Ballmer wants his stock back

The shares are much cheaper than they will be if Ballmer's cunning plan to launch Windows Vista and Office 2007 next year actually works.

They are also a lot cheaper thanks to efforts from the EU to slap a multi-million euro daily fine on Vole for being so naughty over its anti-trust issues.

Vole's top bean counter has said that next year is looking quite good. Chris Liddell said that more people than expected had ordered Blista and Orrifice which is a good thing, apparently.

It is also earning more from its MSN outfit and Xbox units than anyone would have thought likely.

Vole is issuing a 20 billion tender offer at prices from $22.50 to $24.75 a share from today. Then it will slowly buyback shares over the next five years.

Wall Street analysts say that the share buy-back is an indication that Ballmer and co. are miffed that the share price is undervalued.

But then again they don't pay dividends on it, so it can't be that attractive unless you flog it. µ

L'INQ
USA Yesterday