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Technology Stocks : Altaba Inc. (formerly Yahoo) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert Sievers who wrote (3065)	11/21/1997 10:48:00 AM
From: William Minich	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27307

<Ok, you're a company like Spyglass or YHOO. Microsoft walks up to you and says "Here are your two choices. Get crushed in six months, or get crushed in six months and take this money"> Yes, but even Microsoft's not going to pay anything even near 1 billion for a company like Yahoo. The real competition will come from a media conglomerate I believe..someone in the publishing business. By the way...the stock seems to be awful slow at 53-54, even in an up market...could this be the top we've all been looking for ?

To: Robert Sievers who wrote (3065)	11/21/1997 2:43:00 PM
From: Bill Harmond	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27307

Microsoft isn't going to face Yahoo with those choices. Microsoft (Yes, the one with $9 billion in the bank) isn't going to come up with a service that overtakes Yahoo. There are two reasons for my belief. The first one is that Microsoft's successes to date rely on either price competition or acquisition. Price competition is not an issue in Internet navigation. Additionally, I submit that the Feds will not let Microsoft buy their way into this space. Microsoft has created Sidewalk, which competes with AOL, Yahoo and others in the regional space. But Microsoft has been pouring money into proprietary content (competing more with newspapers), and they're losing a ton of money on Sidewalk. Yahoo's regional services don't rely on expensive editorial content. The second reason that I believe Microsoft wouldn't succeed in this space is the fact that they ARE Microsoft. The Internet community doesn't trust Microsoft for very good reasons. The last search engine I would go to is Microsoft's, particularly since there's paid commerce involved. Just because Microsoft targets a space doesn't automatically assure their dominance. MSN is a relative joke compared to AOL. Several months ago Microsoft targeted the NT firewall space. Look at a chart of Checkpoint Software since. Microsoft cut the recent exclusive MSN deal with Yahoo for a simple reason. They need Yahoo.