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

To: Bill Fischofer who wrote (59862)	7/15/2001 1:06:37 PM
From: Dave	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74651

There's plenty of innovation in the PC world which is why any "state of the art" machine you buy is obsolete within three years. I don't agree with that at all. You have to replace your machine often because its manufacturer decided not to design in easy methods for consumers to upgrade components. There's nothing fundamentally different about a machine you buy today and a machine you bought ten years ago that should require a whole new box. But the box makers are not in the business of helping you to avoid buying new machines. Of course, if one of them decided that they WERE in that business, and marketed their machines as upgradable for the next ten years, they would quickly gain PC marketshare, but the barrier to entry in the commodity PC business is so low that PC marketshare is worthless. The bottom line is that you need a new PC every three years because (indirectly) of the commoditization of the PC, not because of innovation. Without a standardized hardware platform Linux wouldn't have advanced as quickly as it has. But you do realize that Linux runs on other kinds of hardware besides Intel PCs, right? Platforms like the TiVo box, Macintoshes, etc. etc. If there were no standard platform, there would have to be cross-platform OSes, and Linux might well be one of the major ones. Innovation is the only guarantor of enduring market position Don't underestimate the power of limiting competition through illegal exercise of monopoly power. MSFT's success off the desktop has been spotty. That's primarily because their off-the-desktop strategy has been one of leveraging Windows monopoly power, rather than one of innovation. What innovations exactly has Microsoft shown with WebTV AFTER they bought it? Nothing, except porting it to Windows CE. Everything else, plus Personal Java support and third-party application support, was already in place before the purchase. Microsoft has just limited innovation, not furthered it. Innovation is alive and well in computing in general as well as in PC-land. It doesn't need bureaucratic "help". Thanks for the history lesson, but I remain unconvinced. By the way, one of the major reasons I think IBM lost the PC war was because of the antitrust scrutiny it was under. If the government had NOT launched its antitrust campaign against IBM (and yes, FOR IBM's competitors) IBM may well have more powerfully and effectively leveraged the PC's reliance on IBM's mainframes, or on IBM's sales teams. Dave

To: Bill Fischofer who wrote (59862)	7/15/2001 2:59:00 PM
From: David Freidenberg	Respond to of 74651

"Having a standard platform is what makes the PC ecosystem and its many innovations possible...The alternative to a dominant computing standard doesn't require conjecture, just a history lesson...The history of computing also shows the difference between a standard and a monopoly..." Great post, Bill. Add the recent near collapse of the tech sector to complete the lesson. Antitrust prosecution must be carefully and intelligently undertaken against a corporation which holds a computing platform standard, regardless of whether or not it is a monopoly. The risks of upsetting the homeostasis in the computing industry must be balanced against the benefits of prosecuting. JJ acted like a bull in a china shop, stupidly failing to recognize the complicated ramifications of his actions. The only people who profited were politicians and lawyers. We are now coming back to reason. Both government and MSFT now realize that there is much more to be gained, for the country, if they work to establish a productive relationship, and bring a stop to the litigation.