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

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (10588)	9/8/1998 11:50:00 AM
From: mrknowitall	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Charles: (re: extensive team of lawyers . . .) First, I disagree with many of the posts here, particularly from those who think the "dirty laundry" being brought out/re-re-re-published is going to affect the sale of MSFT products. I doubt it will have much impact at all - i.e., give me the name of the company (or their product) that was involved in the largest consumer product recall in history. I see the primary "damage" to investors on the expense line associated with "legal defense" - not a decrease in sales. I'm confident that there were legal minds involved in many of the meetings and discussions regarding the kinds of strategies MSFT has applied over the years - and some of them may have even attempted to discourage any possibly illegal acts. Other legal opinions may have taken the tack that I have personally witnessed in such discussions (outside of MSFT, of course): "There is no definitive case law covering this that we can use for guidance. Our opinion is you can do X. Do X. If they come after you/us, we get to earn our keep." As to the actual legality or illegality of the company's executive actions, this also isn't really all that complex as some would post. In short, MSFT can be described as "aggressive" at least - "criminal" at worst, but as with many things, the truth is probably somewhere in between. IMO, again, this will be going on so long that it will have no measurable affect on revenue/sales - but it will have a downside on the expense ledger. The end result - at the speed of such things, we'll see an out-of-court settlement (ala "consent decree") next year or a long, drawn out trail of woe up and down the court food-chain. Mr. K.