Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scott C. Lemon who wrote (30226)	2/9/2000 11:08:00 PM
From: Paul Fiondella	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Is Active Directory a Microsoft internet takeover attempt From WSJ: "Citing complaints from Microsoft's competitors and others, the European commission said certain features of the company's new operating system -- scheduled for a world-wide rollout on Feb. 17 -- might work properly only in conjunction with other Microsoft software. Because Microsoft dominates the market for the personal-computer operating systems, any incompatibility with the powerful "servers" that host Web sites could allow Microsoft to leverage its dominance into the server market, and "ultimately e-commerce,"Mario Monti, the European commissioner responsible for antitrust affairs, said at a news conference. Ken Wasch, president of the Software and Information Industry Association in Washington, whose membership includes 150 European software makers, said the EU action shows that concerns raised in the U.S. case about Microsoft's activities remain valid, even as technology evolves. Windows 2000 works on both desktop PCs and servers and is considered key to the company's future in corporate computing and on the Web. People familiar with the situation said the complaints center on Windows products called Active Directory and Intellimirror, which are fully functional only when Windows 2000 is running at both ends of a network connection. Other industry players have been working on a standard for directory services that would work equally well with all hardware and software, but Microsoft is promoting Active Directory as a de facto industry standard." ================== There you have it. Incompatibilities. FUD. Use all MSFT and don't take a chance on iiinnnnncccccommmmpppppaaaaatttttiiibbbbilllllliittttttty. Novell should get on this one!!! What the Europeans are getting at is that Microsoft cannot be allowed to corrupt non proprietary standards through incompatibilitey with those standards. Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to develop incompatible proprietary software. Some people will say AD is no threat to directories precisely because it only works on Win2000. But that is just the point. With the market power MSFT has, it can bend the market if Win2000 is widely sdopted, to its proprietary standard. Novell legal needs to understand what is going on here. Novell dominates directories. But if MSFT builds in incompatibilities then just go back and look at DR. DOS and Win3.1.