On the lighter side...
I just heard a news FLASH that that the sorry state of CPQ has caught the eye of Bill Gates. Rumors have been flying that Bill, his chief technology officer Nathan Myhrvold, and sidekick Paul Allen were all spotted at a Smith Barney office in Bellevue, Washington this past Friday. The story is that Bill has opened a MARGIN account with Smith Barney. He is depositing his Microsoft stock (now worth 45 billion since the pop after the split announcement - yes, Bill was overhead saying some stocks do go 'up' after such news). Now get this, apparently Bill's plan is to simply BUY the Compaq Computer Corporation ON MARGIN, using his stock as collateral!!!! He again was overheard saying he was going to clean house, and that the CPQ executives would soon have 'all the time in the world' to wash their Porsches and buff those scratches out. He also had some comments for that pesky little Michael Dell, something to the effect 'wonder what Mikey will think when he finds out how much Microsoft software preloads are going to cost Compaq now'!! The long term plan is for Bill to pay margin interest using Compaq's profits, whip the company into shape, and then sell it back to the public at a substantial premium....
John |
