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

To: Harvey Allen who wrote (23843)	2/28/2000 1:23:00 PM
From: Harvey Allen	Respond to of 24154

This is on top of a huge cash savings from substituting shares of its stock for actual cash paid to employees in the first place. Remember, Microsoft only made a $7.8 billion net profit last year. To pay its employees an extra $9 billion in cash compensation expense, it would go $1.2 billion into the red. But it doesn't have to, as the stock market provides the money to keep Microsoft going. Microsoft prints stock, pays its employees with the stock, and the stock market provides the cash for Microsoft's employees when they sell the stock or get margin loans against it. Microsoft can print as much stock as it likes in order to pay its employees, and as long as the market keeps wanting to buy shares from those employees, then Microsoft doesn't have to spend too much of its own cash to pay its people. As of July '99, Microsoft had around $60 billion of employee stock options outstanding, and it grants more all the time. fool.com

To: Harvey Allen who wrote (23843)	2/28/2000 1:44:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Harvey, on the entertainment front, we got this failed effort by cheeky Scott McNealy to highlight the 64k "known issues" question, and its bearing on the integrity and uniformity of the Windows experience. nytimes.com . The spectre of an offer you can't refuse hangs heavily over the failure: Near the appointed hour, the trucks were lined up a few blocks away from the Convention Center. But the mission was aborted after the Western Exterminator manager learned that it was McNealy's company, rather than Gates' Microsoft, that had hired the trucks. Concerned about Gates' reaction, the manager called in his fleet. "He could buy the company and close it," he was reported as saying of Gates. Reminds me of a old story from a more innocent time in politics, when an old Dem. "dirty trickster" political operative named Dick Tuck was supposed to have hired 20 very visibly pregnant women to carry placards at a Nixon rally, proudly proclaiming "Nixon's the one!". Dirty tricks just ain't what it used to be. Cheers, Dan.