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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: uu who wrote (8066)	3/6/1998 1:57:00 PM
From: XiaoYao	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Addi, Although I don't agree with many of your previous post, but this is an excellent post. You do understand the depth of public psychology. Basically people will follow the main stream if they are not the expert in the area. For example, if I want to buy a passenger car but I have almost no knowledge on mechanical engineer and car, what I do? I will look at the advertisement, ask friends, find what the most other people are doing? The conclusion, if I want to buy a foreign car, I would buy a Toyota Camry or a Honda Accord. Just like you said, it is "the mass that is willing to accept Microsoft's will", it is not "Microsoft that forcing its will on the masses", because Windows is the main stream. This is like a cycle, since Windows is the main stream, so most vendors would like to sell and market Windows because they want to make money, this will cause more people to know about Windows and buy the Windows machine, then this make Windows machine an even more a main stream. This is almost the same in any industry. To build the brand and become the main stream is the most difficult part. YuanQing,

To: uu who wrote (8066)	3/6/1998 6:25:00 PM
From: micromike	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Addi, I also watched the Senate hearing and I came away that MS does have a monopoly. The exchange between Dell and the Senators was the best example of how a monopoly can control the equipment suppliers. This is how I saw it. exchange2000.com You need a example take Netscape and this total putz Mike Dell. He said he supplies what the customers demand. Somebody said to counter the monopoly theory that Netscape has the bigger market share so that would indicate to me that consumers would want Netscape more often than IE. His own employee at the customer order desk even said he much preferred Netsape but they can't supply it with its computers. Then you get a guy like Sal who can't read between the lines when Dell only sells IE. Does Sal actually think Dell would admit that there is something going on behind closed doors and since MS has a monopoly they can control Dell. Since we are talking about the monopoly and how it controls all the players in the game. Bills other weapon to control the ISV is upgrades. If they cross him don't expect to get any upgrade info on the next release which he always says is greater and better but in actually fact is more unruly and more unstable. Once again the consumer gets the shaft. --- In a monopoly the consumer doesn't get a choice and the best product doesn't win. This is why IMHO Windows is the worst home Consumer Electronic product that I have ever seen but boy does it make money for MS. The NC has a chance to kick its butt but now MS is coming out with custom Java that runs on Windows only to try and prevent this and keep its monopoly which gives it control on what the consumers can buy. Microsoft makes new attack on Java www1.sjmercury.com The best thing that the DOJ could do is break out the OS from MS so it loses control of all the players in the game so the consumer will finally get a choice. That's the way I see it. Mike

To: uu who wrote (8066)	3/6/1998 7:14:00 PM
From: Michael F. Donadio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Addi, as usual your response is brilliant. In agreement with you Stewart Alsop stated at those congressional hearings, that it is really the desire of the industry and consumers to have a standard even if it is a defacto one. I believe Alsop comments that over the last twenty years or so, through competition, MS has emerged as the winner. (I should state though that windows was my OS of last resort having been initial an Amiga fan, then Mac, and only now Windows which I use alongside Mac. The applications that I use (Adobe) now find themselves on windows. I guess I gravitate to the losers.) Up until a year or so ago, I had great respect for what Microsoft/Bill Gates had accomplished. I had not invested in MS because I thought Sun had a good chance of unseating MS as the industry leader. I still have hopes but not if Microsoft can co-opt standards this way. I can say that my admiration is rapidly dwindling for MS and Bill Gates. (Maybe Bill Gates even more than MS.) I think that Microsoft and Sun working together would have been a great team in advancing computer technology, but instead an adversarial situation has arisen. Scott McNealy, though I can understand his stance, is to some extent responsible. He rarely has anything good to say about MS, and has presented Java "the platform" as a threat to MS. Microsoft therefore must fight back. In a lack of harmony, though, the rights of each company need to be honored. I see what Microsoft/Bill Gates is doing with Java as theft even though the masses of windows users (the consumers) may even encourage it because from their vantage point it makes things work better. Java can be painfully slow at present. *If someone "perceives" a company to have crossed the line and now prospers though the conscious violation of the rights of other companies (Netscape?, Sun?) do you invest in it?* Does one routinely buy things from people who sell stolen merchandise at discount prices? Each person has his own level of acceptance for such behavior and clearly this becomes a matter of ethics and the province of the courts to eventually determine (providing they are not being controled by the enormous wealth MS now possesses). I trust your judgment about MS, since you know a great deal more about the goings on in the software development industry than I do and to you MS is not on the same level as "Philip Morris" which is where you seem to draw the line. As for me, I may sell Sun depending on how I think it will play out, but if my perceptions remain the same, and I am sure there are many who would say that I was a fool, my money will find an investment other than MS. All the best, Michael