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

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (27597)	7/30/1999 10:55:00 PM
From: t2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

Frank, If your long term portfolio is in a 401k plan, why not pull some money out and wait for better opportunities. This is what i do for the most part----i made money trading call options in retirement account and have no tax consequences within the plan. In these plans, i was about 90% in cash and money market before today (that 10% is mostly MSFT). Put some cash to work (i hope it works) in some bond funds---still left with 70 cash and money market. Unfortunately (or fortunately---i am not sure) i trade my margin account the same way but will have to face the tax consequences. This what i use for my shorting/daytrading. I am not playing with too much cash in this account so i have been able to take trading very lightly. Gone are the days when i would go very heavy into options. I have learned something that gamblers usually don't----"quit while you are ahead". This daytrading business is very safe in comparison to what i have experienced in the last 1 1/2 years. Believe it or not, even if i lose money daytrading it does not bother me because there is not that much at risk anyways since most of my portfolio is in the retirement accounts. Daytrading is perfect for someone like me who needs to play with the market but wants to stay out of options trading. BTW--I had originally started selling covered calls on MSFT that i had held after earnings but when it dipped down to 90, i decided to abandon it alltogether. I am more interested in the market direction right now. Y2K fear/paranoia among the public still scares me from going into the market. Take Care.

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (27597)	7/30/1999 11:08:00 PM
From: Teflon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

I like the tone of this article. I think, in the long run, this "change" in MSFT's culture may be the biggest single driver for MSFT's success as we enter the new millenium: Microsoft's New Age approach to selling by Matthew Broersma, ZDNet At one time, Microsoft needed only to convince tech-minded Chief Technology Officers about its products' merits. But software isn't just about technology anymore, it's about solving corporate problems, and working with CEOs has required learning a different set of rules. One of the more important parts of making the transition has been Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT - news) involvement with Franklin Covey, an international professional services firm, represented chiefly in the person of Mahan Khalsa, vice president of its sales performance group. Working with Microsoft over the last two and a half years, Khalsa has helped Microsoft move from selling software units to selling benefits. "If you look at computer boxes, they're entering much more of a commodity field," Khalsa said in an interview with ZDNN. "With software you're in some ways dealing with more intangibles: Features and benefits. The key component of that is how you work with clients to accomplish something important to them." Chief among Khalsa's tenets: Sales is a "mutual exploration" of partnership possibilities between the salesperson and the client. That's a strong contrast to Microsoft's traditional hardball sales tactics, best epitomized by uber-salesman Steve Ballmer. But Khalsa said he's met with an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response. Surviving through 'healthy paranoia'. It is, Khalsa says, all part of Microsoft's corporate culture: Adapt to new circumstances or go the way of the dodo. "That's one of the fun things about Microsoft, the healthy paranoia," he said. "You're either getting better or you're getting worse. You have to focus on what's going to make a difference. Even though they have this huge corporation, they work aggressively to get focused. "These days, from Steve Ballmer on down the line, the buzzword is 'customer satisfaction,' " Khalsa added. "They realize that if they want to be the best, they need to focus on customers' needs." It's the same willingness to adapt that characterized Microsoft's wholehearted push into the Internet a few years back, Khalsa says. That move was criticized as coming too late, and has yielded a host of short-lived initiatives -- but also a thriving browser and e-commerce business. Whatever else Microsoft has done, it has at least learned from the mistakes of IBM (NYSE:IBM - news), and its troubles entering the personal computer and Internet era. "In the late '80s and early '90s, (IBM's) stock was around 160 and it sank as far as 40," Khalsa said. "They weren't listening to the marketplace. They just said 'We're IBM.' People will put up with it if they have to, but I don't think that's how Microsoft wants to work with the world." Teflon