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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Smart Investor who wrote (6340)	4/30/1998 2:29:00 PM
From: Maverick	Respond to of 74651

States gang up to block Win 98, part III Some of them suggested they are acting in part because they are afraid Washington will not act soon enough. A joint suit would probably be filed in federal court, meaning that any judgment or injunction would have force nationwide. ''There are significant advantages to coordinating a federal-state action,'' said Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger. ''But state attorneys general often have different time frames, and I think as attorneys general we are prepared to move on our own. And we're very close. The time is getting to be right now.'' If the states, or Washington, waited to file suit after the release of Windows 98, ''the action then would have to include another large set of defendants, the manufacturers,'' one attorney general said, speaking on condition that he not to be quoted by name. Although Microsoft intends to begin shipping Windows 98 to computer makers in mid-May, the company says it has not yet begun pressing the CD-ROM disks on which the software would be sold as a stand-alone product. An early, or ''beta,'' version of the program is already being tested on thousands of computers nationwide. Murray, the Microsoft spokesman, said that blocking the release of Windows 98 ''would be costly, disruptive to consumers, destructive to the high-technology industry, and it would undermine the strength and health of the U.S. economy.'' Told of those comments, Condon, the South Carolina attorney general, replied: ''That's a valid concern. But if you let it be released, speaking hypothetically, then it's so much harder to put the toothpaste back in the tube.'' The current Justice Department suit charges Microsoft with violating a 1995 consent decree by forcing computer manufacturers to accept the company's Internet browsing software as a condition of licensing its Windows 95 operating system. Justice officials have said that they may broaden that action to include Windows 98. They declined to comment Wednesday on the plans of the attorneys general.