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Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (21606)	11/20/1998 12:01:00 PM
From: Bearded One	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

>>Microsoft has engaged in conduct that it could not profitably pursue unless it possessed monopoly >> power. For instance, when one OEM removed the IE icon from the Windows 95 desktop, Microsoft >> responded by threatening to terminate that OEMs' Windows 95 license. The OEM capitulated to >> Microsoft's demands.35 It is plain it did so because, as OEMs universally explain, a Windows license >> is essential to remaining competitive in the OEM market.36 This capitulation is itself evidence of >> Microsoft's monopoly power. This comes very close to saying that, because Microsoft engages in conduct that would be predatory if it were a monopolist the fact that it engages in such conduct proves it is a monopolist. I think the point isn't that Microsoft engaged in certain conduct, but that the conduct was successful. After all, I could write a letter to Compaq stating that if they don't take my browser, I won't sell them my operating system as well. But my conduct won't result in them taking my browser.

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (21606)	11/20/1998 2:21:00 PM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

For instance, when one OEM removed the IE icon from the Windows 95 desktop, Microsoft responded by threatening to terminate that OEMs' Windows 95 license It amazes me that the DOJ keeps talking about this as if it were fact. Here is a DOJ witness repeating an urban myth. This reference is to the letter MSFT sent to CPQ. But the facts of that, which CPQ has released publicly before and will reiterate as testimony in this case, are that MSFT never threatened to remove CPQ's Win95 license, and in any event CPQ never 'capitulated'. The dispute involved a product line being developed by a 20-person software company in San Mateo which CPQ had purchased. The head of that group, a woman named Celeste Dunn, did not understand CPQ's licensing arrangements and was under the impression that CPQ could alter the bits supplied by MSFT before shipment. This was not the case - CPQ can add to those products but not alter MSFT's product. The only products affected were a low-volume consumer line, not all of CPQ's desktop business. This gentleman even got the product wrong - it was not the IE icon (IE did not even exist at the time), it was the MSN icon. If this is the kind of care that the DOJ has done in preparing and reviewing the testimony of their witness, with all of the time and resource they have had, then how many other errors have they overlooked?