Matsushita (MC-$42B), and Toshiba (?), are showing smaller market caps on the American stock exchanges than Microsoft, but I don't know how much of that relates to where the holdings of the corporation are relative to the stock symbol.

[tommyD]

Oh, just found Matsushita Market Cap on the Japanese exchange (TYO: 6752) 5.458 Trillion Yen, or about 48.3 Billion USD. Sony (TYO: 6758) has a market cap of 6.134 Trillion Yen, or about 54.2 Billion USD. Based on those numbers, M$ would be 5 times bigger than each of them...

[actionhank]

Originally Posted by MOONPHASE

and plus look at the PS3 for instance it has folding@home one of the greatest programs ever do you think Microsoft would spend money on something like that? probably not. bill gates hogs all of that money to himself and now he is not the most richest man on earth

In case you didnt know the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the largest charitable foundations in the world. 1 out of every 3 dollars spend towards fighting HIV comes from the Gates foundation

[Elandyll]

Originally Posted by tommyD

The actual value of a company is its market capitalization (the sum of all stocks times the current stock price). The market cap as of this morning for Microsoft (MSFT) is $325B, and Bill Gates owns a big chunk of that stock, which makes him worth what he is (along with his other holdings).
Sony (SNE-$54.6B), Matsushita (MC-$42B), and Toshiba (?), are showing smaller market caps on the American stock exchanges than Microsoft, but I don't know how much of that relates to where the holdings of the corporation are relative to the stock symbol.

The capitalization of a company is merely an accountant's way of evaluating the "potential" worth of company X at instant X (mostly usefull for those huge Loans companies sometime need for their development). But with the extreme volatility of the market, it is a deceiving measure to say the least (cf the AOL case). Also, capitalization does not always translates directly into available cash (unless you start selling your stocks, right after a re-capitalization or you got a major loan).. but Net Profits do

So yeah, M$ does have large pockets. The question is, will the board and shareholders let all that cash go to waste for long?

[pitabun]

Don't be hating on Bill Gates.
He is a great leader for Microsoft, and actually gives most of his money to charity and good will.

Do you have Millions of dollars to give to people that need it?

If you did, would you give it away?



Please, don't hate

[pitabun]

"the Gates Foundation endowed the University of Cambridge with $210 million for the Gates Cambridge Scholarships. The Foundation has also pledged over $7 billion to its various causes, including $1 billion to the United Negro College Fund. According to a 2004 Forbes magazine article, Gates gave away over $29 billion to charities from 2000 onwards. These donations are usually cited as sparking a substantial change in attitudes towards philanthropy among the very rich, with philanthropy becoming the norm.[52]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

Under Philanthropy

[Corrupteddragon]

Yup, hate for MS aside , Bill Gates donates vast sums of his wealth to charity and research. How many other company CEO's or the richest people in the world can say that?

[Musashi]

Microsoft *does* make a lot of profit off of Windows and Office Products.

That being said, they aren't as big as many ppl think they are, and they're far from being "undefeated". PS2 beat XBox, ipod beat Zune.

Gates does donate alot; all celebrities do.

This all being said, Microshaft has a thing for trying to force a monopoly in any industry they invade. They're trying it with both movies and video games now. They get a temporary boost, but ultimately it just means more losses for them. Their stockholders need to call an end to the format war spending. I wouldn't be surprised if they meet a couple years from now to discuss whether or not to cancel the next XBox, considering the $1 billion per year losses that division has posted.

[181]

I'm no economist, but my reasoning is that revenue numbers show you the amount of business flowing in. How much you can turn into profit is a different story. For instance, Matsushita has over 4 times the employees of Microsoft and will spend more on operations. It may be more costly to produce hardware vs software?

And market cap is perceived worth of a company, not an actual number like revenue. That's why those damn stocks have been going up and down a lot lately.

[Luis_A51]

One thing though is that Microsofts revenue per employee is much higher. Therefore they pay out less in salary for every dollar they earn, which makes their profits so huge.

But I hate microsoft as much (if not more) any anyone else here. They alone cant counter the entire BDA.

[Blu-Ray Buckeye]

Originally Posted by richard lichtenfelt

Microsoft seems bigger than it is because Bill Gates demands a much larger salary than any other CEO.

No, it's because most Americans value companies based on market cap and not revenues. M$ is still the big dog in that regard w/ $330B valuation compared to Sony's $50B or so. The Japanese companies have suffered from slow Japanese growth for about 15 years.

[Blu-Ray Buckeye]

Originally Posted by Beefbowl

Bill Gates has more money than the whole company? That don't sound right.

Bill is worth $50B, the company is worth $330B.

Don't worry the Waltons are still the richest, they just split the $$ between all of the kids. Combined they are worth $80B. Also the Top 20 as of last year showed no Chinese, but most experts estimate that there will be 4 in the Top 10 this year. Within 10 years, the numbers the Chinese billionaires pop up will trounce Gates. There opportunity is bigger, they are in bed with teh government and the primary currency of their holdings isn't deflating 10% every year.

[Sonny]

Panasonic kicks ass & puts food on a lot of peoples table I'm proud to support them ( buy spending all my $$ on HDTV's & BDplayers LOL )!!

[Blu-Ray Buckeye]

Originally Posted by Elandyll

The capitalization of a company is merely an accountant's way of evaluating the "potential" worth of company X at instant X (mostly usefull for those huge Loans companies sometime need for their development). But with the extreme volatility of the market, it is a deceiving measure to say the least (cf the AOL case). Also, capitalization does not always translates directly into available cash (unless you start selling your stocks, right after a re-capitalization or you got a major loan).. but Net Profits do

You say that as if it's only accountants who use it. Market Cap is the #1 accepted way to value any public company. When companies are bought out or taken over it is via the stock and it always comes at a premium to the current share price otherwise no deal will happen. There are many ways to calculate what the value should be, but all are open to debate and less accepted for public discussion.

[sj001]

Originally Posted by Corrupteddragon

Yup, hate for MS aside , Bill Gates donates vast sums of his wealth to charity and research. How many other company CEO's or the richest people in the world can say that?

Most of them, and donating massive sums of money results in very large tax breaks.

[actionhank]

Originally Posted by Blu-Ray Buckeye

Bill is worth $50B, the company is worth $330B.

Don't worry the Waltons are still the richest, they just split the $$ between all of the kids. Combined they are worth $80B. Also the Top 20 as of last year showed no Chinese, but most experts estimate that there will be 4 in the Top 10 this year. Within 10 years, the numbers the Chinese billionaires pop up will trounce Gates. There opportunity is bigger, they are in bed with teh government and the primary currency of their holdings isn't deflating 10% every year.

What? Where did you get this statistic?

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/

I don't see any 10% there. Or are you talking about exchange rates? The Federal Reserve's Dollar Price Index has only fallen 8% YTD. Last year it was less than that, nowhere near your 10%. And remember nominal rates don't matter over the long run, its the real exchange rate that matters.

Besides it's not like Bill Gates is holding his wealth in currency under his freakin bed

[ottscay]

It's also worth noting that Microsoft has more cash on hand than anyof the BDA companies. Which can matter during a bidding war...

[Blu-Ray Buckeye]

Originally Posted by actionhank

What? Where did you get this statistic?

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/

I don't see any 10% there. Or are you talking about exchange rates? The Federal Reserve's Dollar Price Index has only fallen 8% YTD. Last year it was less than that, nowhere near your 10%. And remember nominal rates don't matter over the long run, its the real exchange rate that matters.

Besides it's not like Bill Gates is holding his wealth in currency under his freakin bed

First of all, 8% is pretty close to 10%. secondly, obviously I am directly comparing to other major currencies and in this particular case the Yuan... to say the exchange between the 2 will move at roughly 10% isn't too unreasonable.

Secondly, I said the primary currency of their holdings. If you think Gates isn't weighted more heavily toward dollar back assets and rising Chinese billionaires aren't more heavily weighted toward Yuan then you're not thinking straight.

Nice way to try to be literal and miss the entire point.