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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Teflon who wrote (26029)	7/14/1999 7:45:00 PM
From: taxman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

"I like playing stocks on my own terms" msft is now providing you with free stock analysis. Redmond, Washington, July 14 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. said it's dropping the $9.95 monthly fee for premium services on its MSN MoneyCentral Web site, such as stock analyst reports, to make it more competitive with Intuit Inc. and America Online Inc. Microsoft also unveiled Passport, a single identification and password that can be used across its MSN network of Web sites. In addition, MoneyCentral will add an online bill-payment function to let users receive and pay bills from participating businesses. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, has been beefing up MSN to sharpen its challenge to No. 1 online service America Online. It's also pitting MoneyCentral against Intuit's site for individual investors, Quicken.com, which is free. ''That seems to be the way most sites are working -- getting as many users as they can, and the advertising will follow,'' said Brian Goodstadt, an analyst at Standard & Poor's, who has a ''strong buy'' rating on Microsoft. ''Microsoft is building the backbone of an Internet strategy.'' MoneyCentral ranks No. 4 among financial Web sites, behind Yahoo! Inc. Finance, Quicken.com and AOL Personal Finance, according to Media Metrix. The rankings are based on unique users at work, with Yahoo getting 2.8 million visitors; Quicken, 2 million; AOL, 1.72 million; and MoneyCentral, 1.16 million. MoneyCentral provides portfolio tracking, an investment- search feature and personal alerts, among other services. Passport, which includes security and privacy protection for electronic commerce, will start on MoneyCentral this month and be introduced across MSN by the end of the year. The online bill- payment feature will let users pay bills such as utilities or newspaper subscription charges through Transpoint, Microsoft's joint venture with First Data Corp. and Citigroup Inc. Microsoft shares rose 1 5/16 to 94 15/16. Intuit rose 1 1/8 to 96 1/4, while AOL fell 1 1/4 to 123 7/8. ©1999 Bloomberg L.P.