Aielyn on 20 June 2013
If Pachter hadn't seen this coming, I'd have described him as deluded. He's not deluded - he just doesn't say anything publicly that is of any value. And neither was this prediction, because everyone knew that MS would have to do it to survive.
There are two kinds of things that Pachter says publicly. Those that are good for his clients (half his job is clearly PR), and those that attract a lot of attention. Accuracy is irrelevant in both of those categories.
Note that most of this also applies to any other "analyst" who comments publicly in their role as an analyst - it's their job to perform analyses and sell those analyses to clients - if they give the analysis away for free, it's lost sales for them.
