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

To: JC Jaros who wrote (44672)	5/10/2000 5:27:00 PM
From: Rusty Johnson	Respond to of 74651

Breaking up is good to do Why splitting Microsoft in two could be good for all of us--even Bill Gates. By David Futrelle Money.com money.com ... Even without a breakup, Windows faces increasing competition. Its supremacy on the desktop is pretty much assured, but it is up against an ever-more-powerful Linux army in the server market, and Palm and a host of upstarts in the growing market for handheld computers and other information appliances. The breakup would force Microsoft to fight fair in those arenas-it would not be able to use its monopoly in one market to ensure its victory in others. At the same time, though, a break up would free Windows designers from having to hobble their software to fit Bill Gates' legal strategies. As far as I can tell, that motivation is the only explanation for attempting to insinuate the Internet Explorer browser so deeply into Windows98 that it can't be removed--a maneuver that increases the weirdness quotient of the operating system without really enhancing the user experience at all. In many ways the worst thing that could happen to Microsoft (and to its investors) would be for it to get what it wants--that is, a relatively toothless covenant that would leave the company's structure in tact. Why? Because that solution would only reinforce Microsoft's stubborn arrogance. Microsoft, in full-page newspaper ads earlier this month, suggested that a breakup would send a "signal that companies in America that are too successful will be punished harshly, a signal that will be welcomed by foreign competitors seeking to overtake America's global leadership in technology." When a company starts to confuse its interests (or what it takes to be its interests) with those of the nation as a whole, that's a good sign it has lost touch with reality. You may recall that infamous quote from Charles E. Wilson, President of General Motors, who told a Senate hearing in 1953 that "what [is] good for our country [is] good for General Motors, and vice versa." Unless you like your software big and clunky and gas-guzzling, with big fins no one needs, it's in your best interest to see Microsoft split in two. Microsoft, take your medicine. It will be good for America.