Cueil said:
Why do you have to be a cock holster? The guy was obviously stating that if an ordinary man such as his dad could see it that it's obvious that companies like Microsoft and Sony had this situation planed as a possible senerio. As for the economy it was a long time comming and anyone who was part of a major market could see it from a mile away... hell I knew this shit was bound to happen back in 2006 when my company dropped 200 people because of the housing market (I worked for Lennox Hearth Products) The housing market was just the tip of the iceburg of the stupidity of the banks and lenders. It's absolutely absurd to think that they didn't have a clue about what was going on.
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Not again! Review the situation in detail. No major company foresaw or estimated the direction, degree and impact of the current crisis. None. At most some people saw issues with the sub-prime market and some complex investment packages, but you only have to look back to before the crash to see no company foreseeing how deep the issue would go nor provisioning themselves to take advantage of it.
MS made a price cut for the right reasons, but without any understanding that it was about to be given a huge boost due to external influences outside their control.
And I'm sorry but I don't buy this 'my dad' stuff. I work for one of the world's largest IT companies as a Business Develoment Director, operating across US, Russia, Europe, Middle East, etc. and I can tell you that while our very expensive economists foresaw some trouble the current crisis took the company by surprise, just as it did all others. Now, so far we've been lucky that our basic model as very high margins in line with MS, we have huge cash reserves, etc. so we can ride it out and in fact use the situation to our advantage to attack economically weaker competitors - so again its simply business that MS with their overall situation can really hurt Sony whose overall model is low margin, high cost consumer goods, and they will turn up the heat. But please, please, don't believe MS figured an economic downturn would handily conincide with their price cut.
Consider the following:
Even Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) could not buck the impact. The software giant last month reported first quarter profit that rose a modest 2% from last year, as revenue growth slowed amid the challenging economic environment. The company forecast second quarter revenue and earnings below analysts' current consensus estimates and lowered its revenue and earnings forecast for the fiscal year 2009.
Like everyone else MS is in reaction mode to something so large, and outside its control, it can do nothing but review the situation and calculate how badly it will impact the busines.
Like all large companies MS and Sony would have had some basic measures already in place for a general economic downturn, but no company has provisioned specifically against the current situation as is glaringly obvious.
Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...