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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: clark readler who wrote (4455)	12/24/1997 1:01:00 PM
From: Punko	Respond to of 74651

Most of Microsoft's apps have grown to become quite powerful. But could they have reached this state without the benefit of healthy r&d investments and patience that the OS monopoly gives them, or from access to technology that Wordperfect, Netscape, Lotus, Borland, etc did not have? Remember MS Word when it first came out. And IE, and SQL Server? Remember the mind and marketshare that those products enjoyed relative to the market leaders at the time? Could these products have possibly survived beyond infancy without the OS umbilical cord? Microsoft's OS business give it a huge (and many are now saying unfair) advantage over most other software companies. This allows Microsoft to introduce so-so products and nurse them into respectability, ultimately using its marketing muscle and financial strength to knock competitors off. It's a lot like what Japan did with consumer electronics and memory chips. If left unchecked, Microsoft has the capability to dominate all aspects of software development, leaving only niche markets for others. Investment-wise, I'm straddling the fence - I invest in other software companies with currently superior market positions in their segments in the hope that either Microsoft stays out of that market or the government curbs their monopoly. I also hold Microsoft as a hedge against their anticompetitive practices. As they continue to expand their dominance and choke off major competitors, it'll be interesting to see how the DOJ reacts.