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

To: Kevin Podsiadlik who wrote (10359)	8/27/1998 5:33:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 74651

But that is just the legalese. The practical matter is that Netscape lulled Joe Consumer into thinking upgrades for Navigator were free, and made no effort at all to collect payment for them. And that was their undoing. Hobgoblin alert. Microphile in chief Reginald Middleton's latest line on this was that Netscape's problem was they didn't start giving it away soon enough. They had no business showing a profit, as I recall. I think that's right, I've always had a little problem with the ever shifting context of the Mind of Reg(TM). Other analysts have taken that line too, I believe. Me, I mostly hold with the Paul Maritz explanation, Occam's razor and all that. Of course, he's just a junior executive, nothing in the eyes of Bill and secret #2 J. Allard. Cheers, Dan.

To: Kevin Podsiadlik who wrote (10359)	8/28/1998 8:24:00 AM
From: Reginald Middleton	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

<But that is just the legalese. The practical matter is that Netscape lulled Joe Consumer into thinking upgrades for Navigator were free, and made no effort at all to collect payment for them. And that was their undoing.> The reason NSCP made no attempt to collect payment was to expand thier market share as quickly and widely as possible. That is why MSFT allowed some pirating of 3.1. It is why they have allowed some pirating in China. The oppurtunity cost of foregone revenues in the pursuit of market share is nothing as compared to the market power recieved from being the 800 pound Gorilla. These companies are merely buying market share. Notice how difficult it is to copy Win 98 as compared to copying Win 3.1 (MSFT has already reached critical mass, therefore there is no need to be as generous). Technology has nothing to do with it either, for when I was still running DOS 5.0, trading software use to come with both software and hardware protection methods that worked quite well.