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

To: John F. Dowd who wrote (50722)	10/6/2000 1:49:33 AM
From: margie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Or "Justice is blind ... an' deef an' dumb an' has a wooden leg," wrote Finley Peter Dunne in Mr. Dooley's Opinions. Nearly a century later, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's findings in the Microsoft case provide us with compelling evidence that Mr. Dunne was right." From: "Findings Ignore Market Realities" By Robert A. Levy November 16,1999 www5.law.com Levy concludes that it is time to dump this case. "The central point is this: The government's focus in this case has been to safeguard Microsoft's competitors rather than protect consumers - which is, after all, the purpose of the antitrust laws. To be sure, the Justice Department tried mightily to link one objective to the other. But the government's own witness, M.I.T. professor Franklin Fisher, when asked whether consumers have been harmed by Microsoft, responded, "On balance, I'd think that the answer is no." Contrast that with Judge Jackson's assurance that Microsoft "harmed consumers in ways that are immediate and easily discernible." Even the Washington Post - no fan of Microsoft - conceded editorially that "the government's allegations of harm to consumers seem pretty speculative." ______________________ Another highly critical and sarcastic article about Judge Jackson by Virginia Postrel: "The easy thing to conclude after reading Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's findings in the antitrust case against Microsoft is that the man is simply senile and an immediate candidate for impeachment, so tortured and internally incoherent are his ravings. Unfortunately the truth is likely much worse: that the finding is a cynical abuse of power intended to demonstrate that Technology cannot stand against The Law." "One for the Books" by Virginia Postrel REASON Express November 8, 1999 Vol. 2 No. 45 reason.com "There is room for disagreement about Microsoft's Maiko-shark tactics, perhaps even the need for clear legal guideposts in some tech arenas, but Jackson's findings read more like anti-Redmond propaganda than any legal decision. So what of the crux of the issue, the ostensible reason for antitrust law, to protect consumers from rapacious corporations? Nearly every report on the finding included Jackson's thunderous declaration that Microsoft's actions "have harmed consumers in ways that are immediate and easily discernible." But Jackson never gets around to spelling them out in any great detail until the penultimate page of the finding. So who are those millions of consumers grievously harmed by Redmond's misdeeds? "Those Windows purchasers who did not want browsing software--businesses, or parents and teachers, for example, concerned with the potential for irresponsible Web browsing on PC systems That's it folks. Good night, drive safe...." It is as if the presence of a Web browser on a computer virtually compels the user to take several other discrete steps, from the complicated dance of arranging for Internet access to the simple task of procuring a physical phone connection. Street-corner schizophrenics might find it hard to sustain so bizarre a worldview for long. Such a position is even stranger considering that Jackson takes considerable time to try and prove that Netscape's Navigator and Sun's Java technology were on the cusp of ushering in a new Net-centric age of computing before their malicious wounding by Microsoft. But how can that story possibly square with all those helpless consumers who desire a Net-less computing experience yet find themselves transfixed by Microsoft's Rasputin-like Internet Explorer icon, doomed to click, connect, and feed the monopoly? Other blinkered thinking abounds. To the extent that Jackson skims over the existence of Windows NT--the operating system which took on the same Unix venders Jackson portrays as innocent victims of Microsoft on Unix soil and held its own--he gets things hopelessly backward. "Microsoft also charges a lower price to [computer makers] who agree to ensure that all of their Windows machines are powerful enough to run Windows NT... To the extent this provision induces [computer makers] to concentrate their efforts on the development of relatively powerful, expensive PCs, it makes [computer makers] less likely to pursue simultaneously the opposite path of developing [non-Microsoft] systems...," Jackson writes. But the real significance is that this strategy assures Microsoft that it will have powerful platforms it can bundle with Windows NT to challenge Unix workstations. That is why Sun, IBM, and others hate it. Not because it chokes off development of new systems, but because over the last few years NT has been a new system which has challenged their turf. And so it goes throughout the document." (and article) Virginia Postrel discusses the culture war and innovation that really threaten Microsoft at reason.com

To: John F. Dowd who wrote (50722)	10/6/2000 12:50:52 PM
From: werefrog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

HowdyDowdy: INTC <I found out about INTC> I held INTC through it's DOJ debacle, that's why I was saying sell MSFT with the DOJ's first action, instead of laughing it off like most on this thread. <Please do not include me in your group of short term investors> Now why would I do that < I have lost 2 fortunes in the last 6 mos> My condolences <By staying the course I will see a third fortune> Oh really, that's all on the come <MSFT will win and DOJ will lose> MSFT's investors have already lost <DOJ is the jackass> That may be, but they have the tanks No one forces any investor to buy, sell or hold, therefore the investor must take full responsibility. When I lose money on a trade it is no one's fault but my own. JH