I have never been a fan of Walmart (WMT). It’s enslavement and exploitation of the most unfortunate in the world I have always found repulsive. There are also those persistent rumors that many of those “Made in China” products are actually “Made in North Korea” and sent across the border to China where the only thing China does is slap “Made in China” on them before putting them in a container bound for Walmart. It’s completely logical this is actually happening. When you are a hermit kingdom who can count their trading partners on one hand with fingers (plural) left over . . . whatever finished products you export have to either be directly consumed by that trading partner or it must export them to another country. Hellooooooooooooooo Walmart!
Historically I have not liked Microsoft (MSFT). It has committed heinous crimes pushing its bug riddled software into places it should have never went. It has back stabbed and undermined every partner company in its history. You young kids didn’t live through that history, I did! This happened so much myself and others branded getting in bed with Microsoft as contracting corporate AIDS. Even the financial markets and analysts now take note of how every company which either partners with or allows itself to be purchased seems to quickly wither and die.
Now it appears LinkedIn and Walmart will soon be joining their ranks. I love this quote from Berko.
LNKD, with zero earnings prospects in sight, isn’t a bargain at $26 billion; rather, it’s an expensive and seemingly frantic gamble. And MSFT has a really stinky record with takeovers and buyouts. Its purchase of Nokia’s handsets quickly morphed into a $7.5 billion write-off. Microsoft bought Yammer for $1.2 billion, which turned into a black hole, and then put $605 million into Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader, which flopped, and its Skype purchase is an embarrassing failure.
MSFT paid $6.3 billion for aQuantive, an online advertising company that’s worthless. MSFT bought Visio for $1.4 billion, Navision for $1.5 billion and Tellme Networks for $800 million, and they’re all worthless. During Steve Ballmer’s tenure, MSFT bought 149 companies, and 121 of them have vaporized into the ether. No wonder Ballmer is bald.
And that’s just the recent history. It gets worse the farther back you go. The pre-Janet Reno days were even worse. Of course, Bill and Hillary Clinton stepped in to keep Bill Gates out of prison, where he really should have went. They’ll help any arch-criminal who can offer a sufficient bribe.
Hopefully you can read this tongue-in-cheek InfoWorld article. It was brought about by Novell (NOVL) trying to get in bed with Microsoft. They tried so hard they halted all DR DOS development while in negotiations. Microsoft then drug the negotiations out until they finally shipped another version of much neglected DOS.
The business landscape is littered with the carcasses of companies who contracted Corporate AIDS getting in bed with Microsoft. A token few managed to get some long term treatment which allows them to exist today as a mere shadow of their former selves. If you don’t believe that take a look at Novell and Caldera. Word Perfect ruled the word processing market. At one time it was owned by Novell then spun off to Caldera to improve relations with Microsoft. (That tongue-in-cheek article wasn’t so tongue-in-cheek.)
My Berko quote already gives you some idea of what happened to Nokia and Windows mobile. At one time Nokia was the best known cell phone maker in the American market. Motorola, which created the cell phone, had already fallen on hard times.
You can read about Zune on your own time.
So, now we have Walmart, evil empire of labor exploitation and tax loop holes, will get in bed with Microsoft just like Novell, Barnes & Noble and soooooo many others have. Glad I don’t hold any Walmart stock!
