Possible insider trading at Microsoft? Ballmer selling $2 billion in stock

Comment: I predicted back in 2006 on my original blog (which is no longer available) that Microsoft would be involved in an Enron-style collapse resulting in insider trading charges against Steve Ballmer, resulting in imprisonment and a fate similar to Ken Lay (“suicided” or secretly moved to some foreign country and given a new identity).

Microsoft CEO Ballmer selling $2 billion of stock in first sale in 7 years
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has sold $1.3 billion in Microsoft stock over the past three days and says he could sell $700 million more before the end of the year.
By Sharon Pian Chan
Seattle Times technology reporter
November 5, 2010

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has sold $1.3 billion in Microsoft stock over the past three days, and says he could sell $700 million more before the end of the year.

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Ballmer sold 49 million shares, when the shares ranged between $26.74 and $27.16, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

He said Friday in a company statement that he plans to sell a total of 75 million shares by the end of the year. He said he is selling the stock to diversify his holdings and to help with tax planning.

“Even though this is a personal financial matter, I want to be clear about this to avoid any confusion,” Ballmer said in the statement. “I am excited about our new products and the potential for our technology to change people’s lives, and I remain fully committed to Microsoft and its success.”

Microsoft declined to comment further on the stock sale.

FULL ARTICLE

Microsoft CEO Ballmer to sell off 75 million shares
Josh Lowensohn
November 5, 2010

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer plans to sell up to 75 million Microsoft shares to help “gain financial diversification” and to “assist in tax planning before the end of the year,” the company announced today.

Before taking into account recent sales, Ballmer held 408 million shares, the company said, citing the latest Microsoft proxy report.

“Even though this is a personal financial matter, I want to be clear about this to avoid any confusion,” Ballmer said. “I am excited about our new products and the potential for our technology to change people’s lives, and I remain fully committed to Microsoft and its success.”

This is the first time in seven and a half years that Ballmer has sold stock. His previous sales of Microsoft stock back in 2003 came in just under $1.6 billion.

FULL ARTICLE

Microsoft’s proposal to license internet users is a ploy to ban Linux users from the internet

Comment: If the government-approved mandatory antivirus software is not made available for Linux or if currently-available Linux antivirus tools such as ClamAV are not approved by the government, Linux users will be essentially kicked off the internet. This is not about fighting government-created malware. This is about a corporate monopoly using the government to eliminate its competition and stifiling the dwindling of its market share.

Big Brother Microsoft Proposes Government Licensing of Internet Access

• October 8th, 2010 2:01 pm ET

The latest megalomaniacal proposal by a top Microsoft executive would open the door for government licensing to access the Internet. This would grant governmental and corporate authorities power to block individual computers from connecting to the world wide web under the pretext of preventing malware attacks.

Scott Charney, Microsoft vice president of Trustworthy Computing, stated while speaking at the 2010 SSE computer security conference that cybersecurity should mirror public health safety laws, with infected PC’s being “quarantined” by government decree and prevented from accessing the Internet.

“If a device is known to be a danger to the internet, the user should be notified and the device should be cleaned before it is allowed unfettered access to the internet, minimizing the risk of the infected device contaminating other devices, Charney said.

Charney said the system would be a “global collective defense” run by corporations and government and would “track and control” people’s computers similar to how government health bodies track diseases.

FULL ARTICLE

Freespire will be officially dead in two weeks

According to this thread on the Freespire forum, the Freespire website and domain will expire on August 22, 2010, which at this time is a mere two weeks away. If Xandros doesn’t renew the website and domain and allows the Freespire website to go offline, then Freespire will be officially dead. Xandros cares more about kissing Microsoft’s ass and making insignificant OEM deals and killing off everything associated with Linspire, especially Freespire and CNR. The CNR Warehouse has been down for at least THREE MONTHS. Xandros, do you realize the money you could make from selling “Click N Buy” software on CNR? How are you going to make money on Linspire’s old cash cow CNR when you don’t even maintain the freakin’ site to begin with?! CNR was a golden opportunity for you to make money, and you managed to screw that up. Xandros, your management is BEYOND incompetent. Just put yourself out of your misery and either liquidate your company or sell to a rival. For all I care, you can sell your company to Microsoft. After all, you did sell your soul to Microsoft back in early 2007 when you signed the patent deal.

EDIT: It seems that yesterday on August 12, 2010, Xandros renewed the Freespire domain name. Source

In addition, the CNR website is back online.

EDIT: Since the last edit, both the Freespire website (main site and forum) and the CNR website are both down. It is now safe to say that Freespire is in fact dead.

Stick a fork in Xandros, it’s done.

Facts.

Xandros hasn’t released a new version of Xandros Desktop since November 2006 when they released Xandros 4.1. That’s almost four years without a new OS.

Xandros hasn’t released a new version of Xandros Server since May 2007. That’s over three years.

Xandros’ Presto OS pretty much came into the market with a whimper and went out with a sigh – most likely in the span of one month.

DistroWatch has declared Xandros Desktop to be a discontinued distribution.

Many former Xandrosians – myself included – have moved on to other OSes such as Ubuntu, Mint, and PCLinuxOS. Most abandoned Xandros when they sold out to Microsoft’s racketeering scam (the “patent agreement”). (I should note that I abandoned Xandros upon release of Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake LTS.)

And now it seems that CNR.com – the only reason Xandros bought Linspire – has been down for at least two weeks.

Over the last two years, it seems that Xandros has make empty promise after empty promise. They promised to keep Freespire, return Freespire to its Debian roots, and base the next version of Xandros on Freespire.

Last year, I speculated that reliance on netbook OSes would be Xandros’ undoing. Looks like I was correct. Shortly after Xandros and Asus teamed up to make Linux-powered netbooks (the eeePC), Asus and Microsoft signed a deal where Windows netbooks would be given priority over Linux netbooks. In fact, Asus no longer offers netbooks with Linux pre-installed.

Face it. Xandros is a dead company. It had a bright, rosy future in 2004 and 2005. It was a serious alternative to Windows XP. It was the reason I got into desktop Linux. (The first Linux that I used constantly was Xandros Desktop 3.0 Deluxe.) Unfortunately, all the reasons to use Xandros are no longer there. It’s no longer updated. It’s ancient technology. And its userbase is abandoning it in droves. Xandros no longer has anything to offer other than its brand name and assets which I forsee being bought by a rival company – Canonical, Redhat, Oracle, or perhaps Microsoft (or if you believe the rumors, former Linspire owner Michael Robertson) in the near future. Xandros CEO Andy Typaldos needs to either get his company’s priorities straightened out or just get out of the market.

Were cyber false-flags and death of Linux planned at Bilderberg?

Comment: According to the list of Bilderberg attendees, Microsoft’s Craig Mundie and Google’s Eric Schmidt were in attendance. I noticed this comment on the article hosted at Prison Planet:

Next time I need another computer, I’m going with Apple instead. Screw microsoft, their products suck anyway.

I wonder what they’ll say when an Apple bigwig such as Steve Jobs is invited to a future Bilderberg meeting.

But then again, Mundie and Schmidt may be planning out their strategy of Google co-opting the Linux movement to where hardcore Linux users become disenfranchised with Linux and either give up or submit to Microsoft or Apple. Or maybe they are going to do as I predicted a few years ago: stage a cyber false-flag and claim that Linux users were behind the cyberattacks and use that as a pretext to ban Linux wordwide as a terrorist tool.

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Nato warns of assassinations, torture, bombings, and rape against patsies in false flag cyber attacks
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article7144856.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093
Michael Smith and Peter Warren June 6, 2010

NATO is considering the use of military force against enemies who launch cyber attacks on its member states.

The move follows a series of Russian-linked hacking against Nato members and warnings from intelligence services of the growing threat from China.

A team of Nato experts led by Madeleine Albright, the former US secretary of state, has warned that the next attack on a Nato country “may well come down a fibre-optic cable”.

A report by Albright’s group said that a cyber attack on the critical infrastructure of a Nato country could equate to an armed attack, justifying retaliation.

“A large-scale attack on Nato’s command and control systems or energy grids could possibly lead to collective defence measures under article 5,” the experts said.

Article 5 is the cornerstone of the 1949 Nato charter, laying down that “an armed attack” against one or more Nato countries “shall be considered an attack against them all”.

It was the clause in the charter that was invoked following the September 11 attacks to justify the removal of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Nato is now considering how severe the attack would have to be to justify retaliation, what military force could be used and what targets would be attacked.

The organisation’s lawyers say that because the effect of a cyber attack can be similar to an armed assault, there is no need to redraft existing treaties.

Eneken Tikk, a lawyer at Nato’s cyber defence centre in Estonia, said it would be enough to invoke the mutual defence clause “if, for example, a cyber attack on a country’s power networks or critical infrastructure resulted in casualties and destruction comparable to a military attack”.

Nato heads of government are expected to discuss the potential use of military force in response to cyber attacks at a summit in Lisbon in November that will debate the alliance’s future. General Keith Alexander, head of the newly created US cyber command, said last week there was a need for “clear rules of engagement that say what we can stop”.

The concerns follow warnings from intelligence services across Europe that computer-launched attacks from Russia and China are a mounting threat. Russian hackers have been blamed for an attack against Estonia in April and May of 2007 which crippled government, media and banking communications and internet sites.

They also attacked Georgian computer systems during the August 2008 invasion of the country, bringing down air defence networks and telecommunications systems belonging to the president, the government and banks.

Alexander disclosed last week that a 2008 attack on the Pentagon’s systems, believed to have been mounted by the Chinese, successfully broke through into classified areas.

Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee cautioned last year that Chinese-made parts in the BT phone network could be used to bring down systems running the country’s power and food supplies.

Some experts have warned that it is often hard to establish government involvement. Many Russian attacks, for example, have been blamed on the Russian mafia. The Kremlin has consistently refused to sign an international treaty banning internet crime.

Microsoft kills the netbook market because it’s scared of Linux competition

Comment: It’s amazing. Microsoft is so scared of competition that they are willing to deliberately force retailers to help them implode a market in order to kill the competition.

Found this post on comp.os.linux.advocacy

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/browse_thread/thread/0f45de43b6e3416b#

According to this graph (see below), YoY (Year over Year) sales of the
Netbook in the USA have slumped from 641% in Jul 2009 to 25% in Mar 2010
and 5% in Apr 2010.

We all know that tens of millions of Linux netbooks were sold before
Microsoft strongarmed the netbook manufacturers into providing only
Windows7 on Netbooks whose hardware specs were also dictated by Microsoft
to be much reduced compared to a Laptop. i.e. ram was limited.

Retailers were ‘persuaded’ not to offer Linux Netbooks where Windows
Netbooks were on display, or to make sure the Linux Netbooks were powered
off, or not just available.

This graph, http://mashable.com/2010/05/06/ipad-netbook-market/ shows the
sales data I have quoted above, although it attempts to suggest that the
Apple Ipad is the reason for the Netbook slump.

As the Apple Ipad was not released into the American market until April
2010, the Ipad may be responsible for some of the April slump, but it
can’t be responsible for the prior decline.

I think the likely suspect for the decline is Microsoft, Windows7, a
maximum of three concurrent apps, and pricing that in some cases, rivals
larger dual core laptops.

Who needs to innovate, … when you can exterminate?

Corporate shill Obama calls for bailout of corporate media to stifle rise of alternative media

Comment: Once again, Bushbama exposes himself as a corporate shill just like his predecessor George W. Bush. Let’s face it. The corporate media SUCKS. The problem is not the alternative media. The problem is that the corporate media product is SHIT. It’s just like how Microsoft puts out a shoddy operating system and drives people towards rival operating systems such as Mac OS X and Ubuntu. If the bailout of corporate media comes to pass, then mark my words: the next corporate bailout will be a bailout of Microsoft in order to stifle the rise of the free software movement.

Obama: We Need To Bailout Newspapers To Stop New Media Taking Over
President says preserving “mutual understanding” is critical to democracy

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Monday, Sept 21, 2009

President Obama has stated that he is happy to consider bailing out the corporate media, expressing concerns that alternative internet based news outlets will grow in popularity as a result of the downfall of newspapers.

Obama told editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade that preserving the print media is “critical to the health of our democracy”.

“I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding,” Obama said.

He also indicated that readers should be made to pay for online news content in the near future:

“What I hope is that people start understanding if you’re getting your newspaper over the Internet, that’s not free and there’s got to be a way to find a business model that supports that.” he said.

Over the past year, scores of newspapers have gone out of business or shifted to online only output, due to the rise of the alternative media and the resulting loss of ad revenue. Several large newspaper corporations have filed for bankruptcy, including the Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.

Obama said he “would be happy to look at” legislation aimed at providing newspapers tax-breaks if they were to restructure as 50 (c) (3) educational corporations. Democratic Senator Ben Cardin has introduced a bill in this vain titled “The Newspaper Revitalization Act.”

Critics may point out that, far from being “critical” to democracy, a bailed out government subsidized media is the very antithesis of a “free press”.

Government Banking and Government Motors would effectively be joined by the Government Press if bailouts were to be granted.

Bailing out the corporate media would once again constitute rewarding outdated and failing monopolies with more taxpayer dollars, thus punishing innovative forward thinking competition.

Furthermore, there is absolutely no basis for bailing out the newspapers, given that they employ less than one percent of the labor force in the United States.

The dinosaur corporate media is dying because it has proven itself to be almost wholly untrustworthy, acting as an unquestioning mouthpiece for the establishment.

Denouncing all blog based media as unreliable or without context is laughable in the face of the mainstream media’s recent track record.

Obama: We Need To Bailout Newspapers To Stop New Media Taking Over President says preserving “mutual understanding” is critical to democracy

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Steve Watson Infowars.net Monday, Sept 21, 2009

Protecting Linux from Microsoft (Yes, Microsoft Got Caught)

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/blogs/browse/2009/09/protecting-linux-microsoft-yes-microsoft-got-caught

By jzemlin – September 9, 2009 – 12:49pm

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal’s Nick Wingfield broke a story on Microsoft selling a group of patents to a third party. The end result of this story is good for Linux, even though it doesn’t placate fears of ongoing attacks by Microsoft. Open Invention Network, working with its members and the Linux Foundation, pulled off a coup, managing to acquire some of the very patents that seem to have been at the heart of recent Microsoft FUD campaigns against Linux. Break out your white hats: the good guys won.

The details are that Microsoft assembled a package of patents “relating to open source” and put them up for sale to patent trolls. Microsoft thought they were selling them to AST, a group that buys patents, offers licenses to its members, and then resells the patents. AST calls this their “catch and release” policy. Microsoft would certainly have known that the likely buyer when AST resold their patents in a few months would be a patent troll that would use the patents to attack non-member Linux companies. Thus, by selling patents that target Linux, Microsoft could help generate fear, uncertainty, and doubt about Linux, without needing to attack the Linux community directly in their own name.

This deal shows the mechanisms the Linux industry has constructed to defend Linux are working, even though the outcome also shows Microsoft to continue to act antagonistically to its customers.

We can be thankful that these patents didn’t fall into the hands of a patent troll who has no customers and thus cares not about customer or public backlash. Luckily the defenses put in place by the Linux industry show that collaboration can result in great things, including the legal protection of Linux.

The reality is that Windows and Linux will both remain critical parts of the world’s computing infrastructure for years to come. Nearly 100% of Fortune 500 companies support deployments of both Windows and Linux. Those customers, who have the ear of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, need to tell Microsoft that they do not want Microsoft’s patent tricks to interfere with their production infrastructure. It’s time for Microsoft to stop secretly attacking Linux while publicly claiming to want interoperability. Let’s hope that Microsoft decides going forward to actually try to win in the marketplace, rather than
continuing to distract and annoy us with their tricky patent schemes. And, let’s offer a big round of applause to Keith Bergelt and OIN, for their perfectly executed defense of the Linux community.

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Looks to me like MS has been caught again in shady dealings.

Microsoft reveals global agenda to criminalize Linux and free software

Microsoft pushes for single global patent system

Andrew Donoghue
CNET News
September 4, 2009

A senior lawyer at Microsoft is calling for the creation of a global patent system to make it easier and faster for corporations to enforce their intellectual property rights around the world.

In a blog posting on Tuesday, Microsoft’s Deputy General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez said that a backlog of patent applications internationally was needed to tackle the 3.5 million pending patent applications around the world–including around 750,000 in the US.

“In today’s world of universal connectivity, global business and collaborative innovation, it is time for a world patent that is derived from a single patent application, examined and prosecuted by a single examining authority and litigated before a single judicial body,” said Guiterrez. “A harmonized, global patent system would resolve many of the criticisms leveled at national patent systems over unmanageable backlogs and interminable pendency periods.”

Read entire article

Microsoft trains Best Buy employees to spew anti-Linux propaganda

Comment: I should point out that Linux works fine with iPods and video chat. Skype 2.0 – which is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux – works perfectly with video chat. Pidgin supports video chat on many of the IM protocols which are supported by Pidgin. iTunes replacements such as Rhythmbox and Amarok work perfectly with iPods. I have personally used Rhythmbox to sync to an iPod. And Transgaming Cedega and newer versions of Wine and Codeweavers’ Crossover Games will play World of Warcraft with no problems. So don’t believe the corporate disinformation from Redmond and the Madison Ave. advertising executives. Linux does everything Microsoft does…except get infected on a routine basis by trojans and spyware and adware and viruses.

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M$’s Anti-Linux Training at Best Buy.
Submitted by twitter on Friday September 04, @10:15AM

twitter writes “Best Buy is one of the few national computer retailers that has survived Vista and the recession. Here’s how Microsoft is training their employees. It’s like a throwback from the badly discredited “Get the Facts” campaign.

I work at Best Buy (insert boos and hisses) and I was doing some Microsoft ExpertZone training. … during my training modules, a “Linux vs Windows 7″ module appeared. Here are screenshots of the lies Microsoft is portraying.

Okay so here’s where it starts getting bad. [bogus claims that gnu/linux won't work your ipod, do video chat, play World of Warcraft and so on]

If you have been paying attention, you know that the first slide is a lie. Windows 7 won’t provide familiarity, choice, compatibility, or peace of mind, really. Windows 7 is a service pack for Vista that comes at a cost to your freedom and privacy. Best Buy is in for a world of hurt if they believe what Microsoft is telling them.”

Link To Original Source

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Here are some of the screenshots in question.

Here are some of the screenshots in question.