Teflon, I see your point. But I don't see some things in the same light - you regard the recent telecom news as bullish for MSFT in the market. I'm not sure about that. *Perhaps* it's good news from a long-term business point of view. However, short-term, I don't think this is going to cut it as far as fever for MSFT shares. We can understand why T getting into cable could be exciting - it's their core business. MSFT and telecom deals - errr... yeah, we heard Gates talk about providing software solutions, but apart from CE (which is facing a lot of competition), and possibly a bit of NT server boost, what CONCRETE software are we talking about? Sounds like a lot of vague bet hedging from Redmond. I can't imagine people going "wow, goodie, MSFT will passively encourage telecoms to invest in the busines".
So, I say the news is neutral short term. With plenty of possibility for bad news lurking (DOJ, Linux, competition in general). You and I may agree that long term MSFT is an excellent bet, but unfortunately there are plenty of investors out there who suspect that MSFT is in a very delicate position, with their traditional power base of monopoly O/S and related apps slowly eroding, while they don't have a clear plan for transitioning into other areas, areas which would have to be almost necessarily less profitable, unless lightening strikes yet again, and they latch on to some unbelievable cash cow... that's a tall order to fill. Even B.G. said - it is not certain that we can keep reinventing ourselves with each transformation a 100% success. I bet on MSFT, as do you. A lot of others are willing to take some of their MSFT chips off the table. They are looking for another growth stock. LindyBill(?) who switched most of his/her MSFT to QCOM is a good example.
In any case, MSFT is up right now :)
Morgan. |
