Happy Birthday! Microsoft is 35 years old!

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, All Articles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Fraud Accounting, IFRS, Intermediate Accounting, International Accounting, Managerial Accounting, Uncategorized, Video Updates.

From modest beginnings, Microsoft, started by college dropout Bill Gates, gave birth to an entire
industry, changing the way we live and work and became one of the largest software companies on the
planet. As this article points out, not everything has been notable during its history. In particular, look at
this parody video of Clippy, the cute but much maligned animated paper clip introduced with Office 97.
Microsoft turned off the Clippy feature by default in Office XP, promoting it as part of a $30 million
marketing campaign, and removed it altogether in Office 2007.

Questions:

1. What type of journal entry or entries do you think that Microsoft make for the $30 million campaign to silence Clippy?

2. The article talks about Microsoft’s surprising investment when in August 1997, rival company Apple desperately needed cash. Microsoft came to their rescue and bought $150m in stock. What do you see as the reasons for this event?

3. What journal entries do you think Apple would have made in the exchange mentioned in Question 2?
What journal entries would Microsoft have made?

Sources:


YouTube Video. (2006) Annoying Microsoft Paperclip, November 23
(Retrievable online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zr2-_ap4O8)
Sanjay. (2010) Happy 35th Birthday Microsoft, Access India, August 27.
(Retrievable online at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg40506.html)