"Microsoft Death Watch"

Brad R Tuesday 28 September 2010 - 15:30:29  

It was chance that led me to this opinionated blog by the Mad Hatter:

In the fall of 2009 I predicted that Microsoft would enter Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection in five years, based on my reading of their United States Security and Exchange Commission filings. That was before I was aware that Microsoft was in debt -- my thanks to Dr. Roy over at Techrights for digging out this information. Attempting to fully evaluate Microsoft's current financial health is difficult. The company regularly moves products from one division to another. While other companies also do this, in Microsoft's case a lot of the moves appear to make to have no rational basis, leading me to believe that Microsoft is doing this to hide the true financial health of the company.

Which I might easily dismiss, were it not for the several others who share similar opinions, such as the aforementioned Dr. Roy Schestowitz who has been writing about Microsoft debt for a while. Or Robert Pogson, whom Dr. Schestowitz cites:

M$ is increasing it dividend to shareholders and paying for it with an issue of long-term notes. To pay some of them back they will have to be in business for another 30 years. Do you feel lucky, punk? I would not count on a company with decreasing share and being hated by many customers being in business that long, would you? This could be a high-class Ponzi scheme. Why is a company awash in cash and taking in $billions in sales borrowing money?

No, I'm not suggesting this as investment advice. It could be way off base, and I'm not qualified to evaluate it. Instead, I'm offering this as technical advice: how will it affect you personally, or your business, if Microsoft were to fail? No more Windows updates. No more Office updates. No more support. No more monthly security patches.

You need a plan B. Sure, your existing software will continue to run for months or years without updates, barring any major security breach. But instead of being tied by the gonads to one vendor, and hoping for the best, perhaps you should figure out now how to move away from reliance on Microsoft.
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