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

To: rudedog who wrote (8406)	6/11/1998 5:37:00 PM
From: Hal Rubel	Respond to of 74651

Restrictive Microsoft Marketing Terms -Just Wondering ... RE:" ...CPQ never accepted the (Microsoft OS) licensing terms that the others went for, preferring freedom in the market to the cost savings of the more restrictive license terms." Those CPQ competitors accepting the restrictive Microsoft licensing terms totally excluding operating systems from Microsoft's competitors "included major brand OEMs Gateway2000, Dell, Micron, IBM, Packard Bell, Hewlett Packard, Toshiba, NEC and Sony, plus three less known brands, Unicent, Umax and Quantex." That's virtually the entire rest of the market, and none of them cash-poor! In effect, Microsoft seems to have purchased the "rights" of these box makers to offer competing (non-Microsoft) OS products to their customers. I say "in effect", but I wonder: 1) I wonder how much Microsoft in effect paid for this investment? 2) I wonder what the dollar return to Microsoft on this investment was? 3) I wonder what the non-dollar return to Microsoft on this investment was? 4) I wonder if this marketing innovation increased or decreased consumer options and competition in the market place? 5) I wonder if the compliant box makers benefited from this combination by not having to compete with one another in OS offerings? 6) I wonder if CPQ was under the pressure of any subtile under-the-table type signals by a compliant club of box makers to "get on the bandwagon", so to speak, in avoiding non-Microsoft operating system competition? 7) I wonder what percent of the market the non-competitive block represents? 8) I wonder what affect being excluded from such a huge share of the market place had on Microsoft's rivals to develop, invest in, and promote competitive OS offerings? 9) I wonder how much better off I am? 10) And, I wonder if there are any possible public policy or anti-trust regulatory issues here? Hal PS: Now, On a Completely Unrelated Subject: Lots of local hot dog stands sell either Coke or Pepsi exclusively. But, does anyone out there know of a regional Supermarket chain that offers only Coke or only Pepsi to the public? If so, why? Is one product that much better than the other? Or, are the products so similar that the public does not care, thereby making it too much trouble for a supermarket to handle the additional brand? HR