How high will Microsoft fly? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly?

MSFT 485.92

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Dec 19 9:30 AM EST

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To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (5017)	2/5/1998 8:44:00 PM
From: Liatris Spicata	Read Replies (2) of 74651

Daniel- <<Is there perhaps some element of coercion in Microsoft's dealing with the OEMs?>> No, there is no coercion whatsoever. By threatening to not sell its products to a particular company, Microsoft is perhaps engaging in hardball tactics, but unlike the Department of Justice, Microsoft does not force anyone to do anything. It can only threaten to withhold its business- admittedly a rather daunting prospect to a box maker. To conflate refusing to do business with coercion is to engage in intellectual dishonesty and to play into the hands of politicians and oppressors of the human spirit everywhere. To put it in more prosaic terms, you sound like my little brother who, when caught, used to whine that I "made" him to do something naughty simply because I wouldn't share my candy with him unless he did something we were were forbidden to do. I find it difficult to believe that any self-proclaimed Objectivist would quarrel with my contention. I am confident that a brief discourse would suffice to permit such a person to see the error in his analysis. Larry P.S. To Alan- In a free society- one devoid of legal initiation of the use of force- a company would have every right to withhold sales to another company, for whatever reason it chose (as long as no contractual obligation was violated).

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