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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3:59 PM EST

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To: Teflon who wrote (19412)	3/31/1999 3:24:00 PM
From: RTev	Read Replies (1) of 74651

I am very curious to see if AT&T and MSFT ever develop a relationship in this arena. It will be interesting to see what happens, but I don't expect much cooperation between those two companies any time soon. As I see it, they take fundamentally different approaches to the narrow points where their two very different businesses converge. Although they share concerns about wireless standards, it's in the TV-internet field that things could get interesting. AT&T (which controls @home and owns one of the biggest cable providers) focuses on the network. Microsoft (which is a partner in RoadRunner and several other companies including one of the biggest cable providers) puts its focus on the devices used on the network. Microsoft's interests are best served by a dumb network working with smarter devices -- devices that depend on Windows CE. AT&T's interests are best served by a smart network with dumb devices. AT&T wants to adds value to the network so users will choose AT&T's network over someone else's. As I read comments from @home's CEO that were posted on the ATHM thread, that's the aspect that came through most clearly. When he talked about the Excite merger, he emphasized the network intelligence that they can add to @home. AT&T would like to run mail/phone message/video servers for a user that can be accessed from any device (cell phone, computer, TV settop, toaster) as long as that device is on an AT&T network. AT&T doesn't care whether the device is running Java or Windows CE or Planet 9. Microsoft does care. It would be more likely to promote devices that could use any network as long as that network speaks mostly to CE.

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