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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mozek who wrote (10079)	6/6/1998 12:39:00 PM
From: Michael L. Voorhees	Respond to of 64865

mozek: a monopoly is OK if: 1) generate quality products 2) act with good corporate citizenship 3) are honest 4) open their products up, including source code for educational institutions 5) quit taking advantage of the ignorance of everyday computer users in their spin doctor mode 6) quit acting in a completely predatory fashion MSFT is a monopoly, and, IMHO they flunk all the above criteria. MSFT needs to remember where they came from and quit acting worse than the beast (IBM) that they rested much of their business from. Mozek, we're glad you are making tons of money as a MSFT employee. You're probably a very admirable human being, but the company you work for has few redeeming qualities (that does not mean they can't change).

To: mozek who wrote (10079)	6/6/1998 2:43:00 PM
From: LKO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Maybe there's really only one person who believes that Microsoft NT will succeed in the enterprise. Maybe it's me and every person who posts that opinion is me as well. You think? Mike, feel free to post contrary opinions here. Some of us don't mind an (occasional :-)) contrary opinion though we can disagree. As to the substance, yes NT will be one of the significant players in the Enterprise when it grows up and Microsoft monopoly is not a given in the space (assuming Justice department does its job) and Sun is not headed for doomsday as one "twister" frequently reminds us here often. That is the context that is relevant. Your story on scalability of a SI bulletin board is a different game than scalability to serve the enterprise customers. SO what happens when SI does not scale ? Some people with too much free time to yak on stocks whine...In the enterprise, someone loses jobs, a company looses money and someone paycheck doesn't get printed and maybe bills don't get paid. NT can scale, but where in the curve you look at matters. Also, "throw another box" in the SI post is not scaling NT. It is scaling the "problem" down. That solution works with both NT and Sun machines. Mainframes still are popular in ENterprise shops and Unix and NT are trying to get there. At the moment NT is behind and even you use the phrase "will succeed". Well, Toyota will succeed and make a better car and sell Mercedes at Yugo prices. Maybe it will happen. We will see when it does. Until that time, I will take a Mercedes if that is what serves me best Microsoft is a good technical and competent company. Yes it will win at some benchmarks though "benchmarketing" is a game where people always leapfrog, compare your latest with competitors old stuff etc. Long distance companies all have the lowest prices too. While Mircosoft is a good and technically competent company, (just like Sun) it is also capable of shipping shoddy products and not suceeding. Also, some of us do believe it has an evil side :-) It is trying to subvert Java when it tries to modify language classes. It could have added value Windows-only stuff by selling its own subclassed things. Modifying language classes is trying to steal/subvert Java no matter what the lawyers eventually find. Microsoft could have chosen to compete by doing JAva/JVM or trying to do its own better-than-Java-language/better-than-Java-VM. ALso, forcing OEM distributors of a monopoly OS product in a large market so that they do not install a competing product is also misuse of monopoly position. Just because I bought a Toyota and preferred that Dealer install a Alpine stereo and Boston Acoustics speakers, did not suddenly make my car not a TOyota brand. Some of us do not buy into the lack of "windows experience" logic when Netscape browser gets installed. You are defending that Microsoft can make good products that work too. That is not in doubt. What people dislike about it is its tactics to compete unfairly (despite having ability to compete fairly). Also people do not agree that future is "NT only" and Unix will die. I saw the "Is Unix dead?" headline on Byte magazine 6 years ago on its story on NT. Last I heard, Byte magazine might be dying. We are rooting for Justice department and Sun to win lawsuits :-) so Microsoft can get back to competing by making good competing products not arm-twisting OEMs and customers into blackmail via its monopoly in the desktop Wintel OS market. Microsoft stock price will not have an exponential curve then (I wish I had bought at the bottom of that curve) but we think the world would be a better place without that outcome. :-) Take care, LKO