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

To: William C. Spaulding who wrote (41123)	4/4/2000 4:28:00 PM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

WCS - I think the point is that ALL of the software vendors were doing those deals, and EVERYONE wanted the details kept secret - IBM was worse, and more open, about wanting to hide the particulars of the deals from other OEMs than MSFT was. Early 1980s until 1996 was the wild west in the software business, everyone was doing crazy deals. MSFT was just one of the players. That's why when apps were sold as part of a discounted package, the OEMs didn't break out the price, and often listed it as zero. No one wanted the discounted price out there to be compared with "street price". As I said before, I think you have it right about the per system license being beyond the line - the courts thought so too (in fact the same judge, TPJ). Aside from that there was nothing unique about what MSFT was doing.