Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: John Donahoe who wrote (16918)	1/31/1998 8:34:00 PM
From: Bill Jackson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

John, You are quite right. McNealey has to face the fact that he cannot tilt at windmills. SUN has been vanquished in the share wars and the only hope is to adapt or die. If McN refuses, he will go down with the ship. He should run a parallel course with SUN OS and NT being his dual offerings. He may be bullheaded and stubborn, but he is not stupid and once he sees the writing on the wall he will change. The trouble is he cannot believe his eyes, and so keeps trying to cut his SUN prices to compete, but that will not do it. The time will come when free SUN computers will lose share<GG, asymptotic projection> However long before that he will be forced to change. It is better to change in a voluntary manner and keep the company big, than to wait until it is back to the garage again. Look at how AAPL threw away a commanding lead via dumb acts. How small will SUN get before they change?, will they get so small they become a snack for a bigger Co? Bill

To: John Donahoe who wrote (16918)	2/1/1998 11:36:00 AM
From: micromike	Respond to of 24154

One of the biggest arguments for UNIX is it's a proven scalable and mission crittical O/S. One of the reasons for this is that it's a very mature O/S as compared to NT. If a company requires this than you can bet UNIX is running. This is what I would call a high power user. The next level of computer user would be a power user. This is NT,OS2,Linux and UNIX fight for market share. And the final level would be the average computer consumer. This is were MS Windows dominates right now and were MS and you are hoping NT takes over. The problem I have here is that for this day and age Windows, OS2, linux and Unix is not the answer. The average user doesn't want to be bothered with all the crap involed to just run a application. Now I call MS, microslop for a very good reason. They control by monopoly the direction of this market and for this day and age it's no better than 10 years ago. If you and the masses think NT is the answer then I guess the average user will still be putting up with all the extra crap just to run their application for the next 10 years. The bottom line is that a monoploy kills innovation and that's were we pressently are in the average computer users world. If the DOJ wakes up one day and takes care of this problem then maybe jusy maybe the average user will benifit one day. JMHO Mike

To: John Donahoe who wrote (16918)	2/2/1998 3:19:00 PM
From: Keith Hankin	Respond to of 24154

It might not be best for Sun to back NT at this point. Their support for UNIX-only can be seen as a strength in that customers are assured that they will continue to be supported, while at the same time Sun picks up DEC, HP, IBM customers because they are not as sure of ongoing support. Here's an article supporting this view: globe.com

To: John Donahoe who wrote (16918)	2/2/1998 8:15:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Respond to of 24154

>>> "But I suspect that Sun will switch to NT over McNealy's dead body." And over their shareholders dead portfolio I fear. I hope SUN's shareholders are aware of this attitude. It's not helpful to a business when its CEO is blinded by hate. Once SUN gets off the warpath and accomodates the NT juggernaut I would consider adding it to my portfolio. <<< Get real John. No way could Sun trust Microsoft in a situation like that. (I speak as a proud owner of NT for DEC Alpha 3.1) Remember all those other vapor NT versions? PowerPC for instance? You are right that NT has momentum. Win95 is still where the MSFT bacon is though. And though you are right that MSFT is steadily increasing it's death grip, you don't realize that what you see now, we have been anticipating for years. That's why we have been fighting for years. In case you still don't get it, we don't work for MSFT. Our job is to salvage what we can of the non-Microsoft computer business and software ecology. Sure, we may use a lot of the platforms and tools from MSFT. So what? We were working on IBM mainframes while trying to bring IBM down to a better level, 25 years ago. And succeeded. Why? Because we are the kinds of people that make things. We have ideas about the right and wrong ways to make things. We will fight for those ideas or suffer the kind of cognitive dissonance that must attack every Microsoft engineer and programmer. People who make things all think this way. 'Pure' investors don't care about or understand the creative process, and so don't understand us. We will be understood by artists or cabinet makers or writers before we are understood by ordinary investors. We already know that, believe me. The more you point at the bottom line, the more we classify you as a pencil pusher. We like to make money on our investments, but not if we think some ill is being done by management in our names. The more MSFT succeeds, the more of us there will be. The more MSFT monopolizes, the more the pressure from the government and the consumer activists. That's how it works. Get used to it. Chaz