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

To: Gerald Walls who wrote (43854)	4/28/2000 9:41:00 PM
From: SC	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Here's a wild thought. For the sake of this argument, let's assume that the DOJ prevails. MSFT is broken into an OS company and an applications company. Let's assume that the MSFT name goes with the applications company and the Windows name goes with the operating system company. The Windows operating system company decides to get into the linux packaging and support game. What would you call this new product? Why not WINDOWS LINUX! Most of the future development would come from linux users all over the world and all you would have to do is gather it up then out market and out support the competing packagers. I would select debian linux and then concentrate on finding or writing drivers for all the best and newest hardware. I would also develop a great plug and play installation routine. What's not to like? Who better to provide marketing and support. Could you think of a name with better brand recognition! Now, for the microsoft applications company, I would port everything to run in a browser. Then you could write an efficient browser for each operating system that makes economic sense to support and voila you are making wads of money with a concept first proposed by Netscape. Your applications would even run on other browsers developed by other people for operating systems that are either proprietary or too small of a market for you to bother with. Am I delusional or is this a realistic scenario? Steve

To: Gerald Walls who wrote (43854)	4/28/2000 9:43:00 PM
From: Just_Observing	Respond to of 74651

MSFT's 163 million puts It's been stated here by MSFT detractors that the Puts were underwater because they have strikes in the high 60's and low 70's. How close are they to being out of the money again? There is considerable time value left for the puts (this is my guess from the way MSFT traditionally sold the puts). So these puts do not have to be deep in the money to be a considerable liability. The source that I referenced confirms your strikes as being correct. And I don't think that anyone who is worried about these puts is a MSFT detractor, IMHO. I am quite worried about them. Especially since MSFT's stock equilibrium price can be much lower than the current price.