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 : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Keith Hankin who wrote (14170)	11/17/1997 8:17:00 AM
From: Reginald Middleton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

<Once again, Reg, you are changing the subject of our argument. We were arguing over whether people really have a choice of OS. Now, you change it to be about whether there was any competition.> Keith, how could you have no choice in OS if their is competition? I repetitively named several OSs I could go out and buy right now. Just for the record: Linux, Mac OS 7/8, BEos, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, etc. If I can name more than one OS, then there is a choice, right? As for the argument about MSFT being a monopoly, they may be but they had to get thier somehow. The fact that youy say IBM was asleep at the helm meant that MSFT outmaneuverd them. Any successful company's success in the history of the world can be attributed to another company not taking advantage of successful oppurtunity first (or being asleep as you would say). Remember, hindsight is always 20/20.

To: Keith Hankin who wrote (14170)	11/17/1997 4:00:00 PM
From: Alan Buckley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Keith, you are contradicting yourself. [First you say: The economics on Unix systems is very different. It would cost a lot more to provide these applications under UNIX than under MSFT OSes. Moreover, the Unix versions of these products is often not as good as the MSFT versions, and is often much more out-of-date.] [Now you say: Most of the "superiority" MSFT has over the competition is simply a reflection of the monopoly status MSFT has. It bears almost no relationship to any value that MSFT has brought...] MSFT is expanding into the Unix markets by solving important problems Unix vendors never did, namely the high cost and lack of applications due to incompatibility among vendors. This is of critical importance to many customers yet the Unix vendors for years have chosen to ignore it. In the next few years we will see how serious this blunder was. Customers buying NT over Unix know they are locking themselves into MSFT for an extended period but it doesn't stop them. Why? Because they believe MSFT will deliver the apps for NT, while before they were locked in anyway and still didn't have the apps. This is a rational choice based on value delivered not a gun-to-the-head decision. Vendors that ignore their customers over a period of time inevitably lose the ability to compete. The capital wasted on them will return in start-ups providing better value to customers and better competition to MSFT. If MSFT makes a mistake of similar magnitude the free market will replace them just as quickly, but until then they've earned the right to call the tune. Check out the recent post about Novell's fade. A company with incredibly dominant market share in an exploding industry just 8 years ago, but they made a series of horrible business decisions and failed to ship compelling products. If MSFTs products are as unsubstantial as some think they won't last long either, but I'd have to hear it from the consumers, not the (non-)competitors.

To: Keith Hankin who wrote (14170)	11/17/1997 8:10:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 24154

Keith, as you've no doubt seen by now, this is not an argument you're going to win. Microsoft is a monopoly, or going to be a monopoly, or the functional equivalent of a monopoly, when it's good for business, or the stock, but when it comes to legal matters, it's something else entirely. While Ralph Nader says that 35% market share was traditionally enough to bring antitrust scrutiny, that can't possibly apply to Microsoft, because Microsoft is different. There's a world of choice out there, but you'd be doomed and foolish to either use or invest in any of those choices, because the "brilliant management" at Microsoft will kill everybody regardless. You, too, will be assimilated. I would be too, but I keep remembering the ending of 1984. Cheers, Dan.