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

To: Tony Viola who wrote (29265)	9/8/1999 11:51:00 AM
From: taxman	Respond to of 74651

The Microsoft Expedia travel site has rolled out its "Hotel Price Matcher." 10:29 ET ****** Priceline.com (PCLN) 66 5/8 -1 3/16: So much for that patent. Priceline.com likes to brag that it has patented its "name that price" method of doing business, but apparently someone forgot to tell Microsoft (MSFT 93 15/16 -5/16). The Microsoft Expedia travel site has rolled out its "Hotel Price Matcher." Expedia's new feature allows travellers to select from one of 14 metropolitan areas in classes of hotel service from 1-5 stars. After supplying a credit card number and naming a price, Expedia then matches it with its hotel offerings and immediately informs the traveller of any matches (and also charges the credit card immediately). If the Hotel Price Matcher sounds similar to priceline's Name Your Price, it should. Microsoft's move onto priceline's turf illustrates the problems that priceline will have in defending its patent. There has been no response from priceline.com to Microsoft's new offering, but priceline.com investors are probably hoping for too much if they think that the company will have a lock on the name-your-price business. That is only one of priceline.com's problems, however. The larger issue long term is not that the name your price method will attract imitators, though it clearly will; the problem is that the business model is flawed from the start. The Internet is about empowering buyers, not sellers. Yet the name your price model actually empowers sellers. Priceline.com has a set price for all of its offerings. In naming "your" price, you are simply guessing that set price in a blind auction. The best that you can do is pay the correct price, but it is more likely that you will overpay. The future of pricing is a transparent auction, in which consumers can truly determine the price rather than just guessing at an already named price. The priceline.com Name Your Price model and the Microsoft Hotel Price Matcher are inefficient and they put the consumer at a disadvantage relative to transparent auctions. The novelty of the model will provide some momentum for a while, but the more efficient model will ultimately win. - GJ Copyright ¸ 1999 Briefing.com, Inc regards

To: Tony Viola who wrote (29265)	9/8/1999 3:09:00 PM
From: John F. Dowd	Respond to of 74651

Tony: This is like the genie in a bottle. All the computing power capability that is handled at the desktop is now going to be shifted to the central server without any need for expanding the processing power of that server?Hmmmmm? When the server goes down then what happens? We have gone full circle back to the main frame mentality and distributed networks are a thing of the past- I don't think so. I mean isn't that the power of a network like the internet. Maybe SUNW/AOL's vision is one giant server that they own running everything. McNealy's nuts. This is his last deperate act after the failed Court gambit! JFD