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

To: Captain Jack who wrote (38564)	2/25/2000 3:39:00 PM
From: miraje	Respond to of 74651

upside.com Consumers need Microsoft People who now wax eloquent about needing more competition in the market for desktop operating systems probably don't remember the good old days of computing, when you could spend three weeks unsuccessfully trying to get OS/2 up and running on a Compaq 486. (I still have the disks, if anybody wants to take a stab at it.) Those who extol the virtues of opening Windows source code to all comers need to remind us why such a move will not lead to the product incompatibility that plagued Unix for two decades. Remember when software and hardware barely spoke to each other, making our communication nearly impossible as well? And can anybody tell me why consumers were better off when they had to pay 40 bucks for an Internet browser than they are now that browsers are free? Until now, the potential breakup of Microsoft has been treated as some distant possibility. Consumer welfare has been discussed only in theoretical and abstract terms. Now that the Justice Department has shown its hand, perhaps we can shift the talk from mindless speculation about motives and strategies to substantive conversations about consumer welfare. It's high time.