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

To: Alan Buckley who wrote (7885)	5/23/1998 12:43:00 PM
From: FR1	Respond to of 74651

Yeah, I agree with you on this in most points. Basically the DOJ had one big shot in 1968 and they blew it. They needed to walk into court and clearly define what hardware, OS, and Aps were. Then split IBM and declare that no business can have a large market presence in any two of the 3 areas. But DOJ was not up to the task, judges were computer illiterate and IBM kept the courts sufficiently confused ("If I burn code into a chip is it hardware or software?") so no big changes were made. However DOJ did force some changes at IBM and these changes gave birth to DEC and other businesses. Things cooled off when DEC became big. Things are a thousand times more confused and overlapping now so it is impossible to define the boundaries - and they change every day. We got a IBM repeat here. MSFT will be nailed on some things such as being a illegal big bully with the distributors, etc. and DOJ will get a pound (maybe just an ounce) of flesh but nothing critical. What can DOJ get out of this at the absolute most? 1) Make MSFT promise not to make contracts that do x,y and z. 2) Maybe there will be a fine. 3) Maybe allowing other browsers to be selected with a button click. Attacking the design of the OS is a impossible win for the DOJ. We're talking Don Quixote and the windmills. One of the problems is that Bill Gates behaves (is) like a juvenile (You lawmakers don't know what I know and you're stupid!). He's also a horrible public speaker. Because of this, the public doesn't understand his case and why it is impossible for the browser to be separate from the OS. You can say it in a sentence: If you are going to treat the web as a LAN your OS automatically, by definition, becomes a web browser. Putting other browsers on MSFT OS can be done but it is a loser because although you can run the other browsers perfectly, they do not have the functionality (ie file working abilities) that are a part of MSFT OS. They are not integrated into the OS and there is no way to fix that problem unless you demand that all the source code for MSFT be made public - in which case MSFT says: "Apple first, then IBM, then SUN, then SCO and then us.".