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

To: Keith Hankin who wrote (15726)	12/31/1997 2:39:00 PM
From: Reginald Middleton	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 24154

This is funny, unfortunately I think she really made the statement: Janet Reno - "Microsoft is so wealthy, it can hire the best programmers, software designers and marketers in the world. Clearly, this fosters unfair competition. ... A hiring quota needs to be enforced, limiting the number of genuises who can work at Microsoft at any one time."

To: Keith Hankin who wrote (15726)	12/31/1997 3:16:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

Re: capitalism.org Funny how some of the most boring novels ever written are never out of print. Especially Ayn Rand's. Just imagine if those Bolsheviks that ejected Ayn Rand and her family from their posh Russian residence during the revolution had somehow missed her block. Maybe she would have turned out a little more 'objective.' Chaz

To: Keith Hankin who wrote (15726)	12/31/1997 4:18:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 24154

Tee hee. Next time I get to feeling ever so slightly sorry for Bill and Co. 'cause everybody's beating up on them in the press, I can go back to this one, it's a barrel of laughs. On a quick perusal I got to this: Does the US government have the right to force Microsoft (MS) to sell MS Windows and Internet Explorer as separate products? Not according to the nation's supreme document--the Declaration of Independence--which clearly defines government's essential purpose: to protect individual rights. And blah blah blah. A real sound understanding of the things we hold dear. I mean, I thought the Constitution was somewhat more relevant, the Declaration of Independence has all this stuff about King George that's sort of out of date, and Jefferson had to delete the part about property 'cause it wouldn't fly among the democratic rabble. Stuck in that mealy mouthed "pursuit of happiness" thing instead. Antitrust can't possibly apply to Microsoft, because there's no precedent, it's a new industry, never mind IBM and the troubles they had with bundling. But, the Declaration of Independence clearly defines the "individual rights" of the modern multinational corporation. If you follow this line, you might think that other companies have the right not to be murdered by Microsoft, when it chooses to buy a competitor and give its product away, but that would obviously be an unsound analogy, the Chrysler car radio thing is far more appropo. Or maybe this is all part of Bill's pursuit of happiness. Of course, it made John Gotti happy to have people killed, but I don't think his lawyers thought to try that defense. Sheesh, driven to rhetorical excess again, although that's appropriate when Rand comes up. I prefer to avoid the topic, having witnessed far too many long and useless usenet threads where the Objectivists appear to win by pure tenacity, when everyone else gets bored and goes away. When they figure out how to get somebody elected, I'll get worried. Cheers, Dan.

To: Keith Hankin who wrote (15726)	1/2/1998 12:16:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Rallying 'round the fountainhead for MS news.com Once again, SI and this forum is just way ahead of the news on this one. I got to look it up, but I think Alan Buckley first raised the Randian defense of Bill on the antitrust front a year ago or more. The Justice Department has "special master" Lawrence Lessig on its side in its antitrust case against Microsoft, but who can Bill Gates call? How about Ayn Rand? A Web site devoted to the ber-capitalist philosophy of Rand--the writer famous for the novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged--has launched a campaign to fight what it calls the "persecution" of Bill Gates and Microsoft. I imagine this is where the recent refs to capitalism.org originated from, one way or the other. I missed this little gem in the holiday season, of course. Somehow old Ayn just doesn't seem to be someone you associate with the holiday spirit. The petition's cowriter, Robert W. Tracinski, plans to hand-deliver the petition to Judge Thomas Jackson's office and to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee next year. The petition has been posted less than a month, with approximately 500 signatures coming in the first week, Tracinski said. Oh my, sounds like a real grass-roots groundswell there. At that rate, in a couple hundred years they'll have enough signatures to march on Washington demanding a constitutional rewrite, never mind statutory immunity for Bill. There's also the usual blather about coercion. Not to get into politics again, but as Forest Gump might have said, coercion is as coercion does. I wonder what the Compaq guys think about Microsoft and coercion, in the context of the spirited defense of the sacred icon. "We are not your supplier". Courteous, ethical, humorous as always. Cheers, Dan.