It's neither, it's desperation. The announcement comes a day or two after MS announced (rumored/leaked whatever) that the Win Phone 8 OS is going to be ported to the small tablet form factor (7 to 9 inch). While Apple wastes time on the Dick Tracy watch wanna-be , MS is racing with Google in attempting to take a larger bite of tablet market share pie.

I love pie

Back in my cave in Oct 1993 the MS stock price was $2.68 Today in my cave the Oct 2013 MS stock price: 33.28 This year alone MS's stock price as gone up more than six dollars.

I think it was more of a reference to things like This, this, this, this, and this.

"Finally, are the police really that corrupt and/or stupid?" Yes, and for anyone who says that corrupt and/or stupid cops are a small minority, remember that the so-called "Honest" cops know about that corrupt and/or stupid cop and will almost always provide cover for him/her. Complicit and accessory. It doesn't surprise me one bit that a member of the police would advise people to ignore their fifth amendment rights. It does surprise me that this fascist nonsense was posted as a serious article on /. of all places. Parent modded down as troll should be corrected. Its not like there aren't constant reports and videos of cops abusing their authority.

"With the future of Microsoft now in question ..." Huh? Who is questioning the future of Microsoft? Ya got a link timothy?

Scroll down the page to the Mobile Phone numbers.

"@Ravaldy; Although I don't see how buying RIM would help them at this point."

RIM is still a (albeit shrinking) player in the enterprise. I think a possible MS acquisition (or as others have suggested, a Blackberry "Patent buy") could go a long way toward enhancing the attraction of the Win mobile phone environment to enterprise IT.

Nokia Q2 2013 mobile market share was a bit over 14%. Symbian numbers count too, because the not-as-smart-as-a-smartphone phone business was part of the MS/Nokia deal.

Not to argue, but in a few weeks time I expect something more along the lines of this: "From the desk of S. Balmer: We announced some exciting news today: We have entered into an agreement to purchase Fairfax Financial’s BlackBerry Devices & Services business, which includes their smartphone and mobile phone businesses, their award-winning design team, manufacturing and assembly facilities in Canada, and teams devoted to operations, sales, marketing and support." If MS isn't doing this they are nuts (a possibility to be sure). Adding a BlackBerry acquisition to the Nokia deal would get MS to nearly 20 percent of the smartphone market.

It might have helped if the quote had been as follows: "one point twenty-one jigowatts!" (Notice the corrected spelling)

El condensador de fluzo!

1.21 Jigawatts! Science!!!

I thought it was: H1B's, H1B's, H1B's, H1B's, H1B's, H1B's, H1B's, H1B's, H1B's, H1B's ...

Nah, just feed those students a nice cocktail of Ritalin, Strattera and Bupropion ... they will then mindlessly do whatever you tell them to. The search engine is just a start.

But *now* is Google "unbelievably better than all the alternatives"? I think not. Bing is as good as Google for most search (if not better in some instances). Functionally there is nearly no difference. Bing/Yahoo have grown to around 7% of search traffic as of 2010 and that may be an even larger market share by now (I didn't Google it). Maybe Google can stay on top with Cloud Search but Google is by no means invulnerable. Currently I'm using ixquick because they delete private details of their search users. For some reason that I can't quite put my finger on, privacy seems more important than brand loyalty lately.

Cool! maybe we can finally measure the speed of dark!