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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (22180)	11/9/1997 11:16:00 PM
From: sepku	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 61433

-- OT -- >>>I fail to see how AOL is kicking MSFT acround. Could you elaborate?<<< Well, you asked for elaboration... MSFT is probably the most feared of any company in the business world today. Why? Because if MSFT sees you making money, and decides it wants a piece of your pie, you are screwed. MSFT has the sheer weight to muscle into your territory at a frightening pace, yet it has the enormous profit margins from it's powerful software empire and cash reserves to shrug off the immediate losses that are incurred. Thus, it gains an instant presence and garners a good chunk of marketshare from the incumbent leaders (ex. Netscape and the browser war). Just the rumor of MSFT eyeing your business is enough to make your stock crash. MSFT doesn't even have to have a decent product to scare business away from you and leave the widespread impression that your leadership position has one foot in the grave (ex. Novell: Netware vs NT). All this fear is deserved. However, when MSFT decided to move into the OSP field where AOL ruled supreme, followed by CSRV, Prodigy, and Netcom, within 9 months it swiftly knocked AOL's rivals down a notch in ranking, and asserted its place as #2, with 3 million subs. Since then, despite a huge national ad campaign, and massive effort at multimedia online content, MSFT's wannabe OSP called MSN, has failed to gain ground on AOL who had grown so obese, it was suffering from severe overcrowding and connection jams -- so many people wanted into AOL, that Steve Case suspended all ad campaigns for 6 months so the network could be rebuilt. Every computer shipped with Windows has MSN included, yet MSN is still mired in the mud...churning hopelessly. AOL has cut a deal with WCOM and CSRV, gaining the bulk of CSRV's subs who have nowhere else to go...making AOL's total subs top 10 mil. AOL is the only company to not only shrug off MSFT's assault, but kick its ass all over it's OSP turf. MSFT has no chance in hell to dethrone AOL. If Bill Gates remains in that market segment, he will continue to get his ass kicked by Steve Case. Style Pts.