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Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Reginald Middleton who wrote (19512)	5/20/1998 2:35:00 PM
From: nommedeguerre	Respond to of 24154

Reggie, >>The point is the DOJ is saying that MSFT is makingt the OS "too good". Once again these are YOUR words and not the DOJ's.

To: Reginald Middleton who wrote (19512)	5/21/1998 2:30:00 AM
From: Charles Hughes	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 24154

>>>The point is the DOJ is saying that MSFT is makingt the OS "too good". they are actually saying that they want MSFT to DEGRADE the OS by taking functionality out of it.<<< I don't think so... IE plus Windows isn't any better than Netscape plus Windows. And if they allow that change, for both technical and business reasons, progress in the technology of the web itself will crawl to a halt. Besides wiping out all the other web software companies. After that, There won't be much reason to improve windows either. So far from trying to keep Windows from being better, they are trying to keep Microsoft from turning the Web into yet another dead graveyard of ideas. One engineering or scientific field after another over the last century has attracted the attention of business. This is what often happens: 1. Ideas are formulated and progress made in the absence of much attention from those outside the field. 2. At some point commercial potential becomes apparent. 3. The field progresses rapidly, under the influence of hundreds or thousands of practitioners and competitors. 4. One company or a number of few large competitors take over the field. By this time the original innovators have moved on or pushed out, have died, etc. Extracting the last dollar from the technology dictates that progress must be slowed, so as to not 'cannibalize' sales of older parts of the product line. Public and business interest in the field dies out. Creativity stops. The businesses appeal to government for rules that in effect make a cartel of the industry. The field is dead. --------------------------------------------------- Through government intervention, revolution, some unexpected event or the passage of time, a few of these fields become of interest again. Many do not. Examples: A. Farm machine technology, the level of which has not really changed in decades and which is helping to destroy the world's topsoil at a great pace (The US has lost over 50% of it's topsoil.) Desertification is everywhere. B. Automobile technology. Essentially the same as that of 50 years ago, though safety features like the safety belt have become more widespread. In spite of there being far better technologies than the present ready and waiting. In spite of global warming, acid rain, and cancer from air pollution. C. Electrical production technology. Obviously. D. Civil aviation. The only exception being Bert Rutan. E. Base consumer audio technology. F. Truck, train and other freight technology. Oftentimes, these monopolies and stagnant fields were aided in their creation by businesses lobbying congress with special pleading after special pleading, which the corruption of our political finance system ensures will succeed. And which ensures the further corruption of the system, and the inattention to proper business of the government of our leaders. (As the old saying has it, Corruption and Incompetence are like inseparable siblings - where you find one you always find the other - but that's another story.) Technology continues to progress, but in a distinct 5 steps forward, 4 steps back format that is extremely wasteful and harmful. Examples of revived fields: A. The government via DOJ and Antitrust interfered with the moribund computer business monopolized by IBM. IBM was busy suppressing everything from OS to PC technology, but eventually as the market was forced open by one consent decree after another, from the forced spinoff of Control Data to the forced licensing of Mainframe OS to Fujisu and Amdahl to the forced standard connectors for peripherals like printers to the forced modifications to customer contracts regarding 3rd party peripherals, the computer field came alive again. This revival was also fueled by DOD and NBS supporting the development of thousands of new technologies and technical standards. B. Telephone technology as delivered to the consumer hadn't changed much in decades, yet had gotten extremely expensive despite absent or insulting service and attitude on the part of 'Ma Bell' employees. (You are too young to remember when Ma Bell forbade modems, for instance.) The government allowed in Sprint and MCI, broke up AT&T and created the Baby Bells, and now there are a host of telephone cos and ISPs. The law was also changed to allow 3rd parties to install telephones and wiring, and the result was that companies like radio shack and tens or hundreds of thousands of independent communications contractors were created. This time they are acting more quickly, perhaps partly because of the pervasiveness and importance of computer and Internet technology, but also because of the record of success of antitrust reviving stagnant industries, and the long hiatus under Reagan-Bush where almost no antitrust cases were pursued. Additionally I think there is a realization that even if we allowed Microsoft to own the internet business, other countries would not. They might quickly pass us by as we wallowed in technical stagnation. Chaz