Netscape -- Giant Killer or Flash in the Pan? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : Netscape -- Giant Killer or Flash in the Pan?

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To: Jacques Tootight who wrote (3193)	5/20/1998 9:19:00 AM
From: Ted Shelton	Read Replies (4) of 4903

Here is a scary thought -- Is Bill Gates so smart that he WANTS us all to be wrapped up in the NSCP vs. MSFT browser/OS argument... while meanwhile the real antitrust issue has nothing at all to do with browsers and everything to do with portals -- NSCPs new business... Here is my argument -- ultimately MSFT will prevail in the argument about technology. The browser really is an alternative user interface for a computer to the desktop metaphor that Xerox PARC and Apple started 20 years ago. There will be new human-computer interface concepts in the next 20 years -- probably more, faster than in the last 20 because technology is now reaching a critical inflection point where problems of speech and handwriting recognition can be intelligently solved. Ultimately an argument about what an operating system company can and should do with the way in which users interact with the OS cannot be decided by a government without undermining a lot of other aspects of our society. Try to apply this as a rule of law to other product categories and companies. Meanwhile, while Justice exhausts itself on this pointless battle about browsers -- the real action is in the media space. Microsoft is becoming a portal company just as Netscape (with Netcenter) is in the process of converting itself (or part of itself) into a portal. What is a portal? The most valuable and important part of the next generation of media companies -- the audience aggregation point that will make all other media possible. I don't think I am saying this strongly enough. Here is another try -- If CBS doesn't buy a portal company soon, then a portal company is going to buy CBS. I can provide more analysis on this aspect if anyone cares - but not on this thread. The important point here is, for NSCP and for Justice -- the whole argument about portals may be Microsoft's red herring, getting everyone focused on the wrong thing while the real action is elsewhere... thoughts?

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