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

To: Bearded One who wrote (12137)	11/7/1998 10:07:00 PM
From: DavidD	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

To justify the current stock price, and p/e, MSFT must keep the current earnings growth rate intact. To do that MSFT must dominate the next big wave: They have to dominate with Win2000 (both the client market and the NOS market), and whatever comes after that (embedded market?). While I won't bet against them, I don't think the market fully understands the risk in this stock. If they fail to keep or gain a choke hold on any of the above, they can't keep their growth rate going through the next five years. (However, there is hell of a lot of money to be made between now and then!) Win95 was as much luck as genius on the part of Gates & Co. If it wasn't for the internet and connectivity issues, the demand for Win95 would have been much less, the upgrade cycle much more subdued, and earnings would have slowed. What will propel me to by Win98, much less Win2000? I wonder how earnings would be impacted if 1/3 of all clients skipped every other OS upgrade?

To: Bearded One who wrote (12137)	11/8/1998 10:26:00 AM
From: J. P.	Respond to of 74651

< That's why all the negative stuff that Toy, Daniel, and I are spouting really does matter.> B.O., With regards to the company and their products: I'm in the software business also, for a small CTI, ACD telecom (going public this summer), already doing lots of Fortune 500 business in North America, Europe, Asia, and South Africa. I've yet to hear a client complain about the Microsoft OS. And I'm so grateful there's only one OS to integrate to because that way we can deliver product to our customers in a timely cost effective manner. All these nits and bugs you guys find are just part of all software. Believe me there's no magic bullet in Solaris or the others, they have bugs also I'm sure. Sure MSFT plays hardball, but so does Netscape and Apple, just look at their hardball tactics as of right now! And you should see the bare knuckles stuff that goes on in our niche. As far as Microsoft the stock: Historically this stock has never stayed pinned down for long. This trial has provided only I think, a buying opportunity. I've posted some links to options volumes, and there's a lot of open interest being generated in the call options. If you like to isolate 20-30 point runs for some very fat options profits, then now might be a nice time, as it seems some big players are betting that way. I'm already up nicely on a sizeable bet in that direction on the Jan 115 and Jan 120's purchased earlier last week when I saw the big volumes go across the boards. Hey huge mutual fund managers got to stash their cash somewhere, and most small caps won't provide the liquidity of a Microsoft. Plus with 17B in cash and even with slowing growth, (which Microsoft, a historically conservative company has already said is not happening), this is a great place for big money to go. Plus a lot of babble I hear about valuations are from people who simply aren't looking at what is going on around them (see YHOO, AOL, CSCO, Lucent) stocks which are soaring with "high" PE's. Look the idea is to make money, not to whine about why the market isn't bending to our will. There you go, now you can continue to rail and whine against this company, or you can look at what is happening and capitalize on it. You can lead a horse to water, but you sure as hell can't make him drink!

To: Bearded One who wrote (12137)	11/9/1998 6:46:00 AM
From: Jordan A. Sheridan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Bearded One; Although I only somewhat disagree that all of these factors are already factored into the stock price, I strongly disagree with your math. Taken in another light, the results look more like: 1) 20% (Novell could screw up, but a 2 year lead is gonna be hard to overcome) 2) 50% (DOJ wins case in my view, but litigation could go on for a long time) 3) 80% (Wind River/QNX is terrific, but Microsoft has eaten markets before) 4) 80% (Microsoft will eventually get this right) 5) 50% (Netscape has a lot of other companies behind them right now trying to keep this from happening) 6) 80% (Linux has a way to go, but Apple has shown surprising strength. What does an Linx Server/iMac client system look like, anyway?) Total: 360\600 or a more respectable 60% probability<g> Regards; Jordan