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

To: Reginald Middleton who wrote (17893)	3/5/1998 8:49:00 PM
From: Thure Meyer	Respond to of 24154

Reginald, You are simply obfuscating what is going on by equating browser demand with PC sales. They are probably not correlated at all. Are you suggesting that people are buying PC's so that they can get their hands on Internet Explorer? I doubt it. Saying "Since Dell is not losing the business, demand is obviously not that great" is nonsense. Guess how much business Dell would lose if they couldn't ship the latest release of Windows or Excell. Thure

To: Reginald Middleton who wrote (17893)	3/5/1998 9:24:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

The demand among newer participants is MUCH greater for IE. Sure, whatever Reggie. This must be one of those Regimondese/Microsoftese definitions of demand. Alternatively, we have: Survey: Browser bundling works news.com Cited here previously by yours truly, of course. You probably ignored it as biased because it said "bundling" not "integration". Pitkow said he decided to focus on browsers because "we weren't satisfied with the story behind the browser wars that other market research firms were producing. What we decided to do is focus on what are the fundamental factors are in driving the browser war." What he found was that bundling the browser with ISPs was the most significant factor in success. Following that were placement of the browser on purchased computers and then on software. "We do know that Microsoft was licensing their browser to ISPs and hardware companies at no cost while Netscape was charging a fee," Pitkow said. "Our survey documents the impact of these practices." I.e. Microsoft bought and paid for its browser share fair and square. Free wasn't good enough, they had to throw in all kinds of ancillaries like space on the newly claimed startup screen. All the ISPs had to do to get "free" IE and the ancillaries is sign one of those contracts that Microsoft just, you know, modified in the last week or two, for reasons totally related to the Congressional hearings, of course. Now, if you want to somehow tie this in with some theory about consumer "choice" and the "free market" working, be my guest. Maybe it's another one of those 1st year B-school things. Cheers, Dan.