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

To: David Freidenberg who wrote (59843)	7/14/2001 9:49:18 AM
From: Bill Fischofer	Respond to of 74651

Re: JJ and the Trial As we have seen, the trial was as much a political as a judicial process and this explains why MSFT is handling things as they are. To be sure there were mishandlings all around. MSFT never accepted the judicial premise of the case while Judge Jackson was seemingly blind to the political ambitions of the plaintiffs in bringing the case in the first place. Now that Jackson is out of the picture and the specter of a breakup has been removed there is no need for MSFT to do anything more than get down to the give-and-take of settlement and put this mess behind it. The fact is there is no way anything Draconian is going to happen here. The U.S. is not going to set up a Bureau of Operating Systems to provide continuing regulation under a Bush administration, more states will follow New Mexico's lead and drop out, and even the Blumenthals will find room for compromise precisely because they are sensitive to shifts in the political winds. MSFT's recent olive branch in modifying its OEM agreements will be the basis for the final conduct compromise. All the lawyers will get paid, probably out of MSFT's pocket, and that will be the end of it. Ambulance chasers looking to file "private anti-trust lawsuits" will at best merit a footnote in the final history of the case. The real battle will be fought, as always, in the market.