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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 (22794)	2/27/1999 3:02:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

Well, aside from this illiteracy defense, I think the interesting news this week is just how divested Bill Gates already is. That and the new organizational structure tell me a couple of things: 1. Bill has known for a long time the gravy days were ending for MSFT, and has been getting out while the getting was good. Too bad the small investors still buy the unlimited future hype. 2. Bill knows the Gov will probably break them up, and is rationalizing both his holdings and the structure of the company for that outcome. Interesting that his current holdings are enough for him to own outright one of the divisions or alternatively divest more and still have a majority share in a resulting breakout company. (As I often thought he would do and actually wanted, though some crazy counterproductive things MSFT has done in this trial made me doubt my own interpretations of that. I am back to square one on that - I think the breakup is good for them because it has the potential to solve the unfunded employee options problem and other problems as well. I believe these new companies necessarily will be differentiated by product type, and will reflect the new company divisions to a great extent (that were announced recently.) (I also think the company owes me a consulting fee :-)) All the rest of this is just buying time for him to get his exit strategy organized. Chaz P.S. I notice that when he started to get all that bad PR about being selfish and grabby he started to give a lot more to charity. Seems he can be shamed. Of course, he still has his old habits, can't seem to keep the commercial promotion of windows out of his 'educational' foundation. That seems unnecessary, since PR is tax free anyway. Looks hypocritical. PPS: When the new organizations have leaders and they are going into negotiations to see who gets what for their survival and Bill is in there battling for all the gravy bits for his new organization - that will be one hell of a negotiation if it happens that way. If the gov doesn't set that one up right BG will screw them out of their socks. I hope the gov is careful about how the leadership is set up in advance, how these divisions happen, who knows where the keys and skeletons are and so forth. And then I want to be a fly on the wall when that negotiation takes place. Should be Very Interesting.