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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 (21723)	11/24/1998 10:27:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Microsoft Says Proposed Netscape Deal Supports Its Case nytimes.com They would say that, wouldn't they? The reasoning behind this assertion, Microsoft says, is that the proposed deal demonstrates that Netscape and the larger software industry are healthy and vibrant -- even with all of the illegal and anticompetitive practices charged in the Government's suit. The reasoning in this particular context, that is. The friends of Bill here always reason that everybody else is dead meat, in any context but this one. But David Boies, the Government's lead attorney, said all of that was irrelevant. "Whatever the deal ends up being -- if there ends up being a deal -- is not going to remove any of the obstacles that Microsoft has placed in the path of competition in this industry," he said. And it's not exactly going to change standard Microsoft business practice, is it? Or is Bill going to be so in awe of the new AOL that he'll quite telling everybody from Intel on down exactly what innovation is allowed, if you're not the greatest company in the history of the known universe? But on to Boulton: Michael Lacovara, a Microsoft lawyer who was questioning a Government witness, the economist Frederick R. Warren-Boulton, suggested to him during the trial that the proposed acquisition undermined his argument that Microsoft seems headed toward obtaining a monopoly in Internet browser software to match the one it apparently holds in operating systems. After all, about 22 percent of Americans who use the Internet reach it through America Online. And at present America Online uses Microsoft's Web browser, Internet Explorer, as the service's default choice. In exchange for that, Microsoft places an America Online advertisement and Internet link in Windows 98. Lacovara asked the witness whether, once America Online's service contract expires in January, "would you expect AOL to continue to distribute Microsoft software?" Yes, Warren-Boulton responded. "It is not at all clear to me that AOL's incentive to do this is changed by this proposed merger with Netscape." He noted that America Online officials had said their need to be among the online services featured in Windows forced them to accept Microsoft terms -- establishing Internet Explorer as the default choice. Lacovara then asked him the question that lay under his entire cross-examination of the witness -- and Microsoft's larger assertion today about the proposed Netscape-America Online deal. "Surely this combination," he asked, 'tells you something about the nature of competition in the software industry?" Warren-Boulton's answer was probably not the one Lacovara had been after. "To the extent that this potential merger is the result of Microsoft's actions with these exclusive contracts and other actions," he said, "it is unfortunate to see the disappearance of a firm like Netscape, the brightest, newest star." Yes. I second that emotion. Folding Netscape into AOL doesn't exactly make for a more open and competitive market in internet software, that I can see. I guess it's another one of these postmodern economic things. Cheers, Dan.