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

To: John Donahoe who wrote (14880)	12/13/1997 8:53:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

>>>That's not my reading. The ruling merely prohibits it (the bundling of IE) as a condition of licensing the OS. Big difference.<<< No difference at all. If you make the browser 'part of' the OS, and it gets installed along with everything else on the OS disc, then you have made it a condition of purchasing (licensing) and installing the OS, right? 'on the condition, express or implied.' Having it in the same install would be both, wouldn't it? You should also look at the section where OS is defined in the ruling. Very instructive. Very restrictive. That you could have one version of the OS disc that also installs IE and one version that doesn't is somewhat irrelevant. They were actually requiring OEMs to take their browser before. Now they can't. The big deal about Windows '98 (nee' 97) was supposed to be the fact that they were integrating the browser, and the browser would be the new interface ('Active Desktop'). They are going to have to change that plan, as far as I can tell. Therefore Windows '98, whatever it turns out to be (and I hope they incorporate some of the wish list I published yesterday), will not be what they announced. Their product plans will have changed completely and involuntarily. That is a defeat. Admittedly I thought their product plans were stupid, and short term harmful, maybe even harmful to them. So I am not saying short term they will lose revenue. Just that they will be slowed down in their quest to extinguish Sun and Netscape. Anyway, the order says explicitely that MSFT has a monopoly in OS, and that it would be an intolerable outcome for them to be able to use that to create another monopoly in browsers. The judge appears to be willing to do what is required to block any new moves intended to produce that outcome. A special master with experience in the area ( the expert whose previous writings in the area Gerry has listed above) has been appointed, someone with real expertise in law and computers, who is not apt to get as confused by MSFT marketing BS and PR as the average Joe MSFT investor or CNBC commentator. Now it's a good thing for Microsoft to act confused by all this and to poo-poo it. After all, the more 'confused' they are by the judge's language, the further away they may be from any future contempt finding. (It worked for them this time.) And I wouldn't think it would be smart for them to declare the sky is falling, investor-wise. In point of fact, short-term they still have a monopoly, and the Asian crisis may indeed mean lots of cheap PCs and so lots of OS sold. Longer term, it is the monopoly status, both the real OS monopoly and the prospective internet monopoly that justified the high P/E ratio of this stock, because you could see their way to continued good growth even with the now-mature PC market. That story is going to be damaged by this continuing case. To have a chance to overcome this they are going to have to come up with more innovative technology, and compete fairly. The people here who called this one right over the last few months are the same ones now saying this is a serious blow. Why can't we be right again? Granted, I'm no lawyer and I could be wrong. Chaz