Microsoft kept artificially alive must cost tax payers a fortune

Most likely government money from tax payers goes through NSA / CIA to microsoft from deals to benefit "007 and big brother is watching you" technology. Like supposedly trick software in windows 10 that pumps all client data to the cloud anyway, despite the dummy settings, data now in the cloud to be data mined and analyzed for citizens surveillance under disguise of counter terrorism.

The list of debacles goes on and on:
silverlight
azure
onedrive
windows vista
windows 8
windows 8.1
windows 10
windows phone
surface tablet
office 365
...
...

fortheloveoftech.com...

tweakers.net...

tweakers.net...

dutchitchannel.nl...

www.digitaltrends.com...

www.facebook.com...

www.theregister.co.uk...

(some links are in Dutch)

With so many debacles it cannot be a healthy company, the link list is what one can quickly google in a couple of minutes, I wonder what a thorough desk search will find. I guess microsoft should file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy soon, to prevent further damage to the US citizens. The crux: It could be a sound company like Google and Apple if it did not keep so recalcitrant to its mantra "Change for the sake of Change".



videos are always good though (I do YouTube videos as a kind of illustration)

a reply to: galien8
According to the following article, Microsoft has been getting millions of dollars a year from the FBI for the user reports it sends the FBI. It was charging $100 per report, but they doubled it to $200 per report. What's to stop them from doubling it again to $400 per report, if they haven't already done so? Seems like they could jack it up as much as they reasonably want to stay in business.

How Much Microsoft Charges the FBI for User Data

Remember: all of those six-figure sums (provided by taxpayers) are for one month's worth of user data requests. That adds up to millions of dollars a year.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

US Citizens are paying for their own big brother is watching you surveillance

Good article! By the way. Thanks.

Can they in principle cook the books, to disguise income from NSA / CIA?

a reply to: Arbitrageur
So with total revenue of $85 Billion (this year). Those "millions" are what percent? How much of their operating costs do they cover? I don't think it would keep them afloat.

They make and market some very good software.

wait, what? Silverlight? that has something to do with windows media player, right?
wow, now I feel bad that the nsa has to sort thru all those free porn clips I watch to get to the non incriminating e-mails I sent to the auto parts suppliers telling them they sent the wrong part.
oh well, if you`re going to be a peeping tom you deserve what you see.

happy new year

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Arbitrageur
So with total revenue of $85 Billion (this year). Those "millions" are what percent? How much of their operating costs do they cover? I don't think it would keep them afloat.

The OP said something about filing for bankruptcy and those millions are why there's no need for that. Operating costs for a software company are mostly people and they can slash as much operating cost as they need to avoid bankruptcy. It wouldn't take many people to sell those user reports to the FBI. It's probably an automated process to generate the reports and if not it probably could or should be, so operating costs for that should be minimal.

They make and market some very good software.

That's debatable, and they've also made and marketed some very poor software. One thing they really wanted was to be a major player in the browser market and when their browser didn't meet their goals they tried strong arm tactics getting them in anti-trust suits and then Google put their browser on the market which became the success that Microsoft always wanted but never got. Now they're so desperate to get you to use their browser they'll pay you to dump Google's browser and use their browser and search engine.

Microsoft wants to pay you to use its Windows 10 browser Edge

Google paid distributors to help distribute Chrome but I haven't heard of them paying people to use it.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

The 2016 Financials are easily available. Microsoft is profitable and highly liquid with very strong cash reserves. Bankruptcy? Nuh uh.


I said some very good software. Windows 10 is stupid but the Office Suite is always getting better (except for the Windows 10 interfacing). Their development packages are very good.

originally posted by: galien8
a reply to: Arbitrageur

US Citizens are paying for their own big brother is watching you surveillance

Good article! By the way. Thanks.

Can they in principle cook the books, to disguise income from NSA / CIA?

It's all supposed to be a secret. We only know about those invoices because of a specific hack. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the tip of the iceberg. Anyway whether microsoft charges more for other services or not (I suspect they do), we know from the Snowden leaks about how prism siphons off Microsoft's data and that of other major internet companies. Microsoft's logo is one of the 10 shown in this prism slide but I don't know if any of the millions of dollars per year for the Prism operating costs go to Microsoft etc:

Prism slide

Microsoft makes their money selling software and services to corporations, those devises that flops marketed to the personal users are nothing compared to the money they make from business.

Does MS spy on you, yes. Do Google and Facebook spy on you, absolutely. How about the internet company you are using to access ATS, yup. Do I agree with everything MS is doing now, nope. In fact, I like them less now than I have in years. But I am a MS insider and have followed them for years and your theory or whatever about All these "debacles" as you call them could not be any more wrong.

The Surface line of products is a multi billion dollar business for them now. Windows Vista, 8, 8.1 and 10 combined are on more than 700 million PC's. That's 700 million out of the 1.5 billion PC's currently in use running Windows. Every PC maker pays MS to load Windows on each of those computers.

Office and Office 365 have been the number one money maker for MS for years only to recently be surpassed by their cloud and enterprise solutions which include Azure and Onedrive. Ever heard of icloud? You have Azure to thank for that. Windows Phone was a failure commercially. However with the fact that they are now able to run Windows on ARM chips, this could redefine what a "phone" is and have everyone else playing catch up in a year or 2. By the way, MS makes money on every single Android phone that is sold due to patent fees. And as stated above, this doesn't even include the money they make for services and software to corporations.

You posted an interesting article and then ruined it by following up with nonsensical statements and arguments. Not sure where you got your info or what your definition of a "debacle" is but you couldn't be more off base than you were in regards to that. As far as the spying, well as dirty as MS is, they aren't anywhere near as bad as Google and Facebook. Though they seem to be trying their hardest to get close.

The only legitimate response is hardware related initialy, apple's os is so much worse.

a reply to: galien8

More corporate welfare.

a reply to: awhispersecho

I really hate the 8.1 I can`t play any of my old PC games on it,would it have been so hard for them to make it backwards compatible? no it wouldn`t have been. they are crazy if they think I`m going to buy new 8.1 compatible games,not only do the 8.1 compatible games have graphics that would embarrass the old Atari video game developers but they are way over priced for crappy Atari game looking knock offs.

a reply to: Phage

Their development packages are very good.

They aren’t giving Microsofts package due credit. but NSA has software demands too. They just don't want to highlight that package...

a reply to: awhispersecho

The Strong ARM architecture is the key there. Apple, Motorola and Intel worked very hard on it. Other than adding touchscreen interface, OS 9 would have ran native on it. Too bad Jobs came back and demanded OS X to be a Linux kernel akin to NeXT OS.

But then no one would have kept the Mac Boxes (barely) alive today by buying them.

Um, er. I personally have no problem with Microsoft and consider them to be less intrusive than Apple, Google and Facebook. The flow of data between Microsoft and US authorities is a worry, but what is actually passed between them?

If the OP really wants to see US government supported industries then look to defence and aerospace. "Here is squadzillion dollars and please give me a screw driver, that does not work".

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Arbitrageur

The 2016 Financials are easily available. Microsoft is profitable and highly liquid with very strong cash reserves. Bankruptcy? Nuh uh.


I said some very good software. Windows 10 is stupid but the Office Suite is always getting better (except for the Windows 10 interfacing). Their development packages are very good.

Your back and basically spot on.
However , being a big time PC gamer , Windows 10 is the best. Well , since 3.1 .If ya dont like a feature , disable it. Google Windows 10 "God Mode" .

Office is the world gold standard without competition and if you say Google most power users will just giggle at you. Win 10 best thing to happen in many years edge a great stable platform. our company tries to force google but 3/4 of just put office on our corporate cards and nobody's none the wiser.

originally posted by: Tardacus
a reply to: awhispersecho

I really hate the 8.1 I can`t play any of my old PC games on it,would it have been so hard for them to make it backwards compatible? no it wouldn`t have been. they are crazy if they think I`m going to buy new 8.1 compatible games,not only do the 8.1 compatible games have graphics that would embarrass the old Atari video game developers but they are way over priced for crappy Atari game looking knock offs.

Not had such issues myself, what games in particular?

I don't worry about big brother on Windows 10. I use a local account instead of a Microsoft one, I disabled most of the bloat that comes with it, and well I don't do anything I give a damn about any governments, even foreign ones like the U.S seeing me do. Even if they do not approve.

Honestly after some tweaking Windows 10 is the best Windows OS I have used.

But any way, the core of the problem is not Microsoft, it is people.

The governments only do what the people let them. A real democracy you could shut that down in a heart beat.
But all I ever see and hear is a rabble rabble rabble and little else.

Maybe if people got of their arses and took the situation in hand and dealt with their tax funded employees the world would be a much nicer and truly free place.
But no, people want to complain on facebook and website forums and not do anything else.
Venting makes them feel better but accomplishes nothing and this is just what governments want.

U.S citizens especially, all this 2nd amendment stuff. You know the right to bare arms against enemies both foreign and DOMESTIC. But I don't see them dealing with those enemies, just wanting to make sure they can shoot folks who want to steal their TV, but happy to not shoot those stealing their lives and their income.
(Not that I condone violence and believe a peaceful solution is possible.)

But hey, we reap what we sow. Don't like it? Do something about it.

Honestly every time I hear people say democracy or land of the free I want to vomit and laugh at the same time.

Now excuse me I am off to like a facebook post so cancer is cured.

a reply to: Tardacus

Happy new ear to listen in