Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (59319)	7/2/2001 12:43:32 PM
From: Dave	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

But it appears that their day to day behavior will be less constrained by the judicial system,... I don't think that's clear at all. The Appeals Court clearly stated what was unclear before: that each instance of bundling or tying must offer consumer advantages that (in the judgment of the court) outweigh its anticompetitive effects. Now the case will go back to the District Court to decide on each of the many instances where Microsoft has bundled features or products in order to squeeze out other software developers. This doesn't mean that they are less constrained. The constraints are now less mysterious, but still very real. ...so the important issue to assess is, will they be able to begin growing their businesses again? No way. They have saturated the markets for their two monopoly products, and the courts are going to prevent them from leveraging those monopolies to grow into new markets. Their best recourses are the two that they are now pursuing: (1) Increasing revenues from their saturated markets by cracking down on piracy, and by raising prices by moving to subscriptions. (2) Fighting the courts, and trying to leave some legal loophole so that they can still leverage their monopolies to bully their way into new markets like real estate, interactive TV, car sales, e-commerce, the Internet, handhelds, etc. etc. The first method will succeed to some degree. The second may succeed somewhat if they can buy enough favors from the Big Oil Administration. But there's no way that Microsoft can regain and maintain the kind of growth that is needed to justify their still stratospheric P/E. Dave