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Technology Stocks : Wind River going up, up, up! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Brophy who wrote (3072)	4/20/1998 1:20:00 PM
From: Allen Benn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10309

Mark, Let me congratulate you on a perfectly acceptable critique of my bold claims about Microsoft's fallibility in the embedded systems space. Your reasoning and conclusions should not be dismissed lightly by investors. Some of what you said lines up with Ronald Paul's observations about the low barriers to RTOS entry, which provides collateral support for your arguments. Now, let me say very clearly that I think you both are wrong, dead wrong. I understand that the burden of proof is on my shoulders, and I promise to present my arguments soon. I am certain that we all agree that this issue is the crux of the matter. If I am right, then WIND has an excellent chance of becoming the first truly great company of the new millenium; if I am wrong, then WIND may or may not be an OK investment, and in fact the stock may whither along the lines you indicated. If that should happen, then even a P/E of 30 might not justify owning the stock. Incidentally, if you check past posts you will find that I never fell into the trap of believing that Netscape or Java could challenge Microsoft, as did Gilder. I recall posting (at the time when Microsoft woke up to Netscape's existence) that Netscape was a red herring. I also never suggested the NC could win the desktop war against Microsoft. I believe I said the NC could be the equivalent of a shot across the bow, but it could never take Microsoft down. The PC paradigm is the property of Wintel. As an alternative implementation of the PC paradigm, the NC cannot threaten the paradigm's owner-even if it succeeds as an alternative implementation of the PC paradigm. Microsoft's only business threat stems from the likes of WIND, and hopefully WIND itself. (DOJ: please note this claim. It should prove useful in your deliberations about how to corral Microsoft.) But again, this is just a conclusion awaiting justification, which I expect to make in the promised post. Allen