>>>MSFT will get hammered monday because the discussion with government has broken. I think it will down 4 to 5 bucks monday. Enjoy!<<<
Mr. Chan:
You sound like you know the score well ahead of time. Long- or short-term, IMO, this would be another buying opportunity.
The following article validates your point.
Regards,
Beni Mick Mormony
Washington, May 17 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. faces
broad antitrust lawsuits alleging it set out to crush Netscape
Communications Corp.'s rival Internet browser by integrating its
own Internet Explorer into Windows 98, said government officials.
The Justice Department and 20 states will file lawsuits
tomorrow following the breakdown of weekend negotiations between
antitrust enforcers and the software giant, said officials
familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity.
''It could be all out war,'' said David Readerman, an
analyst with NationsBanc Montgomery Securities. Microsoft shares
could fall as much as 5 points Monday, Readerman said, retreating
from gains Thursday and Friday. A drop that large would erase as
much as $12.3 billion, or 5.6 percent, of the No. 1 software
maker's market value.
Microsoft plans to ship Windows 98 to computer makers on
Monday, ending a three-day delay that had cleared the way for the
talks. Windows 98 is the newest version of Microsoft's basic
software program that enables PCs to function, and will be
available in retail stores June 25.
The state and federal lawsuits will seek to force Microsoft
to give personal computer manufacturers more freedom to install
rival software products on the desktop page that computer users
see when they turn on their machines. The suits will be filed in
federal court in Washington barring any last-minute agreement.
''These are serious issues being taken very seriously in the
software industry,'' said David Byer, chief lobbyist for the
Software Publishers Association. ''How this case is ultimately
decided determines how we look like in the digital future,'' he
said.
Unreasonable Demands
After talks broke down Saturday, Redmond, Washington-based
Microsoft accused the Justice Department of making unreasonable
demands on its ability to integrate Internet Explorer into
Windows and other product innovations.
''The government went too far with no basis in law, and,
most important, were not in the best interests of customers,''
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said in a statement. His company's
Windows system operates nearly 90 percent of the world's PCs.
Government officials, challenging Gates' version of events,
said the talks broke off after company negotiators quickly
reneged on their own proposal to give PC makers more latitude in
configuring the desktop. It was that proposal that had led to the
brief truce between the software giant and antitrust enforcers.
Antitrust enforcers want Microsoft to give computer
equipment makers the opportunity to hide the icon for the
company's Internet Explorer web browser should they choose to
promote Netscape Navigator or another browser, said two
government officials.
Anti-Netscape Strategy
Government investigators have obtained documents during
their lengthy review showing that Microsoft devised a strategy to
counter the popularity of Navigator by integrating Explorer into
Windows, said the government officials.
Microsoft denies the charges. ''Two months before Netscape
was ever founded as a company, we announced we were including the
Internet technology in Windows,'' said Microsoft spokesman Jim
Cullinan.
During the aborted negotiations, the Justice Department
suggested that Windows 98 include the computer code for the
Navigator browser made by Mountain View, California-based
Netscape. This was one of several remedies that enforcers
proposed to redress the competitive harm caused by Microsoft's
conduct, one government official said.
''When they demanded that, we asked them to repeat it out
loud,'' Gates said in an interview with Time Magazine. ''The
government was trying to advantage a competitor of ours. That's
really unprecedented.''
To settle the case, Microsoft ''would have had to
substantially change their business practices. They apparently
decided they couldn't bite that much off,'' said Mitchell Pettit,
a Washington lawyer who runs an anti-Microsoft coalition of
businesses called the Project to Promote Competition and
Innovation.
Seeking a Settlement
The negotiations began Friday, a day after the Justice
Department and state attorneys general held off filing lawsuits
to give Microsoft time to present what one senior official had
described as a ''significant proposal'' to settle the case.
Microsoft initially offered to let PC makers choose what
icons it wanted to display on the desktop page and to hide
Windows icons, said two officials.
In turn, Justice Department antitrust chief Joel Klein and
the state attorneys general delayed filing their lawsuits. Klein
had spoken into the early hours of Thursday with Gates before the
truce was announced.
The Microsoft legal team, headed by top in-house counsel
William Neukom, rescinded the offer as early as Friday, according
to one government official.
Cullinan said the Justice Department greeted Microsoft's
original proposal with a demand that PC makers be allowed to take
bids from software makers for the right to display icons on the
desktop. ''We were not allowed to bid'' under this proposal,
Cullinan said. ''They were asking us to give up all rights to the
first screen.''
The company then counter-offered to remove the Windows 98
logo from the boot-up page that users see for several seconds
when they turn on their computers, said the government official.
This concession was rejected as cosmetic, the official said.
It was clear to state representatives by late Friday
afternoon that the talks would not lead to a settlement, said the
government officials. That was when Connecticut Attorney General
Richard Blumenthal left for home.
The talks were described by one official as cordial despite
the failure to come to any agreements. The talks broke up
Saturday after Microsoft representatives said they didn't think
there was much reason to continue the discussions, a government
official said, and state and federal representatives quickly
agreed to adjourn.
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