Pity poor Microsoft's midlife crisis - aka Lawyers Everwhere

Pity poor Microsoft's midlife crisis: "Microsoft has done well for itself in the Allchin era. Turnover grew from $US5.9billion in 1995 (when Microsoft was roughly half the size of Apple) to $US40billion today.

BUT even Forbes notes that the behemoth that for so long dictated our computing environment faces a midlife crisis: it is musclebound and mired in bureaucracy. Perhaps worse, it is overrun with lawyers, who have to approve almost everything it does.

Certainly Microsoft's growth has slowed dramatically. But it now needs to bring in an extra $US4billion a year just to grow at a historically low 10per cent - and $4billion is roughly a Yahoo! or a Google."

Lawyers killed IBM. Lawyers are killing MS. Both companies were under anti-trust scrutiny. IBM's finally off the hook, MS is worse off - they were found guilt.

Gates made one key mistake: He refused to settle with the DOJ and thus lost the anti-trust case. MS was found to be a monopoly that used it's power illegally. Lawyers are screwing the company. Too fraggin' bad.

News Corp sued over 'poison pill'

Murdoch's News Corp runs Fox News and is openly partisan. If he and his family lose control of the Corp., the 'invisible hand' of the market place would take precedent over the visible hand of Rupert 's politics.

News Corp. is being sued for protecting the Murdoch family's controlling interests from a potential takeover.

News Corp sued over 'poison pill': "Takeover fears

News Corp originally invoked the so-called 'poison pill' measure in August last year amid fears that Liberty Media was about to launch a hostile takeover bid for the group.

The move would ensure the Murdoch family, which holds 29.5% of the firm, remained in control to ward off any such bid.

Liberty fuelled speculation about its intentions after it boosted its stake in News Corp stock offering voting rights from 9% to 17%.

Despite Liberty denying that it planned to make any play for the media giant, News Corp reacted by outlining plans for a 'poison pill' measure to protect the group."