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Technology Stocks : George Gilder - Forbes ASAP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: micromike who wrote (442)	4/17/1998 9:28:00 AM
From: SteveG	Respond to of 5853

<A> New Book On Microsoft Promises Irreverent Insider's View Message 4095949

To: micromike who wrote (442)	4/17/1998 2:38:00 PM
From: synchro	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5853

I have found that this Microsoft-DOJ issue is turning into something like abortion, gun-control, school prayer, flag-burning, etc., where people's opinion are pretty much set into two sides separated by a chasm. And who am I to turn this into an anti-trust forum. Given the medium we are communicating, I've said all I want to say about anti-trust, complex as the issue is. I would just like to part with a couple questions: 1) If a customer can't get IE from Dell, can he get Netscape thru a download from the Internet? Once a person of average intelligence gets access to the Internet thru IE, is he going to stay ignorant and "unknowledgeable" about the relative competitive advantages of Netscape over IE, if any? Is the claim by Mr. Gilder that Internet is a liberating and equalizing force a scam and fraud? Or is there really something to Mr. Gilder's hopes and dreams for the Internet? 2) Maybe I did fall asleep during the hearings, after all, I found Senator Hatch excruciatingly boring...but is Michael Dell morally obligated to load Netscape on Dell's machines? Between the two browser choices, if one is free as part of the OS function of PC and another one charges a license fee and requires extra time/resource to load onto the machine, as a profit-maximizing businessman in an already low margin business, which browser would be the logical choice to install for my customers? Which one is the _rational_ choice? Am I in this PC business for the survival of "innovative" companies like Netscape, Or am I in this business for myself and my customers? If Netscape goes bankrupt tommorrow, does that mean that there will no more entrepreneurs and innovations forthcoming? Don't tell me there really is a John Galt in our world. 3) Does a company "deserve" to survive in a free market only because it is innovative? Be careful here. Don't confuse the instinct to root for an underdog with judging/analyzing what is right and wrong about an issue. PS: Re someone's response to my use of "hysterical mob" to characterize the forces circle Microsoft's wagon....a "hysterical mob" may connote an image of a gang physically rampaging thru the streets destroying property and killing people, but it can also mean a gang that has let fear/envy overtaken reason, emotion over rational thought. In an age when polling result instead of reason is used to decipher the rightness and wrongness of an issue, then yes, there indeed is a hysterical mob out there.