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Strategies & Market Trends : Trend Setters and Range Riders -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StoxRider who wrote (174)	6/5/2001 9:25:43 PM
From: keithcray	Respond to of 26752

Microsoft reaches six-month high, antitrust ruling looms. By Tim Haran, CBS MarketWatch.com Last Update: 6:30 PM ET Jun 5, 2001 REDMOND, Wash. (CBS.MW) -- Shares of Microsoft reached a six-month high Tuesday, ahead of an antitrust ruling that could come as early as this week and two significant product launches scheduled for later this year. Microsoft (MSFT) rose $1.82, or 2.6 percent, to close at $72.60, its highest level since Nov. 27 of last year. The stock traded as high as $72.70 earlier in the session, its high since Aug. 15. Despite the upcoming events, Brendan Barnicle, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, credits the gain to the general rise in the markets, rather than to Microsoft-specific news. "We've got the S&P increasing, the Dow is up and it's just a strong day on the market," he said, adding that Microsoft has become somewhat of a safe technology stock. In court Microsoft is awaiting a court decision that will determine whether the company competes fairly. Legal experts expect that the federal appeals court will either overturn a significant portion of the trial judge's breakup ruling, or send it back to the lower court level for reexamination. See full story. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, AT&T filed a lawsuit claiming that Microsoft is violating a speech-coding patent held by the telephone services company. XP, Xbox In addition to fighting court battles, the Redmond, Wash.-based company will be fighting for consumers later this year with the introduction of Windows XP in October, Microsoft's first major update of its operating software in six years. New features in the XP operating system include Internet-security software, CD-burning features and other emerging technologies. The company also jumps into the video game business with the November release of Xbox. This holiday season, Microsoft's next-generation video game system will compete head-to-head with the popular Sony Playstation 2 and Nintendo's new video game console, the Game Cube. Microsoft plans to spend about $700 million this year to market XP and Xbox. Other announcements Microsoft said Monday that it plans to enhance its instant messaging software, a move that could give it an advantage over America Online and Yahoo Messenger. Windows Messenger is slated for inclusion in the Windows XP system scheduled for release in October. The new service was announced the same day that AOL Time Warner and Microsoft resumed talks to decide if AOL will be included in Windows XP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tim Haran is a San Francisco-based reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com.