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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dan Packer who wrote (2902)	1/3/1998 12:22:00 AM
From: Philip H. Lee	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78528

Internet sector. I think it's only a matter of time before Microsoft acquires one of the major search engine companies for access to its technology and sitelists. Most of the market capitalizations (Infoseek at 282mm, Excite at 510mm, C-Net at 377mm, Lycos at 562mm, etc.) are cheap enough for Microsoft to acquire without much trouble. Heck, they just paid a rumored 400mm for HotMail and 800mm for WebTV. Contrary to what many think, I believe the barriers to successful entry on the Internet are reasonably difficult. Replicating the success of an Amazon.com or Lycos is not as easy as throwing some code together in a matter of weeks. Even a simple idea like free browser-based email has shown decent barriers to entry with both leading sites, 411 and HotMail, being acquired by Yahoo and MSFT, respectively. Philip