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

To: t2 who wrote (17004)	2/26/1999 9:08:00 PM
From: RTev	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

Why a more severe penalty might be better for Microsoft in the long run: A "hand-slap" following a loss in this case would probably encourage companies to file suit for years to come whenever Microsoft tried to move into new markets. The argument would be something like, "In '99, Microsoft was shown to have an OS monopoly and to use anticompetative acts to maintain it, but they haven't stopped. See! Here they go again in this new market." The current case would be used as a template for future cases. If, on the other hand, Microsoft is forced by this suit to make fundamental changes in the way it handles its "Windows franchise", then the findings of this case won't necessarily apply to that future market. The current case would then be useful only for those filing suit based on past practices. I won't predict what that severe penalty might be, but consider one possibility that's been mentioned: Licensing of Win98 code. One possible way that might work is that MS sets up an organization to license and oversee that OS -- something like BellCore, the lab that does research and sets standards for the Baby Bells. Microsoft then goes on to develop its own consumer OS using the NT kernel just as they've planned to do for years. I'm not saying this will happen, but just that a radical solution like that would cause such a fundamental shift in the market that few of the findings in the current case would apply in the new market.