I'm laughing at the image, having seen Aeroplane Magazine Syndrome in action so many times! Usually not in IT buying decisions, though. The ones I've seen are always the management fad du jour (quality circles, Jack Welch human resource policies, etc.) and emanate from the top brass.
Re. Linux, yes the threat will take time to develop (or fizzle), but the cumulative possible effect may get reflected in the stock price far more rapidly. MSFT trades at a lofty premium that assumes dominance is assured for the foreseeable future. Once real signs begin to emerge suggesting this is no longer true, the P/E can correct very quickly.
You and I seem to be on opposite sides of the Linux debate, since I do believe it's real and we shall see uptake of it as a server OS over the next few years, especially once IA64 boxes become competitive with Sparcs. Nor do I see W2K taking over as the consumer OS, even MSFT has thrown in the towel and will release "Millenium" sometime this year. That will leave NT to continue dominating the workstation market, where Linux can't really compete because of application issues and weaker UI. Plus NT remains competitive in the departmental server market.
Returning to the stock, what makes you think MSFT will reach 140, rather than making a slow climb throughout the year from your 90ish price back to 120? |
