Microsoft's Ballmer Sells 12 Percent Stake in Company

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Steve Ballmer sold 49.3 million shares of Microsoft over the past three days and plans to sell an additional 25.7 shares by the end of the year. Going somewhere, Steve?

"Even though this is a personal financial matter, I want to be clear about this to avoid any confusion," Ballmer said in a statement on the company's Website. "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."
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Ohhh, <runs to check if Microsoft is still in any of his mutual funds>. A CEO doesn't just sell his 12% stake in a company because he's 'excited about their new products'.
 
Relax guys. He just needed that $1.3B to buy himself a new hat.
 
Maybe he's buying a new yacht? Maybe he's making a large charity contribution for education. Maybe he's making a personal investment in space travel / the space port? (That's my hope.) Maybe he's seen the future and is going to buy out and improve OnLive? :p

Seriously, I doubt this has anything to do with insider trading. Few people are subject to more scrutiny by the SEC than Microsoft executives, and those execs are well aware of it.
 
Could it just be he wants to get his money prior to the capital gains tax increases which come January 1, 2011? When it comes to billions of dollars worth of shares, that adds up to a rather sizable difference between this year's taxes and next.
 
Who's the money going to?

DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! :D
 
He already knows that kinect is going to flop. No ones going to jumping around in their living room like they show. Can't play in the dark either most likely. They'll have to create a wii like controller like sony did to compete.
 
Conker said:
He already knows that kinect is going to flop.

No ones going to jumping around in their living room like they show.

Can't play in the dark either most likely.

They'll have to create a wii like controller like sony did to compete.
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1. Too soon to say.

2. If by no one, you mean active people, families, kids, and... uh... me. I've watched families play thing on Kinect at stores and they're having so much fun, it looks like they're models for a Microsoft commercial.

3. You can play in the dark. It doesn't rely on an image from a digital camera.

4. Try and appreciate the innovation. This is the first attempt a controller-less interface, in three dimensions, for complicated tasks. It's pretty impressive.

--Someone who bought Kinect even though it's just "pretty" right now... but thinks it will be awesome after a software update or two, some new titles, and a larger player base.
 
There's some rumors that have been brewing for the past few days in a variety of spots that Bill Gates might pop back into Microsoft, who knows if it's true, how long it might last, or what effect it might have.

Rumors... rumors... rumors... the lifeblood of the Intarwebs nowadays. :p
 
He already knows that kinect is going to flop
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They have had to raise there sales forecast for kinect from 3 million to 5 million devices sold
before the end of the year, it's will also be Xbox's biggest launch in terms of units sold.

A flop it is not.
 
Kinect looks like it's going to be a big deal. And why would you want to play with the Kinect in the dark? You know what, don't answer that.
 
Bad timing very close to windows phone 7 release this might slaughter their stock.
 
Ok, this is a very misleading title...As are most [H] news articles. He didn't sell his 12% stake in the company, he sold 12% OF HIS stake in the company, or he still retains 88% of his original shares.

As of Friday, Ballmer still holds about 359 million Microsoft shares
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Erm, yeah. He's headed for the hills.
 
Yeah because the PC is dead. Sure phones are the big thing, but PC have been a big thing and will continue to be so. Sure as more people become zombies are don't actually use computers for productive tasks there maybe be reduced demand, but as people are forced to be more productive and acquire skills they are going to need tools like PCs for the foreseeable future and Windows is a great platform for productive work. And PCs still have a lot of utility as game machines, Home Theater, digital media production, etc.

So I still see PCs are the preeminent platform form productivity and I see demand for PCs for productivity needs being a big driver in growth though not as rapid as phones. And Microsoft still has a shot with Windows 8 and an interesting slate and tablet platform.

At any rate another doom and gloom article about Microsoft. Sure there's some truth in this and Microsoft definitely needs to step it up on other platforms, but I see productivity tasks as part of the emerging tablet market and Windows still has a lot of benefit in that area that mobile platform OSes are still some time off getting if ever, like solid real time handwriting recognition.

CEOs buy and sell shares all the time, he;s just looking out for his interests, I doubt that this has a lot to do with Microsoft per se.
 
I agree with this


blitzkommando said:
Could it just be he wants to get his money prior to the capital gains tax increases which come January 1, 2011? When it comes to billions of dollars worth of shares, that adds up to a rather sizable difference between this year's taxes and next.
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and this

Kueller said:
Ok, this is a very misleading title...As are most [H] news articles. He didn't sell his 12% stake in the company, he sold 12% OF HIS stake in the company, or he still retains 88% of his original shares.


Erm, yeah. He's headed for the hills.
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The rest of you are just wrong or pure hating on the man :D
 
MajorDomo said:
Steve Ballmer sold 49.3 million shares of Microsoft over the past three days and plans to sell an additional 25.7 shares by the end of the year. Going somewhere, Steve?
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no its called his crappy seahawks team and the multi-million dollar stadium that the city of seattle gave him for free are sucking him dry. maybe this means hes actually going to get some decent players for that crappy team. lol
 
IRSmurf said:
1. Too soon to say.

2. If by no one, you mean active people, families, kids, and... uh... me. I've watched families play thing on Kinect at stores and they're having so much fun, it looks like they're models for a Microsoft commercial.

3. You can play in the dark. It doesn't rely on an image from a digital camera.

4. Try and appreciate the innovation. This is the first attempt a controller-less interface, in three dimensions, for complicated tasks. It's pretty impressive.

--Someone who bought Kinect even though it's just "pretty" right now... but thinks it will be awesome after a software update or two, some new titles, and a larger player base.
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no man, nobody is going to buy this. Larger flop than the 32x calling it now.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
no its called his crappy seahawks team and the multi-million dollar stadium that the city of seattle gave him for free are sucking him dry. maybe this means hes actually going to get some decent players for that crappy team. lol
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Paul Allen owns the Seahawks not Steve Ballmer.

He probably had some stock options that matured and cashed them in. Nothing worth reading into here. M$ survived its co-founders selling off millions of shares, I think it can survive its CEO selling off shares.
 
lol the guy who wrote that article is an idiot BladeVenom. Notice he never once said a single thing about the fact M$ stepped into the console market with the XBOX took it to the XBOX 360 and became a major player with high profitability and even convinced people to pay yearly fees to get online.

Apple had far worse of a history and still managed to survive a company worth 250billion dollars does not just evaporate in a a couple years.
 
Ballmer knows how to party.

Personal financial matter?

Sounds like someone's busting out the H&B.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
no its called his crappy seahawks team and the multi-million dollar stadium that the city of seattle gave him for free are sucking him dry. maybe this means hes actually going to get some decent players for that crappy team. lol
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Wut. Wrong MS guy.
 
Maybe investing some money into the Gates Foundation. Am sure he would have been on the list of uber rich folk that Buffett and Mr&Mrs Gates met with in regards to pledging 50% of their wealth to charity.
 
Ballmer is simply selling now in case Congress raises taxes by letting the so-called Bush tax cuts expire. Don't blame him.
 
I assume he needs the extra cash to replace all those chairs he's been breaking after hearing about Google and Apple all the time :D
 
rudy said:
lol the guy who wrote that article is an idiot BladeVenom. Notice he never once said a single thing about the fact M$ stepped into the console market with the XBOX took it to the XBOX 360 and became a major player with high profitability and even convinced people to pay yearly fees to get online.
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Xbox Live may be bringing in a lot of money now, but not enough to make up for the billions they lost launching the 360 and to fix all the RRoDs. Not to mention the $4 Billion they lost on the first Xbox. Soon they will have to launch a new console, and start losing money all over again.
 
BladeVenom said:
Xbox Live may be bringing in a lot of money now, but not enough to make up for the billions they lost launching the 360 and to fix all the RRoDs. Not to mention the $4 Billion they lost on the first Xbox. Soon they will have to launch a new console, and start losing money all over again.
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$4 billion is a laughably small amount of cash in this market. Getting their name into the console business and making their mark was more than worth that entry price. Also factor in that MS is still selling much more efficient XBox's now. Did they make the most they could have? Probably not, but they're doing fine.
 
Mr. K6 said:
$4 billion is a laughably small amount of cash in this market. Getting their name into the console business and making their mark was more than worth that entry price. Also factor in that MS is still selling much more efficient XBox's now. Did they make the most they could have? Probably not, but they're doing fine.
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And consumers win. So. Hooray. :)
 
delahaya said:
Ballmer is simply selling now in case Congress raises taxes by letting the so-called Bush tax cuts expire. Don't blame him.
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Bingo. I see a lot of people cashing out before the end of the year.
 
why is everyone acting like tablets are NEW? pc tablets have been around for over 20 bloody years!.. and you can get a motion computing tablet that WHOOPS the ipad's ass in every way, even price! seriously, on ebay, reciently, i bought a le1600 tablet.. it can use a pen, so you can use it as a NICE artists tool.. its got a 1.5ghz cpu vs the ipad's 1ghz, its got a gig and a half ram, 60 gig hard drive, runs windows, has EVERY PORT that a pc/notebook pc has, meaning usb, pcmcia, earphones, microphone, VGA, dvd/optical drive ports.. hotswappable batteries, multiple batteries, keyboards that connect to the tablet like a cover for the screen.. i just dont get what this Craze over Ipads are.. i'd rather use xp on a tablet pc, than one of those stupid oversized phones.. ANY day.

ohyeah.. and it cost $190.
 
better question, why are you replying to a thread that is 5 months old acting like it is new?
 
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