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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly?
MSFT 492.01+1.3%Nov 28 12:59 PM EST
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To: Exacctnt who wrote (10073)8/11/1998 8:21:00 PM
From: Hal Rubel  Read Replies (2) of 74651
 
Public Opinion

RE: " I thought public opinion was on Microsoft's side. I hadn't seen anything recent. During the last go round, polls were not in the DOJ's favor. The basic belief was not to have the government intruding in business, especially high tech." R. D. Neumeyer

The polls will not save Microsoft from having to go through the jeopardy of an antitrust investigation based on specific antitrust allegations and issues. Lets put these "polls" into perspective as an expression of the will of the people:

1) In this country, Judges & Regulators are not bound by popularity polls.
2) The people polled were not savvy in the law and public policy.
3) The people polled were not savvy in the technology.
4) The specific allegations and issues were not laid out in the polls.
5) The premise of the polls merely support the existence of a universally known popular notion: To not to have the government tending to intrude into business.
6) The polls were undertaken before the evidence and defense was even heard.
7) The public has not yet had its chance to grapple with the issues.

In fact, there is no ground swell of popular support for Bill Gates and Microsoft:

1) Gates' carefully orchestrated public pep-rally failed to draw the public.
2) Newspaper letters to the editors appear divided on the issues.
3) Politically, even the right is divided on the Microsoft antitrust issue and does not speak with one voice on the controversy.
4) Microsoft's commercial allies have damned Microsoft's position by supporting it with faint praise in public, while huddling with regulators behind closed doors in private.

Bill Clinton and Bill Gates are considered to be the most controversial men in America.The public is looking forward to the execution of the investigative process to feed their ravenous appetites for controversy in both cases.

I would not expect public opinion to do anything but stay the course we are now on.

Hal
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