How high will Microsoft fly? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly?

MSFT 483.03

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Dec 5 9:30 AM EST

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To: John F. Dowd who wrote (19219)	3/29/1999 9:31:00 PM
From: RTev	Read Replies (2) of 74651

With regard to making MSFT auction their code why don't we force Coke to auctin their secret formula. Because Coke either isn't a monopoly, or if it is, hasn't engaged in the handful of forbidden practices that would bring antitrust action. But such a thing isn't unprecedented. Look at another case where a monopoly was forced to release its intellectual property, and things don't look so bad. From about the 30's onward -- as a result of an antitrust case -- AT&T's Bell System was unable to keep its intellectual property. They could file and hold copyrights and patents, but had to open them to anyone who wanted them. At first that was useful only to folks like Automatic Electric and Northern Telecom who could build phones and switches using Bell research, but in the 60s [and this is a quick TV-movie history only], Bell Labs held a press conference when it had perfected the transistor and gave the full specs to anyone who wanted them. RCA and several Japanese companies were spewing out the things a short time later and greasy-haired teenagers had a way to listen to that new "Top 40" stuff at the beach. And then a few ex-Bell engineers headed out to California to see if they couldn't build a few of the things on a thin wafer of glass. Thus was born Fairchild and Intel. And later, in the 70s, when two Bell software engineers had perfected a combined operating system and programming language for Bell switches, they dutifully released the source code to anyone who wanted it. Thus was born Unix and C. Using mostly those tools a few years later, a group of academics and military contractors managed to piece together a silly little thing that came to be called "the internet". (AT&T regained the right to hold its intellectual property as one result of the Bell System divestiture.) [I'm not suggesting that this is a good way for Microsoft to go, but only that a release of intellectual property is not unprecedented and that it can actually spur economic activity.]

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