Microsoft to purchase Australia
Posted by Michael on Wednesday October 23, 2002 @04:53AM
from the Ballmer-down-under dept.
Squid writes: Concerned about a law that allows Xbox mod chips to be sold in Australia, Steve Ballmer said last week that Microsoft may have to pull the Xbox from the Australian market if the law did not change. Fortunately, it now appears that Microsoft and the Australian government have reached a peaceful resolution to this issue.
In a landmark deal, Microsoft announced this week that it will purchase Australia for approximately 8.5 billion dollars. “This will allow us to bring the Xbox to the Australian market full scale, without being hindered by piracy or competition,” said a Microsoft representative. After the sale is complete, Microsoft intends to change Australian law to outlaw piracy-enabling devices as well as the open-source software menace.
Sources report that Microsoft may also use this as an opportunity to turn Bill Gates’s vision of a computer in every home, running Microsoft software into a government-mandated reality.
Subject:Something fishy
I don't know much about buying countries, but isn't $ 8.5 billion a bit cheap for Australia? I heard somewhere that the Gadsden Purchase, whereby the US acquired 45,500 square miles of sand dunes, cost $ 10 million. In today's dollars that would be about $ 150 million. Australia is 70 times as large as the Gadsden land, which makes the price per acre comparable, but Australia actually includes fresh water and forests on the eastern side, and some of the guys are kind of cute.
Comment by eBay Bride — October 24, 2002 @ 7:04 pm
Subject:Re: Something fishy
Here at Slashnot we're never willing to let the truth stand in the way of a good story.
I actually tried to calculate a reasonable price, but Microsoft didn't have enough money, so they got a really good deal. It was on sale.
Comment by Squid — October 25, 2002 @ 3:52 am
Subject:Re: Something fishy
Um, how much was the reasonable price?
Comment by Matthew — October 26, 2002 @ 6:00 pm
Subject:Re: Something fishy
OK, I lied, I didn't try that hard.
Comment by Squid — October 27, 2002 @ 1:03 am
Subject:Re: Something fishy
Know this is an old story, but anyway, at risk of dimming the comedic content… Australia's national stats agency recently valued Australian assets (not sure how comprehensive it was, I don't know if it included resources or even housing) was something like A$2 or A$3 trillion. Which is about $1.3-$1.7 trillion in $US.
Not that much, to be sure, but still a bit more than MS could buy (at least now the dot com era is over anyway).
Comment by Troy — December 8, 2002 @ 10:05 pm
Subject:Re: Something fishy
Just noticed in my previous post that the dollar signs went AWOL. Net worth was around two trillion in Australian dollars, which is about one point three trillion dollars US!
Comment by Troy — December 8, 2002 @ 10:07 pm