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

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (14568)	11/30/1997 8:49:00 PM
From: micromike	Respond to of 24154

Microsoft Meets Super Mario This box sure sounds like a Network Computer to me. Mike

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (14568)	12/1/1997 2:51:00 AM
From: Gerald R. Lampton	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

Dan, did you happen to catch George Gilder's latest newsletter (well, not really latest, but the most recent one he's made available for free download)? It has some great lines about Microsoft and the Web TV deal. I especially got a kick out of the following "choice cuts": For fifty years, TV has parlayed its rule of U.S. living rooms into dominion of the culture-defining the news, reshaping politics, reorienting family life, liberating sex, and remaking the social and artistic expectations of several generations of Americans. Now the reign of television is over. Bill Gates once seemed to know it. His majestic sweep past the cameras of NBC seemed to signal the beginning of an era of similar dominance by the personal computer that Gates pioneered and led to its current pinnacle. But now, on the threshold of victory, Gates has lost his nerve. Collaborating with NBC, buying WebTV, wasting perhaps a billion dollars on TV oriented software, he is capitulating to old media and obsolescent technology. * * * Now, in purchasing WebTV-a striking downside surprise until Gates decided to buy it-Microsoft is combining its huge installed base in PC software with the huge installed base of TV. It is accomplishing a new legacy lockin. Following on the launch of the MSNBC network, Microsoft is fleeing the stars to enter the dairy, while casting longing eyes toward the kennel. And the kicker: Disparaging Java, Bill Gates is left to become a problem solver for Jack Welch and the TV industry. That means that the best days of Microsoft lie in the past. It is in danger of becoming a fat cow. gildertech.com . I thought Web TV was good for them because it makes them less dependent on the business applications market which will be hollowed out by Java. What do others think? Is Gilder right that Web TV is just another obsolete, circle-the-wagons approach to change like Microsoft's response to Java? After the technical and software professionals on this thread have downloaded and read the whole thing, I'd be especially curious to know their thoughts about Gilder's take on the Web TV deal and Microsoft's media strategy.