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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Koligman who wrote (32699)	9/10/1998 10:55:00 PM
From: rudedog	Respond to of 97611

John - I just hope CPQ/MSFT don't end up like IBM/MSFT.... A very good point. The last big OS collaboration MSFT did was OS2... But I think there are significant differences here. IBM was always an uneasy alliance for MSFT since IBM is a huge software vendor. MSFT only passed them in software sales last year. CPQ has now picked up a few SW components, significant ones but none which compete with MSFT. DEC had managed detante with MSFT over DEC Unix for years, and CPQ has a much better relationship with MSFT than DEC did. Also, MSFT really needs this technology. They have had a serious problem in developing a truly high end OS, even though they hired the best in the business (Dave Cutler) to architect it. Their business model is fundamentally volume and feature driven. Getting to the kind of thinking that will support enterprise customers is a stretch for them. CPQ, through the DEC and Tandem acquisitions, now has one of the deepest pools of talent in that end of the business, second only to IBM. As long as these two can keep from dancing on each other's feet, this arrangement has huge potential.