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

To: John F. Dowd who wrote (12405)	11/19/1998 10:00:00 PM
From: John F. Dowd	Respond to of 74651

To All MSFT loyalists: "The government is clearly using an unfair double standard," said Microsoft spokesman Mark Murray. "The government is saying it's all right for every other company to work together against Microsoft, but it's illegal for Microsoft to meet with other companies to discuss technology improvements that will benefit consumers. It's important to note that every one of these companies competes with Microsoft, and every one has a high market share in its respective area." Holley presented other documents showing how closely Sun and IBM were working together against Microsoft. In a May 1998 e-mail, IBM executive Rodney Smith reported on a meeting between IBM and Sun and said, "the whole context for this meeting is a 'closer' joint working relationship to ensure we can win against Microsoft." Smith's report of the meeting included Sun executive Ed Zander outlining "areas of collaboration" between the two companies and "Sun's position not to get into the database business" in which IBM competes aggressively. In one of the trial's most surprising revelations to date, Soyring admitted under cross-examination that IBM had stopped trying to promote its OS/2 Warp operating system to applications developers in early 1996. Soyring had testified earlier that the lack of a sufficient number of commercial applications for IBM's operating system, relative to the many applications developed for Microsoft's Windows operating system, had created an insurmountable barrier to the success of IBM's product. He said IBM didn't have the financial resources necessary to overcome that obstacle and compete against Microsoft. After Soyring admitted that IBM stopped encouraging developers to write applications for its operating system in early 1996, Holley asked Soyring a series of questions that quickly established Microsoft's ongoing commitment to developers: Microsoft last year spent $268 million to assist and encourage developers who wanted to write applications for Windows Microsoft has more than 2,000 employees dedicated to helping developers write Windows-based applications Holley also established that IBM's current annual revenues are approximately $80 billion, more than five times the annual revenues Microsoft generates. "IBM stopped encouraging developers to write applications for OS/2 almost three years ago, and yet Mr. Soyring is complaining to the government that IBM's operating system suffered because developers didn't write enough applications for it," Murray said. "It's a pretty simple rule of business: You can't succeed if you don't try."