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

To: Alan Buckley who wrote (4872)	1/30/1998 6:18:00 PM
From: X-Ray Man	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Just don't agree with: "dominating markets by delivering better value than others." but agree that: "It is an aggressive, productive company dominating markets". I believe it does so by its business practices and marketing saavy, and not by virtue of better product or value, except in as much as most people by a product today because it is the defacto "standard" because of existing market share. Simple positive feedback system, that may well preclude competition with better products from entering market. I hear this all the time from MSFT clients - it ain't the best, but its the standard, or its competitors might go out of business. Precisely the sort of situation anti-trust laws are to help avoid. But this situation is different, because the consumer themselves choose to avoid other products just because they are from another vendor. Defacto lack of competition. Unclear how DOJ should respond. Knock out one or two of the remaining fringe competitors for OS, for example, and DOJ has a case to regulate the monopoly. Getting close to that for Office, too. Very strange... Can't claim competition is keeping down price, because margins are excessively high compared to both competitors and other computer products. If their were a true competitor to Office, it would be selling for a fraction of current price. JMO

To: Alan Buckley who wrote (4872)	1/30/1998 8:02:00 PM
From: K. M. Strickler	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Good approach! In my arguments, I say that MSFT doesn't make the best software, they make the second best! I give 10 points to the best, and 5 points to the second best. Next I make a list of the software available and it goes like this: UNIX op sys - 10 : MSFT op sys - 5 LOTUS - 10 : MSFT - 5 BORLAND - 10 : MSFT - 5 COREL - 10 : MSFT - 5 etc. The totals just based on the above 4 are: UNIX - 10 LOTUS - 10 BORLAND - 10 COREL - 10 MSFT - 20 (4x5) For me it isn't that MSFT is necessarily the best all of the time, the lead changes with each new release, but MSFT is EVERYWHERE and their packages seem to integrate to 'their' operating system pretty well. Does this make any sense? Ken