1. The tobacco lawsuits are not a particularly good analogy. The reason is that, even though there is documented fraud in terms of executives claiming they had no knowledge of addictive effects and did not try to alter nicotine levels, juries have mostly excused the companies on the grounds that smoking is still the choice of the smoker. The issue here is restraint of trade, which is much easier for a jury to decide in favor of the victims. Remember also, that the tobacco lawsuits are attempting to use criminal charges as a basis for civil actions, when the criminal charges, while perhaps provable, have not been brought.
2. I have no financial position in MSFT or options. I do have a position in companies that do business with MSFT, and whose fortunes would probably improve if there were no lawsuit. I do NOT have positions in any of the companies that stand to gain by pursuing litigation against MSFT (e.g., Apple, IBM, AOL, Sun Micro). Nor do I have positions in companies with competing applications or systems (e.g., Oracle, RedHat, etc.) I do have a position in QUALCOMM, which is a partner with Microsoft in their joint Wireless Knowledge venture. |
