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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (29561)	11/4/1999 2:39:00 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Respond to of 50167

From AIM.. Business in the new millenium MICROSOFT for the year 2000. From Redmond, Washington, the giant software company is preparing for a crucial year. The anti-trust case against Microsoft [NASDAQ: MSFT] is on hold. So the negative sentiment in the market is already gone. This should allow the stock to move forward. But investors have reasons to remain cautious. From the restructuring Gates started to the delayed Windows 2000 and worries with the Y2K bug, clouds are not all gone. However Microsoft is one of the most amazing success story in this century. It is a must in a portfolio for the 21st century as well. Nobody should underestimate Microsoft's ability to get better, win market shares, and make profits. The company is huge but is able to work as a small team, like in the early days. It is capable of reinventing itself. It happened at several occasion during its booming expansion. The most recent change was the reaction to the internet. Initially, the importance of the network of networks was missed. But ask Netscape and they would tell you how fast and without mercy Microsoft can change. Earlier you might have asked Borland why Gates was sending limos right to its competitor's doors to convince executives. Some more serious actions are under investigation by the Department of Justice. While the case is on hold, Microsoft is yet again reinventing itself. Bill Gates swears it has nothing to do with the investigation. It is a bit hard to believe. The government is considering breaking up the company. This failed with IBM after more than 10 years of investigation. Big Blue remained one, but was badly hurt in the process. Microsoft is not taking chances. A complete restructure is now under way. Instead of a duality between the system division [producing Windows operating systems] and the application division [office applications, games, etc..] disappear. The new structure is built with business lines. Each division will focus on a single market segment instead of products. It is possible because Microsoft's products and services scale up well. The coming operating system Windows 2000 will be available from simple laptops to large clusters of advanced internet servers for big organizations. To market it, a structure which can address each kind of customers could be a huge money machine. When you know this new plan is crafted by Steve Ballmer, it is only good news to investors. Microsoft's number 2 is the very skilled marketer who is behind many success stories. He can turn a concept into a product everyone talks about. The launch of Windows 95 was a milestone in the industry while the product was not all that good and criticized later for lack of innovation. Nevertheless it was an incredibly successful product. Now Windows is everywhere : at home, on palm computers, at the office, in internet servers. Microsoft is not in the business of innovation to be honest. Any of the two thousand developers at Redmond would deny this. Sure the company is one of biggest investors in R&D in the world. They work on natural interface, artificial intelligence, speech recognition and many really incredible ideas. But one might wonder where the advanced research is to be seen in the products supplied. It does not matter. Now that the original vision of 'one computer on every desk (with MS products in them)' is more or less achieved, Microsoft is only in the business of making money. Nothing wrong with that, and it is certainly OK when you hold shares of the company ! This year alone, the shares lowest price was $43.88 and high at $100.75. In late August, the stock picked at $96. It has a cycle period of 2 to 3 months. It is great for 'buy and hold' and can be part of almost any kind of portfolio. Trading the stock is also possible although it may remain in a very tight range for weeks before breaking. But when it happens it is very rewarding and relatively safe. For technical traders it is pretty easy to track. Of course, the market capitalization is so big that when the major index correct, the stock follows. If the markets fall this month you can be sure the bargain hunters will buy as much as they can. You should do. This is why. Microsoft Office 2000 enjoys a monopolistic position on desktop computers. It should bring nice profits. In fact it is a fantastic cash cow. Its position is not even disputed in the market anymore. Sure it has too many features for 80% of users. But the integration of internet technology [html web technology as wall] and group collaboration is undoubtedly a major achievement. As developers get used to it, very powerful office applications will appear. In itself MS Office is about to become a platform now that its market share, popularity and development support is in full spin. But it is nothing compared to what is coming. When Windows 2000 is finally launched after a delay of two years, it is expected to be a very important step forward. The reasons are very technical and the strategy very clever. Windows 2000 is not a revolution in its look and user interface. It is behind the scene that plan is fantastic. The new operating system will introduce key technologies. It will enable corporate America to manage the army of computers now present everywhere. Managing installation, maintenance and updates of software is costing companies just too much money. The Cost of Ownership with computers running MS-Windows is much higher than solution with server/terminals. In time there was a risk the internet and new Java technology would win the market. Now it seems less likely. And just to be sure, Microsoft Windows 2000 has also terminal servers [introduced in 1998 already], and more crucial, it is the platform for COM+. COM+ is a brilliant move. It is the glue which makes software easier to build. This is very attractive to companies producing software. Since it is very expensive to develop software solutions, any help is welcome. But that's not all. COM+ makes it possible to network software components, to make them internet ready, work in groups. Microsoft is preparing developers worldwide for this technology for more than one year now. So they know about it and prepare application for it. Now the catch... To run these new enhanced applications, users will need the new operating system. This means a big part of these millions of Windows NT or Windows 95/98 will upgrade to Windows 2000. And as they migrate, customers will be locked to a platform Microsoft owns. Because it will be nearly impossible to transform all the application they use to another system not using COM+ and Windows 2000's features. Our analysis give little chance to other solutions like the over hyped Linux. Even less than Sun Microsystems's [NASDAQ: SUNW] Java, Linux have little chance to steal an important part of Microsoft's market shares. Apple Computer [NASDAQ: AAPL] enjoys a renewal and great success with its new line of computers. But in its history, Apple never grew bigger than 20% of the PC market. Most analysts do not expect it to break this now or anytime soon. So Windows 2000 will likely increase its hold on the PC market. In this context buying Microsoft shares is a great move before earnings report and before the debut of Windows 2000. However there is an important event to watch for : The Y2K buzz, sorry.. bug. The bug is technically not really affecting Microsoft products. It is true that the hardware of any Personal Computer is potentially at risk. PC applications badly written may suffer the Y2K problem as much as mainframe software. But again, Microsoft products are not prone to this. However, most shareholders are not software specialists. We expect them to overreact. In a global panic selling, many software and high tech shares might suffer between now and December 1999. This will be the best time to buy ! ..