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

To: taxman who wrote (33902)	11/13/1999 4:39:00 PM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

You are certainly correct that MSFT is similar to the tobacco companies in that it has the legal and financial muscle to mount a strong defense. The point I wanted to make was that juries in many tobacco suits have not excused the plaintiffs for illnesses from smoking. The juries most of the time have ruled that the individual made the decision to continue smoking, and thus the injury was self created. The reason I think there is little parallel between Microsoft and tobacco is that Microsoft, if the fact findings are to be believed, prevented consumers from exercising their right to choose other product applications by engaging in activities leading to restraint of trade, persuading companies not to put the Netscape browser on the desktop menu, integrating IE into the system, leading to degradation of the performance of Navigator, etc. etc. Sure, MSFT can defend this till hell freezes over, but as this week's BARRON'S and other financial reports note, a strategy of that sort would be more harmful to the value of MSFT shares than a negotiated settlement in which MSFT agrees to stop its anticompetitive practices (which it can do without admitting wrongdoing, as long as the court has not issued its ruling on the law).