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To: John Donahoe who wrote (16340)	1/19/1998 4:10:00 PM
From: Street Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

Windows '98..........when will it be available? I'm wanting to run several monitors off the same computer. I hear Windows '98 will allow this. When will it be available? S.W.

To: John Donahoe who wrote (16340)	1/19/1998 5:36:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Interesting indeed, John. Pretty long to go through point by point, so I'll just pick up the first couple dubious points I ran into. Why is Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft subject to a harsher antitrust investigation than Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel? Microsoft has more domestic competitors (via individual software applications) than Intel. Yes, Intel faces AMD (Advanced Micro Devices Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif.) and Cyrix (Corp. of Richardson, Texas, a unit of National Semiconductor Corp. in Santa Clara, Calif.), but not much more. Domestic politics favor attack of Microsoft over Intel. Right. So, what has happened to the price of microprocessors in the last year or two, and what has happened to the price of Windows? Who gets in the door to bundle an alternative to Office with the OEMs? Aside from the fact that Intel is under investigation, also. How does the process work? I'll explain with a case. Remember the case involving the proposed merger of Microsoft and Intuit? The market that was supposedly being monopolized, online banking, didn't even exist. And no one had any market share to speak of. That shows how a case is brought for political reasons, not market share measures. It also shows that there aren't hard-fast economic and legal principles guiding investigators. Uh huh. We've been through that a time or two here. The banker division of the international ilk conspiracy at work again. There's the most straightforward explanation, that the dominant OS/Office app software firm buying the dominant personal finance software firm is the kind of thing that routinely sends off antitrust alarms, but that would be far too simple. In the first few questions, we find highly debatable opinions stated blandly as facts. Facts are stubborn things, or stupid things, or what was yours, John, difficult? So, IBD dug up a friend of Charles "Rick" Rule from the Reagan era to argue Bill's case for him, showing once again the political naivity Microsoft is famous for. Microsoft is welcome to bring him to testify in court, as appropriate, in this matter and future matters. It's up to the judge to decide the relevance of his viewpoint. Cheers, Dan.

To: John Donahoe who wrote (16340)	1/19/1998 9:14:00 PM
From: Pink Minion	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

Interesting article on MSFT, INTEL and DOJ from IBD You guys are so brainwashed by your stock holdings it is pathetic. Yes, very interesting article. I definately learned alot. So how come you all can't answer my questions? Was the government correct in breaking up AT&T? Standard Oil? Were you happy with rotary phones? Do you use any of the zillion features availible now? James? Mr. Dowd? I'm sure you are old enough to remember the good ole phone service we had growing up. I think the Internet would still be e-mail among professors if AT&T was still together. JMHO Mr. B

To: John Donahoe who wrote (16340)	1/20/1998 1:57:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

It's rude of me to respond to this twice, of course, but I realized that going past the first Q in this interview is silly, there's a critical point to be made right there that I forgot. IBD: Why is Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft subject to a harsher antitrust investigation than Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel? Bittlingmayer: Microsoft has more domestic competitors (via individual software applications) than Intel. Yes, Intel faces AMD (Advanced Micro Devices Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif.) and Cyrix (Corp. of Richardson, Texas, a unit of National Semiconductor Corp. in Santa Clara, Calif.), but not much more. Domestic politics favor attack of Microsoft over Intel. Right. So, John, or anyone else who thinks Bittlingmayer has some point here, please explain. I've read here and elsewhere about the notoriously ruthless and vindictive Intel, and about how everybody is afraid to cross them. But, somehow, Compaq, the biggest PC maker, has oodles of machines for sale now with Cyrix and AMD processors. On the other hand, in the battle of the sacred icon, Compaq was pretty helpless. Remember the little power play between Citrix and Microsoft? What do you think would have happened to Compaq stock if word got out (Microsoft would never leak such a thing, of course) that maybe Compaq wasn't going to have a Windows license soon? So, Mr. Bittlingmayer thinks that the hundreds of software vendors somehow give Microsoft real competition, but they're all a bunch of crybaby wannabe's, to recycle a favored ad hominem. It's all politics. So, where's the next software guy (aside from maybe IBM) relative to Microsoft? Where's the competition? Where was Compaq supposed to go? Where's the beef? There's this old saying I got to recycle again, democracy without capitalism is like a fish without a bicycle. What, precisely, is capitalism without competition? Not that I expect an answer, another one of those conundrums I guess, like the duality of man. Cheers, Dan.