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

To: John F. Dowd who wrote (32137)	11/6/1999 12:08:00 PM
From: RTev	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

Your response does show that even these "findings of fact" may be appealable. An appellate court might ask the judge to reconsider the conclusion that Microsoft "enjoys monopoly power". Maybe. But the court does present the all-too-familiar outline of evidence to support the conclusion. It considers and rejects as insignificant the various alternatives to Windows, including the two you mentioned and a few more. Two things we should all bear in mind: 1. Maintaining a monopoly is not illegal in itself. 2. In this case, Microsoft is not accused of using illegal acts to build its monopoly power. --- My history of using computers is much like yours. I didn't buy an Intel-based PC until I had seen Windows 95 and decided that it was finally a system that I could enjoy using at home. (I had used Amigas for several years.) Since the OS was still in beta and still buggy when I bought the PC, I put an alternative on the machine (OS/2) and used it until the August release of '95. Even after buying that PC, I also bought a Mac since I can use it to do some things that can't be done as well on the PC. I didn't feel coerced into buying the Wintel machine. I did and still do have alternatives. But I did and do feel the pull of the network effects that give such strong market power to Microsoft. I bought the machine not only because it could finally be used with an adequate OS, but also because the things were used almost exclusively in the work I do. The various alternatives available suffered from lack of wide acceptance. (On a related note: I bought the Mac mostly because I do some graphics work for a non-profit outfit. In that one business, network effects for the Mac were and still are strong. Most service bureaus will now accept Windows files, but few of them are able to work well with them.) Most of us who invest in MSFT do so at least partly because it enjoys monopoly power. Consider what happens on this thread when some hypster arrives with claims that his favorite technology is about to swamp Windows. Whether it's Linux, Mac Gx, network computers, or something else, most of us can quickly point out good reasons why the technology has little chance on the desktop. The thread may be unwilling to use the word "monopoly", but it continually espouses the same set of facts used by the court to support the "monopoly power" conclusion. When this suit is not being considered, the thread often celebrates Microsoft's nearly unassailable market position. Microsoft already has grounds for their eventual appeal even in this "Finding". Just one example: The court seems to have accepted hearsay evidence as fact, especially in the case of the IBM narrative, but in several other instances as well. I suspect that worker bees at Microsoft's law firm are already striking out passages and paragraphs that they will claim are supported only by hearsay. But the arguments against their "monopoly power" tend to be specious at best. Of course they do and must worry about challenges to their platform dominance, but the truth of their current position is expressed best by the bumper stickers that one is likely to see once or twice while stuck in traffic anywhere near the Redmond campus: "Resistance is futile."