Yes they are.

Reported for merging with the thread that's already here.

Microsoft! Microsoft! Microsoft! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

this isn't a linux vs windows thread
the question of this thread is "do you think microsoft is in trouble ?"
I havn't found another thread asking this question

Microsoft has been in it's death throws for a while. It takes a very long time for an empire to collapse. The Romans took 1000 years (if I'm reading the dates right)

"reports of my death were greatly exaggerated..."

Microsoft isn't going away any time soon. In 5 years, they'll own the media conglomerates.

If there is anybody who can buy M$ from petty cash it's the media conglomerates
right now there are 5 just 5 of them and thay have the power to controll every thing
every thing that americans see and hear on the media ALL of it news papers,tv networks,
cable tv,radio,magazines,music studios and movies every thing ( in the next year there will most likly be just 3 of them ) the only excption is the internet the last place where there is any free speach
no right now M$ is swiming with sharks that could swallow them with eases

There's a wonderful little legal principle here that the lawyers (who, of course, stand to profit handsomely from "this little legal squabble," as long as it continues...) tend to overlook. It's called the doctrine of laches.

To quote WikiPedia, "The person invoking laches is asserting that an opposing party has 'slept on its rights,' and that, as a result of this delay, that other party is no longer entitled to its original claim. Put another way, failure to assert one’s rights in a timely manner can result in claims being barred by laches. Laches is a form of estoppel for delay."

In other words, even if you step forward to the podium in The Honorable Court and claim that you have "207 patents," and even if you do, said Honorable Court will ask you, "why did you wait until now to press your claim?"

The law does not allow you to "wait until The Opportune Moment" to press your proprietary claim. Rather, it insists that you must not only react to every potential violation "as soon as you knew or should have known" of the violation, but also that you must react equally and impartially to every violation. "Fair is fair: You cannot choose your targets, and you cannot choose your time." If you cannot show that you acted swiftly and equally to every potential violation, you are estopped from acting against any violation.

Every attorney who has completed Business Law 101 knows this.

A bunch of attorneys took SCO's shareholders to the cleaners with crazy hopes of success with their specious lawsuits. I can only hope that Steve Ballmer is slightly more savvy than they turned out to be . . .

my point in bring up the software patent clame was
this is just about the same thing SCO did when it was about to go under
thay sued IBM and started extorting money from just about the same people
that M$ is now extorting money from
M$ is losing market ( and money ) on every front for years
so I will repeat my question Is M$ going under ?
thay sure are acting like thay are desprate for income
enron's stock kept going up until just befor the colapse
enron managed to keep it a secrite that the company was
going under untill just befor the colapse
enron was the biggest energy player other than big oil there ever was

if it is going under what will happen ?
IF with in 6 months there was no M$ what would the computing world be like ?
what would todays linux users be worth to this new world ?

Microsoft isn't going anywhere fast. With the cash on hand that they have (about $40B), they could stop everything - go to zero revenue - and it would still take 15 years for them to go under (without reducing headcount).

Their current actions are very strange. They are behaving like a company in its endgame, when they are clearly decades away from that (worst case scenario).

I'd suspect that they are actually trying to protect themselves from lawsuits. The deal they made with Novell effectively transferred a load of cash to Novell. There was a mutual exchange of indemnification. I'm more inclined to think that Microsoft was looking for protection; it's (closed) code is probably riddled with open source software.

By playing up the "we're gonna get you" FUD, they're probably hoping to enter into similar deals with the other major players. The end result will be that they are immune to lawsuits from those they have likely stolen from.

the S&EC allows for lot's of fuzzy math math when it comes to a company's asscets
and profits ( but M$ would never lie would thay )
the media wouldn't tell us if M$ were on the rocks
the media drew up the specs for vis-stool every aspect of
vis-stool was desinged around DRM this is the same media we depend on for the news
enron looked like it was a growing company right up to it's colapse
right now vis-stool is selling for 2/5 of what XP did when it came out WHY?
the last store I was in where thay were selling vis-stool sed thay havn't sould any copys yet this was 3 days ago and that people are asking for XP computers
vis-stool is hurting there computer sales
I was even tould at the same store that XP would sell out in 1 day after it's copys came
in for the first 3 months after it came out
this was an office supply store

BUAHAHAHA!

Speaking of someone stealing ideas off others...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TaIUkwPybtM

Apple should seriously consider suing Microsoft!

Ballmer is cool. He wrote windows. He is also fighting for the free world against communism! He has 100,000 dollars, so he is also well off because he is a good programmer.

The whole idea of patent infringement is odd. What if I independently rediscover something and use it ? How can I possibly know that it has been done somewhere else before ? should I check out all those billions of instructions that I described in my great thread about "HOW MANY INSTRUCTIONS ARE THERE ?".

Hmmmmm ........