Microsoft issues bonds. James bonds

Redmond, Wa – The biggest software company in the known cosmos has decided to issue “bonds” – a financial vehicle that could raise as much as $4 billion for the Redmond outfit.

We can only speculate on the reasons for this. Microsoft tells the world in a regulatory statement that it will spend the money on “general corporate purposes”.

Could it be that the launch of Microsoft Vista – which as Bill Gates told me and a few others personally – really did cost more than the first Moon mission?

It’s not short of cache, sorry cash, little Microsoft, but perhaps it is strapped for ideas. Some folk describe Microsoft as a “blue chip company”, but to us Intel is the “blue chip company” and Microsoft is a little green.

The big question is this. Would you invest your pension in Microsoft?

Perhaps it needs the billions so it can launch Windows 8.

*FACT Queen Elizabeth the First, her of Virginia, hired a cryptographer called John Dee to spy on countries in continental Europe. His number was 007. This is where Ian Fleming, he who wrote the James Bond stories, got the idea of calling James Bond 007. Fleming was also a spy, but shaken and not stirred.