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

To: J. P. who wrote (11084)	9/30/1998 2:05:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

Windows is a grief-causing kludge zdnet.com Sorry for the, uh, off topic news, J.P. Microsoft is indisputably a great stock to own. There's no reason that it won't continue to be, short-medium term, that I can see. Massive economies of scale, zero cost of production, on products that everybody depends on, and no competition to speak of. So, where do market forces come in here? With its massive resources and a high proportion of all the smart programmers coming out of college, why can't Microsoft ship a Windows that sucks less? Win98 was supposed to be it, but the rumors appear to have been greatly exaggerated, as this column attests to, among many others. Doesn't appear to have hurt sales; good for stockholders, not so good for everybody else, near as I can see. The author of this particular column is no fan of antitrust, but he's no fan of the OS formerly known as Windows 97, either. Hiss Steam is coming out of my ears as I write this. I know lots of Microsoft employees, and they're among the very sharpest, smartest, hardest working, most dedicated folks I've ever met. They should be ashamed for publishing a release this sloppy, for putting millions of users through such endless torture. For robbing us off so much of our lives futzing around with all-thumbs controls and spit-and-baling-wire repairs. If this were the first release of Windows maybe I could understand it. But it's the fifth. They've had plenty of time to get it right. But of course Bill had other things on his mind. Funny part is, he seems to have forgotten all those other things when he got deposed. It's bizarre that so many of us routinely put up with the crashes, the snarls, the unintuitive workarounds, the billions of hours wasted fumbling with broken systems, nursing along this crippled basket-case of an OS. Where is the outrage over so many lost hours of torment and unproductivity? I must dryly note I've tried to do my part there. Microsoft--do you know how much grief you're causing? Instead of adding one more goofy useless doodad to the next release, freeze the features and focus on making it far friendlier, more automatic, adaptable, and bulletproof. Please! I second that emotion. A while back, some friends of Bill would write that I used to be more thoughtful and less argumentative about Microsoft, even if I criticized the company. I replied that that was before I had the pleasure of learning firsthand the "integrity and uniformity of the Windows95 experience". Though I couldn't use that phrase, it was coined during the early days of the antitrust battle. On this particular issue, all I can say is, vainly I'm sure: Microsoft, heal thyself. Cheers, Dan.