Word: microsoft
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...real return on cash is a putrid -0.2%. Holding cash has suddenly become a sure way to lose money. Why, then, has Oracle hoarded $5 billion in cash? How come Cisco--which last week raised its earnings projections--has $7.5 billion stuffed under its mattress? And why has Microsoft piled up a mountain of cash $38.2 billion high? Just how rainy a day is Bill Gates expecting, anyway...
Merrill Lynch tech analyst Steven Milunovich recently suggested that cash-rich firms like Microsoft should begin paying dividends to shareholders. Then consumer advocate Ralph Nader wrote an open letter badgering Microsoft chairman Gates to do just that...
...nation's third largest mutual-fund manager, thinks of dividends as a defense mechanism. "Dividends act as a check on corporate hubris," he explains. "Giving some money back to shareholders gives the shareholders the ability to decide what to do with it." Ralph Nader complains to TIME that Microsoft is "piling up $50 million a day. It tells shareholders that the only way they can benefit from Microsoft shares is to sell. That isn't good enough. Shareholders own the company--it's their money...
Nader isn't entirely right, of course. Some lackluster managements jack up dividends just to placate big shareholders. And you can benefit from Microsoft shares just by holding on--as long as they continue their long rise. Spokeswoman Katy Fonner says the firm has no plans to pay a dividend; it would rather use its cash for marketing, product development and "strategic investments...
...unusual in the technology world in that they are basically commodity products—with Intel and Microsoft controlling the technological innovation, the “box makers” like Compaq and Dell have little basis on which to differentiate their products. In a sagging economy, conditions are ripe for a devastating price war and a consolidation of the industry, which we have in fact seen in the last year. Two of the major players—Hewlett Packard and Compaq—are doing everything wrong in response to this situation, while two of the others?...