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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly?
MSFT 459.87+0.7%Jan 16 3:59 PM EST

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To: David Howe who wrote (54191)12/14/2000 3:41:53 PM
From: Dave  Read Replies (2) of 74651
 
MSFT has an excellent record of succeeding in areas they DON'T have a monopoly in, so why wouldn't this be true if the PC OS market suddenly became competitive?

MSFT would die quickly without its OS monopoly. I can't think of a single market in which MSFT has succeeded that did not somehow leverage its OS monopoly.

Even Office is now a monopoly primarily because (1) MSFT was able to offer computer vendors better Windows pricing if they bundled with Office and didn't offer any competing products and (2) the Office team has access to new versions of the Win32 API long before third-party developers do, and has the power to have changes made to Windows to make Office work better and to make its competitors unstable.

If MSFT did not own the OS monopoly, it would lose all of its formidable weaponry against competitive threats like Java and Internet open standards.

In short, you can bet that even though consumer OS sales contribute only 10% to MSFT's bottom line, MSFT will fight OS competition with everything it has.

Dave
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