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Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Pink Minion who wrote (23598)	11/18/1999 6:54:00 PM
From: Reginald Middleton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Someone posted this to me on a private thread. I thought it made sense: Thursday, Nov 18 1999 9:40AM ET To: Reginald Middleton From: Bill Vaughn I enjoy your commentary on MSFT. Here's an article from today that you might find interesting. A bigger threat By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Columnist, 11/18/99 I've finally plowed through the findings of fact in the Microsoft antitrust case, and it has almost made me want to go out and buy stock in the company. Bill Gates and his crew are exactly the sort of people you'd want running your own business - singleminded, relentless, always ready to pounce on any threat to Microsoft's prospects. If every software business had executives this sharp, they'd all be living in $50 million houses. Ah, but what about Microsoft's efforts to crush its rivals? Well, sure enough, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson makes the case that Microsoft, in its zeal to stay on top, sometimes crossed the line and engaged in questionable bullying tactics. Perhaps the most impressive example is when Microsoft threatened to stop producing its office software suite for Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh computers unless Apple agreed to use Internet Explorer as its primary browser rather than Netscape Communications Corp.'s Navigator. Keep in mind that Microsoft makes the only top-of-the-line office suite for the Mac, and earns a lot of money from it. Still, the company seemed willing to kill it to get a better grip on Netscape's throat. Nasty stuff. But perfectly kosher, unless you're a monopoly. That's why Microsoft was so desperate to prove otherwise. Jackson wasn't having any. He ruled, sensibly enough, that Microsoft holds a monopoly on operating systems for machines that use Intel-compatible processors. But wait. Apple holds a monopoly on operating systems for computers using Motorola PowerPC processors. And Apple has at times been just as aggressive in protecting that monopoly. In 1997, Apple, bleeding cash and desperate for retail sales, stopped other computer firms from making Macintosh clones. Apple also put the kibosh on the Common Hardware Reference Platform, a system that would have allowed PowerPC computers to run Windows NT and the Mac OS. Apple thus prevented a flood of cheap Mac knockoffs, which would have forced the firm to slash its notoriously high prices. Apple's interim chief executive, Steve Jobs, wasn't hauled into court, perhaps because if he hadn't made these moves, Apple would probably be dead today. But what about now, with Apple's stock at record high s and the profits rolling in? You could dramatically enhance industry competition by forcing Apple to license its operating system to all comers. Within a year, Macs would be as cheap as PCs and almost as common. Come to think of it, Apple's failure to license its operating system hurts consumers. Indeed, you can make a case that Apple's policies are more harmful than Microsoft's. At the end of Jackson's 200-page document, he offers just three measly paragraphs explaining how Microsoft's actions hurt you and me. For instance, Jackson says that Microsoft's adding its browser to the Windows 98 operating system hurts consumers because, well, doggone it, some consumers don't want browsers. Such shabby reasoning is a blemish on an otherwise well-written document.