How high will Microsoft fly? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly?

MSFT 481.28

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To: ToySoldier who wrote (11969)	10/31/1998 5:25:00 PM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (1) of 74651

Toy - There are several reasons why the assertion stated here seems very questionable. The word is that Gates told them that he would like to see Symbol Technology use the Windows CE technology on their newer units. If Symbol doesnt use WindowsCE then MSFT will have to consider removing their discounted $3/licence of MS-DOS and return them to a $27/licence. Gates has not been involved in license pricing discussions since the early 90's. He not only does not discuss license pricing, he has only a superficial knowledge of the many arrangements that MSFT uses. This work is done by Joachim Kempin and his team. Assuming that for some reason Kempin could not deliver a pricing message to a major customer, the next guy up the ladder would be Ballmer, not Gates. I can well imagine that Gates might want to see Symbol - or anyone for that matter - adopt Windows CE as a DOS replacement, but there are many, many DOS oem applications. Why would this particular customer rate such heavy handed tactics? By the way, the going rate for a volume DOS OEM license is $.50 not $3 so if Symbol was paying $3 they were already getting a pretty poor deal. This OEM has obviously had a long relationship with MSFT (otherwise why a DOS based product in today's world?). Hard to believe they would be paying way over market - one of the few reasons to still do a DOS based system is that the OS is practically free. The wireless healthcare market happens to be one where CE has gained quite a bit of share. Many of the 'real-time' features of CE 2.0 were added specifically to enable a flexible wireless healthcare instrument. I have seen several powerful demos of the capability of this package, one of them at the CE 2.0 launch, which featured an on-stage demo. All in all I rate this as an extremely unlikely scenario - it doesn't add up from any perspective (except possibly the Gates as Satan perspective...).

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