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

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (19686)	5/24/1998 8:46:00 AM
From: Harvey Allen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

"Losses during a price war will be proportionately higher for the predator because he faces the necessity of expanding output at ever higher costs, while the victim will not only not expand output but has the option of reducing it and so decreasing his costs." I can see that view if your only business was selling one product like gasoline but in Microsoft's case the browser is only one part of the product line and I think that each free browser results in sales of other Microsoft products: Front Page, Game Zone, hits to featured sites, (which produces advertising revenue) so that any increase in costs are more than offset by gains in other areas. If we were dealing with "The Explorer Browser Company" we could get closer to Bork's rationality. Harvey BTW I'm thinking more and more that Bill's intransigence makes it more likely that the final decree will be breakup. Judge Jackson's the one to do it. When the Micrsofties start standing at attention and put a little honor in Your Honor I'll know that that idea's sunk in.

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (19686)	5/24/1998 9:12:00 AM
From: Thure Meyer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

"It may require expert testimony to establish whether marginal costs do not rise as quickly, or may even fall, in the software industry, as network effects and increasing returns would suggest,.." Gerald, It will be complex if this case is partially based on emergent economics, in particular increasing returns and network externalities. On the plus side, it will force a very public examination of the whole software, telecommunications, computer and media markets. This whole thing is very timely in an eerie kind of way. The Microsoft issue is acting as a kind of attractor to sort out a lot of issues, including (potentially) the valuation of technical stocks. Thure