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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (3198)	6/27/1999 5:24:00 AM
From: chaz	Respond to of 54805

Motley Fool for June 24 features GNET in the Daily Double column, and gives some clues as to what SI is going to offer. Jill is right about seeing more Stock Site features, and one I hadn't expected, ICQ's real-time stock charting.

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (3198)	6/27/1999 10:34:00 AM
From: mauser96	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

I stand corrected- but wasn't AT&T forced to do it as part of a settlement? Presumably they figured a judicial decision would be more draconian. MSFT attitude in the trial is a bit hard to figure out. Though I don't think they are a true monopoly (the computer OS market should be considered as a whole, and there are big parts like mainframes where they have no dominance)they have been acting like a monopoly in their section of that market, the trial has not gone well for them, the judge has already made up his mind. etc,etc. There are several outcomes of the MSFT-DOJ trial that would actually help stockholders in the long run as well as satisfy the government. It could result in several gorillas instead of just one if it is broken up.There are several other "good" solutions. A MSFT that had to depend more on better products and persuasion and less on brute force would have to listen to it's customers more closely, and would eventually produce better products and higher profits. So why is Bill Gates acting like he doesn't have to make some changes? I still think settlement is likely. The worse outcome would be some perpetual scrutiny by the DOJ with all of it's politically inspired motives , lack of tech knowledge, and resistance to change. Speaking of Standard Oil, there is a recent biography of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. called "Titan" by Ron Chernow. I just started reading it, but so far it is an excellent book. In today's dollars Mr. R was far richer than Mr. G, and his companies totally dominated. It later turned out that many of the "competitors" that spoke most loudly against him were also secretly owned by him. Makes me wonder about some of the virulent anti MSFT people on SI <<gg>>

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (3198)	6/27/1999 1:07:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

Frank, I think that there is a good possibility that it went beyond the passive acceptance of T to be split up. Over the years I've heard some very compelling arguments which might lead one to conclude that T actually engineered the breakup due to the state of market dynamics of that time. Some of those factors were: - the ILECs not being as profitable any longer due to logistic entanglements at the local level, and the division of revenue stipulations with the other interstate common carriers (OCCs) who were coming onto the scene in ever increasing numbers; - equal access momentum was building up and the need to administer to too many other carriers, at both the federal and local levels which was getting administratively too unwieldy at the time; - the imminence of the emergence of competitive access providers (CAPs) - diffusion in the equipment supply chain area through local and federal level sourcing regulations, seeking to open up the central office equipment supply markets which resulted in the lessening of profitability at WECO, thus removing many of the resale and tax/depreciation regs that they had exploited, previously. This theory contends that the only way that T could have pulled it off and remain whole, from a fiduciary standpoint, was the way that they eventually did it, and that was by divesting their individual properties under the aegis of the federal government in an orderly and phased manner, yet in a way that was at least ostensibly, forced. Hmm.. I'll see if I can find the arguments and documentation which support these views somewhere in my archives, in case anyone is interested. Regards, Frank Coluccio