Speaking of that article in The Register, it's worth a second look. Faithful viewers Porsupah and Russell Maggio both pointed it out, and the very title should appeal to you drama-fiends out there: "Is MS heading for a share price meltdown?" The gist is that Microsoft may be relying on some tricky manuevers to "give a little upward nudge to its sluggish share price." Say what you will about Microsoft; few will deny that when it comes to marketing and spin, they are masters in the field. (Okay, so Microsoft Bob was a pretty serious blunder... geez, everyone has an off day.)

In particular, Microsoft is extremely adept at "momentum marketing," a technique that's on a par with FUD, or "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt." For instance, apparently last June Microsoft published a story with a headline that read, "Windows CE devices outsell 3COM PalmPilot 3 to 1." Scratching your head? Wondering how that fits in with all you know about how Palm's kicking WinCE to pieces in the handheld market? Well, it seems that Microsoft's story focused on "one retail store in Paris." But the headline is what people remember. Sneaky, right? But smart. It's mind share; if enough people carry around the notion that WinCE is three times as popular as Palm, it'll eventually become true.

Microsoft pulls that kind of stuff all the time. Remember last year, when they were forced to admit that they had fudged the download numbers for Internet Explorer 4? The Register also points out a past instance in which Microsoft had artificially inflated the Windows 95 sales numbers to persuade more people to climb on board the bandwagon. And when Windows NT was a slow seller in its infancy, reportedly the company combined its sales numbers with those of Windows 95 "to create the impression that NT was doing well, when in fact sales were very slow indeed." So in light of these past tactics, what do you think about Microsoft's recent announcement that Windows 2000 sales are "higher than expectations"? The company never said what its expectations actually were, but the spin apparently worked-- MSFT rose $5 the next day, in stark contrast to its lackluster performance right after Win2K was first released. You really have to hand it to Microsoft's spin doctors-- they earn their paychecks.