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

To: taxman who wrote (29750)	9/19/1999 11:28:00 PM
From: Alan Buckley	Respond to of 74651

It means the Internet is a threat to Microsoft's historical product model, i.e. they can't just do what they've been doing and continue to dominate...and, of course, it's 100% correct. (If only the frikking DOJ could get this thru their thick skulls.) Windows APIs, however, will not go away overnight and will continue to be a huge asset for 2 or 3 years. The race is on to see who defines the "web platform" that most (including me) believe is inevitably coming. I think MSFT has a strong chance of winning in this next wave, but if they get slow... I believe this risk is already discounted in the stock price. Witness the panic selling in late 1995, MSFT's amazing performance developing IE, and the subsequent fully justified restoration of confidence.

To: taxman who wrote (29750)	9/19/1999 11:36:00 PM
From: mozek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

Taxman, It means that people are not current on Microsoft's Internet strategy. I was at the Microsoft press briefing last Monday, and it was VERY impressive. Microsoft is going full throttle into Internet platform, tools, and XML-based communications standards for building Internet software services that work with existing applications, Microsoft or not, and support all devices, not just PCs. Microsoft will also be delivering great software services through this infrastructure. People may not yet realize the power of this strategy, but I believe Microsoft is looking at a very bright future as a result. One of the demos shown was very cool. They had a huge stack of client systems hitting a shopping web site using 3rd party test software to create 4 E-Bays worth of traffic. The servers were divided into 3 tiers, a database tier with 3 clustered database servers, an application component tier with 2 servers (maybe 3), and a web server tier with 4 servers, all inexpensive PC-based servers. First they started putting together a shopping cart on one of the clients. One by one, they powered down (big red switch) the shopping cart's web server, then a random application server, then for the coup de grace, they powered down the main database server. The only noticeable delay was when the database server had to failover (remember the traffic was still online). Through the whole thing, the shopping cart stayed perfectly intact and they completed the purchase. The web site was built with software and tools that are mostly available now, and some when Win2000 ships. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they had a small part of the database (catalog lookup) running in Oracle on a Sun Server to show that legacy interop was all part of the equation. It will be quite interesting to see the next year playout as Microsoft becomes more of an Internet powerhouse than anyone is expecting. As my profile states, I work for Microsoft, but these really are my own opinions. Thanks, Mike

To: taxman who wrote (29750)	9/20/1999 7:50:00 PM
From: John F. Dowd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

taxman: In my view it is wishful thinking. First of all everyone needs an O/S to do the simple stuff like: Print, talk to the modem or cable modem and print at the same time, listen to the scanner and the modem and the keyboard at the same time while sending images to the Monitor and playing music on the CD or taliking with peripherals as yet unheard of. The PC may become the TV of tomorrow it is the national radio of today even at 56k. The O/S is needed to run applications that write code and debug it. Yes much of this can be done at the Office Level talking to the Server but what are they going to run on the server. MSFT seems to be doing quite well in terms of yr over yr sales in the enterprise market so I don't see anything earth shattering here. The O/S that MSFT has in our boxes right now does an enormous amount of work all on its own and could with a few graphic enhancements do a lot more. I see the MSFT experience being a connection between the MSFT O/S and everything and anything on the web. Why didn't Fordor Honda team up with Sun? Have no fear Big Bill is still in control. JFD