How high will Microsoft fly? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly?

MSFT 492.01

+1.3%

Nov 28 9:30 AM EST

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To: John F. Dowd who wrote (16576)	2/21/1999 12:23:00 AM
From: RTev	of 74651

1. Nobody is saying that Microsoft did anything wrong in getting a monopoly. That isn't part of this case. The point is simply that they now have a monopoly. 2. Exactly. Having barriers to entry is a condition of monopoly, but there's nothing wrong with it. 3. Again. There's nothing wrong with "network effects" in and of themselves. The first three points are necessary conditions of monopoly, and there's nothing in the antitrust laws that sanction those conditions. The antitrust laws do, however, forbid certain kinds of business practices once a monopoly is achieved. 4. Microsoft did see the browser as something significantly more dangerous that "just another I/O device". They saw it as a way to loosen the grip of the Windows platform. 5. Although most of us who used it downloaded Netscape's browser for free, they were, nonetheless able to make a good business out of selling licenses to the browser to businesses and OEMs. (At least until MS came along and gave IE away in all circumstances.) 6. Tying was not declared a non-event. The appeals court simply told Jackson that his injunction was premature since the facts had not yet been tried. Their decision makes it more difficult, but does not preclude Jackson from finding that tying did, in fact, happen. You may be right that there isn't a case, but that attitude does worry me a bit. It's like having a very high "whisper number" before an earnings report. If a majority of investors believe that MS is going to win this thing, then a loss is going to send the price plummeting. But if we at least admit that Microsoft stands a chance of losing, then a loss would be less traumatic to the stock price. It might even be like one of those low earnings numbers that are nonetheless higher than the whisper: it might cause a bump.

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