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

To: Insitu who wrote (44320)	5/4/2000 8:34:00 PM
From: Gerald Walls	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

Gerald--90% market share has always been a monopoly. 80% market share has been a monopoly almost every time. I must have phrased my question poorly, so I'll rephrase it. Where is the market share required to be considered a monopoly codified? If it's not codified then it requires a subjective ruling in a court of law, which by its very nature is in retrospect. Plus, you surely don't believe that "almost every time" is definitive, do you? Also, you skipped the second question. How can a company know how narrowly its market will be defined in a future anti-trust case? Additionally, will the judge in the future anti-trust case choose to measure the market share measured as a percentage of revenue or a percentage of units? A judge who chooses to define Microsoft's competition as only OS software for the same platform that can run Win95/Win98 will be much more likely to find Microsoft to have a monopoly than one who chooses to define Microsoft's competition as anything that can replace it, including Suns, Macs, Internet Appliances and Palm-type computers. Those last two are the real threat to Microsoft and yet they aren't even considered competition by this judge...

To: Insitu who wrote (44320)	5/4/2000 9:06:00 PM
From: The Duke of URL©	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74651

<P.S. to Duke of URL. I'm not Good Will Hunting.> When you say that you were "in" law school, you are implying that you have knowledge of legal reasoning. You do not, therefore, I must conclude that you are not only not a lawyer, nor have you ever been a lawyer. If you have attended law school, you have therefore failed to pass or graduate. That means you either quit or (am I being insensitive here) flunked out. I do not mean this ad homonym. I mean this as a consideration when reviewing your oft posted analysis of the law on this thread. I have not explored the veracity of your statement on an international basis. I.e., I express no opinion on whether Kuola Lompur has a law school that you attended. And I know Good Will Hunting, and you are no Good Will Hunting. You are more like Waco Dude Posting. This thread is best served by its participants offering facts or well reasoned opinions. This thread is NOT a voting booth, we are NOT interested in your opinion unless it falls under one of the above simple categories. If you have some background then STATE IT. Bad knowledgeable opinions are decidedly preferred and almost welcome. But bad ignorant opinions are not. Capeesh, Booobee??

To: Insitu who wrote (44320)	5/5/2000 3:49:00 PM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74651

Insitu - re: 90% market share has always been a monopoly Well, by that definition, MSFT has had a monopoly on PC OS since they shipped the first copy, since they have always had around 90% of the market - even when that "market" was just a handful of units. But, you see, no one defined "IBM compatible PCs" as a "market" at that time. So when did "IBM compatible PCs" become a market which one could monopolize? When they exceeded Apple's market share? When IBM PCs represented a significant fraction of corporate desktops? How significant? Do they have to have 90% of all desktops? It is kind of silly to say this is the market for Intel based desktops running MSFT OS products - that kind of definition makes anyone a monopoly. So there seems to be no "cut and dried" definition here. Apple has 100% of the MAC desktop market, yet few would call them a monopoly. Perhaps you could give a little more definition to your position. This is not a silly question - many people think that at some point, MSFT developed a monopoly OS position, or something close to it. But Gerald's questions are right on - how should a company behave to protect itself from a future definition of its market? Is CSCO already a monopoly? will it be found to have been one at some point in the future?