The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

Microsoft Sounds Jammin' with Bill Gates

2. Must Try to See TV

We can't help it. We still can't stop giggling whenever somebody tries to convince us that Microsoft (MSFT Quote) software soon will be the lifeblood of our home entertainment system.

One reason is that we've heard it all before. We heard it in 1993, when Microsoft and Intel (INTC Quote) demonstrated Windows for cable television set-top boxes. We heard it in 1995, when Microsoft made a big investment in Comcast (CMCSA Quote). And we heard it in 1999, when Microsoft made an even bigger investment in AT&T (T Quote).

The other reason we're amused is that Microsoft doesn't seem to understand what an uphill battle it faces in convincing folks it's a paragon of reliability.

Maybe you think it's reliable. But consider the recent experience of Microsoft's own Moshe Lichtman, corporate vice president of Microsoft's TV Division.

Last week, Lichtman was at Goldman Sachs' prestigious Communacopia conference in New York City, explaining how Microsoft's IPTV multichannel video system was on its way to being the lifeblood of our home entertainment system.

And guess what? In the middle of the presentation, Lichtman's demonstration of this cool system crashed. It froze. He had to abandon it.

The day before, we noticed that the Hyatt's cool information displays were marred by a Microsoft error message.

To be sure, the fault may not lie in Microsoft's software. But the difficulty of diagnosing Windows problems only fuels our skepticism.

We fear the day when a cable software glitch pre-empts the last innings of a World Series game. There are errors enough in baseball -- who needs a fatal one from Microsoft?

3. I'd Rather Be President Than Right

We just learned a new lesson from Disney's (DIS Quote) contentious shareholder meeting back in March: You can be right, and it still won't matter.

We're talking about executives Susan Lyne and Lloyd Braun, both of whom were in charge of turning around ABC's struggling prime-time schedule. They spoke reasonably eloquently about the three parts of their turnaround plan.

Part One was to get costs in order. Part Two was to improve the schedule, bit by bit, night by night. And Part Three, essentially, was to pray for a hit show.

We were fascinated. These were entertainment executives who were given their jobs presumably because someone thought they could methodically create success in Disney's TV operations. And here those execs were, admitting that a key part of that success was just plain luck. You have to just plug away, and hope that if you plug away long enough, the gods will smile upon you.

Knew Their ABCs Two former execs won the ratings game

"In time, we will get a little lucky somewhere and find that mega-hit," said Braun at the shareholder meeting. "A single true hit would make a remarkable difference," Lyne said.

Both were right. ABC got lucky this fall, with new shows Desperate Housewives and Lost. And ABC's prime-time fortunes indeed appear to have turned around.

But neither Lyne nor Braun are around to run their victory laps; Lyne got pushed out last spring, and Braun, seeing writing on the wall, departed voluntarily.

Yes, they were right. Fat lot of good it did them.