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To: Rob S. who wrote (11728)	7/25/1998 6:12:00 PM
From: Dwight E. Karlsen	Respond to of 164684

Rob, re Hmmm . . . I haven't used WordPerfect myself for a few years . . wonder were they are now? WordPerfect is owned by Corel Corp, and is part of Corel WordPerfect Suite 8.0, which includes Corel Quattro Pro (spreadsheet), Corel Presentations (slide show presentation software), and other assorted odds and ends. WordPerfect and Quattro Pro are every bit as good as MS-Word and MS-Excel, and actually version 8 of WordPerfect Suite had integrated internet capabilities built-in, like if you typed in a www address, it would automatically become a live link, just like the SI software we use to post on this board with. At the time of version 8 release, MS-Word didn't have this, and I still am not sure if MS-Word 7 has this and other built-in internet capabilities. WordPerfect faltered and fell behind MS-Word a long time ago, and so Word Perfect Corp sold out to Borland, which didn't do enough to catch up to MS. Corel bought it from Borland, and they have been very aggressive developers of the product, but its hard to compete against MSFT's pay-per-machine deals with OEMs, which highly discourage an OEM from offering or installing anything except MS products. I expect this to become a hot topic this September as the Justice Dept and the States take MSFT to task for their edge-of-legality marketing practices, which have every purpose of shutting out the competition, to the consumer's detriment.

To: Rob S. who wrote (11728)	7/26/1998 11:29:00 PM
From: Bill Harmond	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

>>I wonder why Microsoft wasn't valued at $6.5 billion before they showed their first profits? You need to school yourself (and then ponder) what "backfill opportunity" means. Alot more is known and the Internet/client/server infrastructure is defined and established now. If you look back and think that today's e-commerce stocks are shorts because Microsoft sold at x p/e during year x, then you are wasting your time and money. Sales are showing "clower4" comps because the base is growing larger. It's inaccurate to assess that momentum is slowing because Q/Q rates are smaller. Competitors are not real competitors until they start taking share. >>The most important thing is that management admitted that they were starting to see an impact from competitors sites and advertising campaigns and that sales would be flat to only marginally up this quarter. Yeah, sure. Book sales tail off during summer. Other than that, keep your eye on share. That's all that matters as far as competition is concerned. Comparing Amazon to Wordperfect is a joke. Where is the parallel? Is Barnes and Noble Microsoft?