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Microsoft asks for government bailout
"We want to make it absolutely clear that this is not a crisis of mismanagement," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in a prepared statement. "This is simply a crisis of dollars -- a crisis of not having enough dollars coming our way. And if Microsoft collapses, better than 80 percent of the OS market collapses with us. We are requesting these bailout funds to avoid that undesirable outcome by bridging the gap between now and Windows 7."
OK, it hasn't really, it's just one of the better April Fools stories doing the rounds today, in part because in these troubled times it's almost believable.
It also has a grain of truth to it. Microsoft is in fact requesting $11 million in government funds to build a bridge between two of its campuses in Washington state. The company has agreed to pay the $17.5 million of the construction costs itself.
Now the company makes the argument that the bridge will reduce traffic for the whole area, and that may be true to a point. But it still sticks in the craw that a company sitting on billions in cash reserves is still willing to tkae government money and help send the country deeper in debt.
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