Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) Message Board

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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM)

QCOM 178.29

-1.6%

Dec 12 9:30 AM EST

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To: Bruce R. Schlake who wrote (6841)	1/6/1998 12:03:00 PM
From: Arrow Hd.	Read Replies (2) of 152472

I am just visiting here from another thread but found the issues that Qdog and Bruce are debating to be of interest since I am familiar with Federal anti-trust and the IBM Consent Decree. As an expert witness in many technology antitrust suits over the years it is my opinion that MSFT has gone too far with regards to their business practices. If they were first to market with a browser and packaged it into their OS as the only way to get it then that would be the incumbent market standard but that is not what happened. Since they entered after the fact their browser should be offered separately with a separate P&L to prove profitability and there should be no strong-arm bundling tactics. IBM, under the Decree or within current established anti- trust law, would never attempt to do what MSFT has done. IBM offers packages too but if pieces are stand-alone offerings they will be snapped out and will stand on their own financially. If you think about it it also makes good business sense from an internal business case perspective and to be market-driven. MSFT is trying to "land grab" as much as possible as soon as possible to be an irreplaceable fixture on the IT landscape similar to what MVS means to mainframes and enterprise computing. But it is my opinion they have gone over the edge and my only question is why Netscape hasnt gone after them yet. IBM, Oracle and Sun, dominant in many respects in their own way, will come at this from another angle which is the NC and Java. The NC has been totally underestimated in my opinion. Sitting on my desk I have a Thinkpad 760 loaded with everthing imaginable. A true soft- ware jungle. But I am typing this post on a 1970s era 3279 by-sync terminal (an old "NC") since it is far faster for internet work and has a user friendly keyboard. Complex enterprise computing offers many alternate configuration options to accomplish the same end result but only one optimizes the cost/expense equation. Thousands of PCs with their resulting support and software expense is going to be mitigated by providing NCs to workers who dont need heavy duty stuff like spread sheets, etc. Email and even low level collaboration will be done on NCs. And the consumer market in more mature countries like ours has become price sensitive so alternatives like NCs need to be offered by internet providers so their services can be expanded. MSFT will be challenged by this new shift and will be bogged down with DOJ initiatives that dont necessarily affect the bottom line but suck up internal resources (document preparation, discovery requirements, etc) that could be better used to compete against current and future market initiatives from their competition. So, in a way, this browser war they embarked on is a fool's errand and is distractive but it is what happens when a company becomes intoxicated with their own success and their arrogance distorts what is truly important to move forward and successfully implement their business model.

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