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Technology Stocks : Wind River going up, up, up! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Allegoria who wrote (8733)	10/29/2000 11:01:46 AM
From: saukriver	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10309

To say that the ATT, WebTV or Wink investments are waisted is absurd. All three investments you cited have the potential to be enormous in terms of business growth for Microsoft. I didn't cite the Wink investment as wasted. I typed Wince, meaning the Windows CE operating system. (For four months this year, I used a handheld for work with a Wince system on it so I am afraid that I am not fond of Microsoft right now. Curse it every time the darn thing crashed, which was often. Finally gave up and turned it back in.) Please explain how you think a $5B preferred stock investment in AT&T under which AT&T gave Microsoft no promise of exclusivity for Microsoft products has a potential to add enormous business growth for Microsoft. I agree it will be enormous, but more like a write off. Look, IBM has had some of the biggest buy-backs in corporate history. Stock buybacks were not IBM's problem. The deal it foolishly cut with Microsoft was. That was back when Microsoft was a lean competitor. MSFT by the way is frequently in the market buying back its shares. My point is simply that it should use its cash horde do more of that and less of its goofy Web-TV, WebMD, Expedia, etc. purchases. Thankfully, Microsoft was able to liquidate enough investments this quarter to offset the DECLINE in software revenues. I'm sorry, but in todays economy it is ALL about market share and growth. "Growth in earnings" and "growth in sales" is a fundamental measurement used throughout the investment community. . . . WIND must grow - just like any other competitor for investor's capital. I am not disagreeing that WIND can and should grow. The question to Fiddler from the reporter was whether he wanted to be "as big as Microsoft" or something inane like that. I still think the correct response was "frankly, I don't care," or whatever Fiddlier said. Companies--particularly when they have the cash hordes MSFT does--can grow lazy and ill-focused.

To: Allegoria who wrote (8733)	10/29/2000 8:53:44 PM
From: capt rocky 1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10309

eric, growth without profit to the bottom line is not growth but dilution. that simple. just look at the dot coms that are growing sales but losing more money as they do it. the term bottomless pit comes to mind. i belonged to a "bottle club " about 20 years ago. we would take our members to a different private club every week. the problem was we were losing money on every member due to higher costs. our board of directors came up with a solution--get more members ! after trying to explain this would only lose more money, and after suggesting we raise membership fees( and getting booed off.) i quit. in about 3 weeks the club disbanded broke. expansion must be accompanied by profits.rocky