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

To: XiaoYao who wrote (46619)	6/14/2000 2:46:00 AM
From: Joseph Pareti	Respond to of 74651

response to the Register article ------------------------------------ theregister.co.uk Graham, I have read your letter with great interest, as I usually do read with interest opinions that strongly differ from mine. Generally, I cannot dispute some of the facts you mention, but I can surely argue on the content : things in your memo like "You are at the moment admired by most Americans, because they equate financial success with being smart, although here in Europe the reverse is more often true." or "Microsoft software needs a makeover that you cannot achieve in you role as chief software architect because you are of a previous generation. It's tough for us oldies at times " are rather an endorsement of the european decline that you portray in a "sour grapes" scenario, an attitude that I am very quick to recognize as I am sort of buried in the middle of "regulated Europe". On the other hand it indicates a kind of wishful thinking that everybody is equal, e.g. " forget it Bill you (and I !) are getting on and you are too old for the job". I understand Graham that it's tough to admit that there are other guys out there that outperform you in acuteness, ability, vision, no matter what. When I was young this was very hard for me to accept, but eventually I learnt to. When I buy M$FT (and I really do it, using my hard-earned cash) I bet on the fact that the Gates and the Ballmers will eventually prevail, as excellence is an attitude and a way of life. Even assuming the worst case scenario, or that of a MSFT split (which I don't believe for a second, as the whole crap will go away with Reno et al. on their way to the old age home, remember November, Graham) I still believe M$FT will eventually regain what the DOJ with a facade of justice has taken away. In the past I bought Intel exactly at those points in time when Merryl Lynch (and perhaps the Registrar ?) were inspiring a sell-off. These moves alone have given me the largest pay-back ever in my investor's experience. I knew there was value to grab and I went for it (how many longs in godzilla.com had the same confidence in their dot-coms in the April-May time frame ? And yet, if you really believe it's great you should load up the truck when the're cheap, no ?) I also believe that although we might be moving to an age of individual empowerment (a-la Eric Raymond), we still live in an age where muscle is important, and so I would not be surprised to see a M$FT legal staff that outnumbers some of the entire plaintiffs' staffs (deja - vu at the IBM time) Instead of swallowing what the media are blasting daily about Microsoft, I rather consider opinions of people like Gary Becker (Nobel prize winner, Graham) that "the fundamentals for an anti-trust suit are simply not there" If at all an organization ought to be sued these days, because of price control through volume output manipulation, that is OPEC, not certainly M$FT that has made the PC an ubiquitous device through CHEAP software. (not free software, despite my living in Europe I still relish the good-old-habit of making money) Joseph Pareti IT Consultant, High Performance Technical Computing COMPAQ Computer Corporation Muenchen, Germany. Telephone + 498995911093 Fax + 498995913069 Mobile 0171 2252907 e-mail joseph.pareti@compaq.com