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To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (21312)	11/9/1998 10:55:00 PM
From: Gerald R. Lampton	Respond to of 24154

More on MSFT possibly competing with Intel: infobeat.com Choice cut: "Did you or others, to your knowledge, from Microsoft tell Intel that if Intel began to compete with Microsoft, Microsoft would be forced to begin to compete with Intel?" Boies asked Gates in the taped deposition. "No," replied Gates. Like, they needed to be told. I'm not really quite sure what Boies is going to accomplish with this line of questioning. Obviously, he wants to show that Microsoft is using intimidation tactics to impose a market division agreement on Intel or force Intel to back off from competing with Microsoft on making software. But all the memos that make Microsoft look bad, and even their Mafiaesque tactics do not obscure a few basic facts: 1. Intel is probably the one company on the face of the planet that has the potential ability to compete meaningfully with Microsoft (an vice-versa). This is true because the chips Windows runs on are certainly as effective a distribution network as Windows' own installed base could ever be, subject to all the increasing returns economics about which DOJ is complaining with respect to Windows and because the true "value added" part of any microprocessor is really software. Just ask the folks at Rambus. 2. All the huffing and puffing in Microsoft e-mails is probably evidence of their awareness of Intel's presence just off to the side of the software market as a potential competitor. And the same is true for Microsoft. Each can easily compete with the other by simply moving up or downstream from their present product lines. All Microsoft has to do to put out its own line of chips, for example, is hire a fab in Taiwan to commit its chip designs to silicon. Again, just ask the folks at Rambus. So, at least for these two companies, the barriers to entry of each into the other's markets seem comparatively low, and Microsoft's e-mails are evidence of Microsoft's awareness of that fact. So, unless DOJ can prove either an illegal division of markets or that Microsoft's efforts to deter Intel from entering its markets were harmful to consumers, I see a serious risk that this could backfire for DOJ. It appears to me, from a seat far back in the bleechers, that the evidence cuts two ways. I think I posted something on Intel being a potential competitor of Microsoft a while back, but darned if I can find it.

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (21312)	11/9/1998 10:59:00 PM
From: micromike	Respond to of 24154

Intel: Microsoft made threats news.com Among other allegations, McGeady claimed that a top Microsoft executive said he intended to "cut off Netscape's air supply" by eliminating revenue sources for the Mountain View, California, browser maker. At a meeting in the fall of 1995, Microsoft vice president of development Paul Maritz also described Microsoft's strategy as "embrace,extend, and extinguish," McGeady testified. McGeady, who attended the 1995 meeting, explained that the strategy was aimed at extending competing technologies in ways that make Microsoft's product incompatible. Eventually, the move would "extinguish competition," he said. --- The DOJ should make Bill G. and his top executives take a lie detector tests. I bet you they would fail it and the DOJ would have no choice but to break up the monopoly. JMHO Mike