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

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (7539)	5/18/1998 7:53:00 PM
From: Dwight E. Karlsen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Cheryl, did Netscape or did they not have an 80%+ share of the browser market? And did they or did they not have a "Kill Microsoft" sign in their offices? Netscape isn't exactly an innocent party here. They've driven a lot of good browser companies into the ground getting to the top of the heap of the browser market. Perhaps the DOJ should be investigating some of NSCP business practices. After all, most people being critical of MSFT see the 90% share in OS and believe that they MUST have done a lot of unethical things to get there. I think the same thinking should apply to Netscape's monopoly.

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (7539)	5/18/1998 7:56:00 PM
From: Brian Malloy	Respond to of 74651

You are completely off base. The DOJ case does not stand on any law. It is untested gibberish that they are dispensing. The appeals court has already set a very high standard for DOJ. The court has basically said that the DOJ and juries should not be in the computer business. DOJ is on the road to losing and then they are really going to look stupid. If this current case is their best argument they are doomed. MSFT has them going and comming. Then what does DOJ do next, dream up some new wild charges and take another go at MSFT? If the Appeals courts doesn't like DOJ being in the computer business they sure don't want to see them in the fishing business. Fishing for a point of law to try and hang their weak case on, that is. For the closest thing to a precedent see the 1. 1977 Continental TV vs. GTE Sylvania decison that went before the Supreme court. 2. 1979 film retailer vs. Eastman Kodak Co's Both of the decisions in these cases support MSFT not the DOJ case. Regards,

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (7539)	5/18/1998 8:44:00 PM
From: John F. Dowd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Dear Cheryl: What's with the cheers. Your anger at Bill Gates is showing. And the parable was a non-connected straw man - why didn't you throw a little child abuse into the simile. As the other 2 gentlemen have pointed out there is no case. MSFT saw that in their discussions with DOJ and took their concessions off the table as the remedies required by DOJ were way over the line and had no basis in law just as their case has no basis in law. They are wasting our money. These elected attorneys are politicians not lawyers. The only good thing to come of this is a buying opportunity for those who didn't start in 1989 like some of us. JFD

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (7539)	5/18/1998 9:11:00 PM
From: Brian Malloy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Of course Schmidt is now at Novell but it begs the question what is a monopoly? Given this former SUN exec's words SUNW is a monopoly in its corner of the enterprise market. So once again, how do we define or should I say how does SUNW define "temporary monopoly?" What is the definition of temporary: a day, a year, a decade a century - WHAT? Until MSFT beats you? Until you think NT may challenge UNIX? "Simple arithmetic makes the reason for this clear, explains Gurley. Say there are two companies selling the same kind of software application for $325 a pop. Each company spends $250 million on R&D and $50 a copy on variable costs like advertising, making the disks or CD-ROMs, printing the manuals, shrink-wrap, etc. But company A sells nine million units while company B sells only one million units. Company A's pretax profits are $2.2 billion, and company B's are $25 million. Company A's return on R&D investment is 890%; company B's is 10%. Note the discrepancy. "You keep investing in technology because you get increasing returns to investment," says Eric Schmidt, chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems. "This is an industry where it's natural for temporary monopolies to emerge." " Gee ATT was a "monopoly" for 50+ years or so and they chose to break up into nine pieces. Now the baby bells seem to be getting back together. Gee IBM was a "monopoly" for 20+ years or so then the government went after them for 13 years and finally gave up. How long has MSFT been a "monopoly" in its little area, Five years- Eight at most? Gates is much more combative and MSFT has a stronger case than ATT or IBM ever did. All DOJ will do is waste the taxpayers money once again. It is up to the market place to decide by voting with the products that they buy when MSFT's "temporary monopoly" is up. It is not for NSCP, SUNW and others {to utilize the DOJ acting through lobbyists contributing to Senator's on the Judiciary Committee} to circumvent the free markets in an attempt to lock consumers into NSCP and SUNW products. I can not wait untill the court proceedings starts and MSFT gets to show the "real deal" Look at some of these comments. "Until the mid-Eighties, Netscape's Jim Clark was one of the skeptics. "I thought it was a flawed economic proposition, that there's no way you're going to make money on something people can just copy," he says. "It's amazing what watching Bill Gates get wealthy did to my perspective." It's nice that Jim Clarke used to think so highly of MSFT/Gates, at least when he thought NSCP was going to kill MSFT. Now he sings a different tune. I guess this is one student that has not yet learned to beat the master on the field of open competition like MSFT did with IBM, with out running to the DOJ "Right now there's no conventional model for translating freeware into profits. Id has taken one approach. The most prominent company to make the transition is Netscape. Giving away its browser led to sales of server software to corporations, which in turn helped spur the development of intranets, which in turn led to the sale of browsers to those same corporations--this time with special features and customer support. Netscape's quarterly revenues have gone from zero to $55 million in 26 months. "We'd like to say it was planned," says Eric Hahn, Netscape's senior vice president of enterprise technologies. "I think the success has surprised everyone, including ourselves." " ,i>Let's see first they are going to be the MSFT slayer and they give away the browser. Then MSFT gives away its browser and it's no longer fair? What gives......I know they are not saying that MSFT can no longer "transition". Perhaps Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls should no longer be allowed a transition game. Perhaps somebody else can win the basketball crown? "The uncertainty of how all of this will shake out is highlighted by a little piece of boilerplate in Netscape's IPO prospectus, in the very same sentence about attaining de facto standardhood: "...there can be no assurance that such goal will be achieved." No joke. Learning the lessons of software economics has never guaranteed success of Microsoftian (or even idian) proportions. There's even less of a guarantee now. " NSCP did not achieve its goal I guess. At 60% market share they are running scared and trying to get the DOJ to now assure that their goal is met These rules of the economics of software are now being adapted to the industry's new world: software that works with the Internet. On page five of Netscape's IPO prospectus, the company declares its intention to make its software the "de facto standard" of the Internet. This may as well be a passage out of a high-tech economics textbook. It's a classic example of one company trying to conquer a market by exploiting the dynamics of increasing returns. The only problem is when NSCP starts to see that it is losing it runs to the DOJ, a friendly senator and lobbyists. "Netscape wants to create a completely new architecture with its own virtual army of developers and applications. By giving away a terrific product--its Navigator Web browser--Netscape made it clear that computer users are ready to embrace the Web. That, in turn, lured thousands of third-party software developers, who now write add-on products designed to work with Navigator." "Netscape's broadside is just the most obvious threat to Microsoft, the desktop computer world's primary setter of de facto standards. Another economically savvy competitor is Sun Microsystems." I guess that I'll leave SUNW for another day. Bottom line, in 1996 all these companies were going to slay MSFT now look at them, whining like little babies. Quoted parts taken from June 10, 1996 Fortune Magazine GIVE IT AWAY AND GET RICH! Plus other secrets of the software economy. http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/magazine/1996/960610/tsof.html Embrace & Extend