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

To: paul who wrote (31722)	11/5/1999 3:02:00 PM
From: DownSouth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

So in other words, rather than competing with a better version of Word - which everyone acknowldeges sucked at that time - Microsoft changed the platform which Lotus and Wordperfect couldnt compete with. (Gosh, I hate it when these discussions turn into battles in the holy war. I don't fight holy wars, but I do try to represent the facts as I lived them.) No, that is not what I said. Lotus and WP had the interface specs and the time to write windows versions of their software, just as Wang did. But they refused to endorse the Windows platform, as if their apps could prevent the market from moving to Windows. Then Word 1.0 came out. If you will recall (I can) the first Windows version of WP and Lotus really sucked and made Word look really great. Sort of like trying to build a house when someone else owned the blueprints. Did Microsoft's OS team share information to the applications team to give MS a leg up on their competitors? You are attempting to revise history. The MS Windows platform interface spec was well published. WP and LDC had time to write to it. So did Wang. They CHOSE not to do it. Repeat--CHOSE. It was a strategic mistake that cost them their companies. MS had a leg up on these competitors because these competitors CHOSE not compete on the Windows platform. In other words, they made a strategic mistake. Wordperfect was more committed to OS/2 because they knew they had a fighting chance with IBM should OS/2 succeed - not because they were afraid to compete. WP and the lot of them CHOSE to align with the OS/2 platform because they CHOSE to attempt to kill MSFT. There were also standards groups formed around the IBM document exchange format. Wang invented its own proprietary document exchange standard. These guys CHOSE sides and they lost. Remember, this was way before MSFT was the dominant desktop OS platform. There was still PC-DOS, OS/2, DR-DOS, SCO. Now Microsoft owns every desktop application of consequence or has bought or made attemps to buy them - is it any wonder that the desktop software industry is dead - Microsoft has sucked all the air out of it! My desktop is alive. It works really well and has many brands of software on it, plus a couple of browsers that hit all kinds of other non-MSFT software. I am making tons of money in high tech stocks, and MSFT is only about 10% of my portfolio.

To: paul who wrote (31722)	11/5/1999 4:20:00 PM
From: codawg	Respond to of 74651

This seems revisionist to me. People want a visual WYSIWYG word processor. In the early 90s Microsoft offered one on the PC and Lotus didn't - the rest is history. If you think the answer is tied to the OS then explain to me how MS Word has been the big daddy of word processors on the Mac since sometime around 86 or so. It was on this platform that MSFT learned how to write good apps. It has nothing to do with ties to the OS.