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

To: Thunder who wrote (38462)	2/24/2000 4:18:00 AM
From: Dwight E. Karlsen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74651

Gary: My take on Lessig's comments is that he thinks that the DOJ's remedy proposals are too extreme. Consider that Jackson encouraged the lead Justice atty to apply weight to the theory that consumers have been harmed simply because somehow it was Microsoft's fault that Netscape didn't/couldn't invent some miraculous new product which would have benefited consumers. The fallacy of that theory is that Netscape has been in the deep pockets of AOL for how long now, and I see no such product forthcoming from Netscape, only their standby Netscape Communicator suite. Plus, Jackson now says that even if Microsoft didn't overcharge consumers for Windows, just the fact that they "held the power to raise prices at will" was illegal, because MS held monopoly power derived from building an illegal monopoly (illegally gained because Netscape couldn't or wouldn't invent a consumer killer app due to MS). So that argument also hinges on non-existent products from Netscape. These are thin and specious arguments, IMO, and I think Lessig is saying, "the govt is going to have to forget about vindictive punishment that may actually harm consumers", i.e. some ridiculous "remedy" such as forcing MS to create four separate competing OS companies. Lessig is probably imagining the rage of consumers who, when dialing a Microsoft support line, are told, "sorrryyy, that's OS company "C" who sold you this Win98 version C.2. See? The "C" in your version number tells you which OS company manufactured that OS. So consumer calls Baby Bill OS company C and is told, "I'm sorry, but the application you are using is compatible only with Win98 versions A.2, B.2, and D.1, but not version C. Ours is the "latest" of the four, and that may be why your 3rd party application is having compatibility conflicts." It doesn't take a rocket scientist to foresee why the multiple OS company is bad for consumers. But then, govt "solutions" rarely make sense.