Scandal X Microsoft: Spending Daddy's Money Since 1975 (Repost from 2014)

It happens in the third episode of Scandal...

For the uninitiated, Scandal is a hit show on ABC in which Kerry Washington plays a Washington DC crisis management badass named Olivia Pope who has some allegedly “intoxicating even without the touching” relationship with the President of the United States in fixing things for her litany of high profile clients and (occasional broke asses if they’re important enough.) Olivia is a fixer of the highest caliber; a “Gladiator in a Suit”. Her cases involve preventing wars, saving careers protecting reputations that sometimes results in both the saving and taking of people’s lives. How she finds time to do all that and be sexually consumed with the philandering president remains a mystery to me (as does how he retains his presidential six pack), but I’m still early in season 2.

Presidential six pack... Sexual assault ridden gaze...

(html comment removed: more)In Season 1, Episode 3, Olivia is asked by an old client to defend her son against allegations of rape . Initially Olivia doesn’t want to get involved, but she and this rich lady’s money go way back, so Olivia figures she’ll help the kid out. This “kid” of course is anything but. His name is Trav (played by Michael Cassidy), he’s 27 years old, tall, good looking in that “bro pass me a beer” sort of way, next in line to run his family's multimillion dollar company, and so worried about his rape case that he misses his first day of court after a long night of getting schwasted and banging another hottie. Honestly, him going by Trav was enough to make him unlikeable...

Trav... about to have his eyes scratched out...

Eventually case solving happens and there are negotiations with the accuser. here’s a recap from RainyDayDiva.com

More stuff happens over the course of this throughly entertaining episode, but by the end of this it turns out ol’ Trav has a string of these incidents he’s been paying his way out of for years. He’s so used to throwing money at his problems that he just assumes he can get away with rape whenever he feels like. It takes a lot of convincing from Olivia Pope about not getting played to finally convince Trav's mother to let him pay for his crime rather than running off to Europe like Christian Bale in Shaft... Maybe I should have went with that as my analogy...

Whatever! Long exposition, but for me, Trav is just like Microsoft.

Number 41 on Forbes’ Global 2000 List (World’s Biggest Public Companies), Microsoft is in that bracket of companies that God gets loans from. This invariably means that they have more money than sense, because common sense can’t count that high. Microsoft continually takes the pages out of the Trav Playbook, throws money at their problems in what often looks far more haphazard than necessary. Granted, I have only the most outside of outsider perspective, but every few weeks there is some sort of ridiculous story involving Microsoft popping up in tech and gaming news. The kind of ridiculous stuff that makes Microsoft look like poster children for both obscene wealth and white privilege.

Most recently, Microsoft was involved in some sort of YouTube payola scandal with Machinima that’s at best misguided and at worst illegal according to Ad Age. Basically, YouTubers channels were offered money for views to talk about the Xbox One (or what have you) in their videos, but were forbidden from saying anything negative about Microsoft or their products. So if your YouTube channel is all about honest reviews, you wouldn't be able to talk about how broken and unfinished Microsoft’s newest console happened to be at launch. The only other company mentioned in doing this is EA, and if the two-time, two time (what up Jack Swagger!) Worst Company In America, Electronic Arts is the only company sharing your shady business practices it may be time to reevaluate how you interact with your user base. Some say it's good business while other's say it's staunchly illegal, but I agree with Marcus Beer in that Microsoft should have spent less on the smoke and mirrors and more on making a product that worked.

I respect his fearsome beard @AnnoyedGamer

2013’s was a rough enough year for Microsoft as early Xbox One marketing could easily be described as a conversation with a 5 year old. You ask them how school is going, but instead they tell you how much they like rabbits. It was cluster after cluster of conversations about things their core consumer base didn't want. They got better around the home stretch, but the Xbox One was still released without various advertised functionality causing many reviewers to call it broken. I guess being able to offset this with more and more prime time advertising particularly during NFL programming is a really fantastic way to offset any ground Sony made up with better marketing and fundamentally more complete system. Sure takes a lot of money to do that...

Now while this may just be my personal issue, Microsoft has no problem trying to get into everything and using the contents of their considerably swollen coffers to do it. I remember reading an IGN article in which Xbox execs were quoted saying they want their own Game of Thrones for Xbox Live. After seeing their TV centric Xbox One reveal last year with surprise appearance by Steven Spielberg, how they announced a Halo TV show before a new Halo game, and rabid pimping and exploiting of their NFL partnership, I couldn’t help but leave with the impression that they really believe they can jump into the world of original programming with a success like that. The arrogance! They act as though HBO just started making original programing of that caliber a few years ago rather than the 40 years it took to get good enough to produce the type of programing they're known for.

The programming HBO is known for...

Microsoft acts like the kid from a wealthy family who’s been given seemingly unlimited funds to get his business venture off the ground. Every time they have an idea, they just through a couple million at it. Not at making the thing better so much as making consumers hear about it all the time or cutting off competitors or poaching talent. Speaking of competitors, who is Microsoft’s major competitor? Apple (7.2 billion Nokia purchase, Zune)? Google (Bing, Skydrive)? Sony (Xbox One, Games with Gold, the Surface Fiasco)? Netflix (Xbox Live required to use on their consoles but not Sony’s or Nintendo’s)? HBO? Time Warner? Dropbox? I understand the virtues of having a mighty and diverse portfolio, but MS have so much invested in fields they’ve yet to become leaders in. They look like they’re beefing with everybody in tech and entertainment unless they aren’t outright buying them off.

I understand that it’s ridiculous to say that MS don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t work there, I’m not in the tech press, and I have no idea what the big picture looks like. I’m also sure they have tons of unbelievably talented and qualified people working for them. I just think they look like entitled dicks throwing money around and trying to attract people with flash over substance. So I’m out. I’ve been out, but I’m staying out. No more Zune or Windows or Xbox for me. Not until Microsoft quits trying to buy my love and use that money to earn it by bettering themselves, I shan’t be attending any more of their frat parties. I’m not going for rides in the convertible, and I’m definitely not going on any dates after dark where they may try something both of us will regret. There’s no way, I’m taking a pay off to make it easier on them either when they finally do get bitten in the ass. Power and money don't make you better. Being better makes you better. #DoBetter