a) Content- Yep, it's an expensive "investment" for Microsoft all right. But when you're trying to push the envelope, you gotta be willing to spend the cash. Was the Fox network profitable in its first year (for that matter, is it profitable now?) How about CNN? I digress.
Your argument that Microsoft is losing money on Internet technology (not content) is silly and old. Did they lose money integrating disk compression into the OS? How about proportional fonts? Disk defragger? Winsock? Network connectivity? E-mail/fax client? Making the OS more robust is what drives OS sales and upgrades, remember? And you casually ignore that Microsoft took home a chunk of change with their investment in the twice-bought-out UUNet.
b) MSN- Jerry, I just got my new MSN CD. It is a multimedia extravaganza. It is amazing. It's expensive. Neither AOL nor Netscape could do anything like it. So yeah, I think it's likely people will use it as their ISP. I haven't spent so much time exploring the content, but it seems to me the technology is the thing (that's a nice way for me to say the content is less than compelling). The "free" portion is msn.com ... the pay portion is onstage.msn.com
They souped up IE3 in a big way to make the MSN browser. You can't download it. You have to subscribe. It's sorta like the AOL integration of the browser, but they've done a quite a bit more. Lotsa sound and animation, dynamic controls, interactivity and whatnot.
c) Market share- Have you tried the Mac version of IE 3? This version should eat significantly into Netscape's heretofore unchallenged Mac dominance as the only game in town. Also, AOL just recently finished the 3.0 Win95 client. Bill keeps telling us that corporate proxy servers aren't counted in market share surveys. Well, what about AOL's huge proxies?
d) IE 4- Although I would love to get my grubby paws on IE 4, there's really no reason for Microsoft to release it until Nav 4 comes out. Since all the reviews gave IE 3 the upper hand over Nav 3, why show your cards early? Bask in the glowing reviews, then strike back when the competitor releases something that claims to outdo you.
e) standards- I see zero difference between Netscape and Microsoft's handling of openess and standards. The basic idea, for both companies, is this: Keep as much proprietary as you can get away with.
f) stock prices- Microsoft is pricey. I prefer P/E ratios to discounted cash flows. I won't touch it. Netscape is even more pricey. But they could go even higher with Comdex. Nonetheless $60-70 is definitely froth, and I would consider shorting if it goes there. |
