If you are a gambling man, you would most likely do much better than in Vegas if you were to time the release of the IE 4.0 beta, which is also the universal GUI for all the upcoming windows platforms. A cross platform universal GUI makes the tranistions from 3.1 to 95 to NT seemless to the end user and much simpler for the admistrator. By the way, it also ELIMINATES the need for the Netscape Navigator (or any other separate browser) completely by encompassing the browser directly into the OS. IE 4.0 is due out in beta by the 4th qtr. (and when on internet time, Microsoft has definitley improved with thier release delays). A Windows cross platform add-on (nashville or something like that) will be given away at no charge through the MSFT WWW site (and if B. Gates is on his toes, will be shipped once out of beta, at no charge and without request, to every registered user of all Windows platforms). Windows 97 and the ultimate release of NT4.0 should ship with this capability. A carefully placed short right about the time of the beta release should catch NSCP on a downslide.
The Carnivorous destruction of NSCP's browser advantage will reverbrate throughout it's overly speculative 170 trailing valuation, (it's forward P/E is even more specuilative, this is a brand new market, most predictions are pure guesswork, with absloutely no historical data to trend) and it's staple, primary revenue generating server and intranet business (if Microsoft succeeds in turning every Windows user into a card carrying IE 4.0 browser user, whose default browser is the actual OS, and whose OS recognizes several features that NCSP Navigator doesn't, most of Netscapes existing non-Unix server and intranet business will get very shaky, if not run for Gates's cover - and they will have a hell of a time signing up new non-Unix business). NSCP's staple diet will then become that of the UNIX domain. If so NSCP will still have problems. As it is MSFT is mounting a very successful attack on UNIX 32- bit business (remember Microsoft is one of the best marketiing forces around, while UNIX is fragmented and segregated) that will soon culminate with NT 4.0's release. Assuming NSCP does not get destroyed, their is no way - with Gates forcing MSFT browsing capability, built in servers and proprietary scripting languages (VB script) that support every thing that NSCP servers and browsers support and then some, into every licensed and unlicensed Windows OS, - any bona fide investor could justify anything near NSCP's current P/E ratio. NSCP will most likely not be able to come near the assumptions used to generate NSCP's forward going P/E, since those assumptions were (presumably ?, I didn't make them) based on a total universe of operating systems, and not primarily Unix , (MSFT makes a better MAC browser according to the MAC people I speak to, but I feel their market share is negligible, especially when it comes to intranet's and servers).
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