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Strategies & Market Trends : Piffer OT - And Other Assorted Nuts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Phoenix who wrote (36226)	5/27/2000 11:56:00 AM
From: Alan Smithee	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 63513

OG: Microsoft is everything you say. The attitude there is arrogant, pushy and a few other things. Companies who do business with Microsoft are faced with a "take it or leave it" attitude. Whether they abused their monopoly power is another thing, and I'm no familiar with all the nuances of the case, so I can't comment. As for competition, I'm not sure how I or any other consumer has been harmed. To say that we haven't had products that we might otherwise have had in the absence of Microsoft's conduct is highly speculative. I do know that I used to use Netscrape, and switched to IE because Netscrape was unstable and kept crashing on me. I think the likely outcome of the case will be as follows: 1) Jackson orders a breakup (not sure whether it will be 2 or 3 parts). 2) Microsoft appeals to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. 3) DOJ and the states will try to have any appeal taken directly to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court punts, reasoning that the case isn't "ripe" for decision and should percolate through the Court of Appeals first (meaning they don't want to deal with this hot potato right now). 4) November comes. George W. Bush is elected President (do you really think Gore will win now with the economy slowing down, a possible recession in the winds due to the Fed's actions?); 5) Janet Reno retires to her So. Florida home and Joel Klein crawls back under whatever rock he came out from in the first place. 6) New attorney general puts the word out that this case needs to be settled. 7) The case settles with no breakup and some form of conduct restrictions put in place. That's the scenario IMO. I guess only time will tell. You know my position in this. I think our government has better things to do than act as the enforcer for Scott McNealey, Jim Barksdale and others. I believe government should do things such as build roads, put out fires, feed hungry people, etc.