So it turns out that the Feds believe Microsoft, like so many other companies, has been managing its earnings.
According to a scoop in today's Wall Street Journal, the Securities and Exchange Commission is close to an agreement with Microsoft under which the software powerhouse will acknowledge the accounting no-nos it has committed, stop misbehaving, and promise to play nice in the future.
End of subject.
What makes this case so different, of course, is that Microsoft wasn't allegedly trying to inflate its results. According to the published accounts of the SEC's investigation -- and according to conventional wisdom on Wall Street since the mid-1990s -- Microsoft was trying to downplay its earnings. If other companies attempted to take cookies out of the jar to deposit on their bottom line (think: Network Associates (NET) under ex-CEO Bill Larson), Microsoft stands accused of dropping cookies into the jar for consumption at a later snack time.
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