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Technology Stocks : Microsoft - The Evil empire -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert Winchell who wrote (904)	5/13/1998 1:24:00 PM
From: Dragonfly	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1600

It doesn't matter what I think the major technical innovations of the past 2 decade are-- that would be what I think is most significant. I challenge you guys to come up with some major technical innovation that Microsoft has come up with, other than dirty (and clean) marketing tricks. Creating a new application catagory would count-- but I don't think BOB is a major innovation. I don't think it can be done, I cannot think of any. Dragonfly PPS- The reason I'm talking about technical innovations only is that this came out of the "you'd still be starting at a green screen if it wasn't for MS" comment. I think exactly the opposite is true. PS- Laser Printers, GUI, client-client networking (a'la' network neighborhood), Video on PCs, WYSIWYG, Hypertext applications, Graphical internet access, photographic-quality virtual reality, the mouse, the 3.5 inch drive, CD-ROMs are some of the major innovations of the last 20 years, all of which were developed (or applied to personal computers for the first time) by Apple.

To: Robert Winchell who wrote (904)	5/13/1998 7:16:00 PM
From: Hal Rubel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1600

Innovation RE: "Personally I feel that Microsoft's biggest innovation has been integration - of applications (Office ...)" Sorry. I think ClarisWorks for Mac & Windows ($99) was the driving innovation here. MS office is actually several independent programs with a few cross-importation links. ClarisWorks functions by producing a smart document with built in WP, Spreadsheet, DB, Draw, Paint, and Communications capabilities. The database, for instance, is a sub-set of the popular FileMaker program. The drop down menus change options and the cursor changes icon as the cursor hovers over different kinds of user defined territory in the document: text, table, image, or link. It is so user friendly that even a mere office mortal can use it. Microsoft is still evolving along these lines. I must say, however, that for the true power user, MS Office has more features, if you can find them. (The independent modules lack a common interface theme and there is no interface at all for the linking mode as yet.) But, Office is very well marketed as an innovation, if that counts for anything. HR