Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Sir Francis Drake who wrote (19087)	3/28/1999 5:47:00 PM
From: RTev	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

I'd much rather see MSFT spurred to action, and using it's enormous resources to reinvent itself and attack future markets, than adopt a "circle the wagons" approach... an approach that inevitably leads to attrition and failure. Wagons that circle do not move forward. I agree entirely. I've read suggestions that IBM muffed its early strategic advantage in the PC [IBM trademark] business because its antitrust battle in a fading market made it difficult for IBM to take full advantage of the new market. By sharing license to PC-DOS with Microsoft, for instance, they were able to stay out of hot water with DOJ, but at enormous cost to their future. It's interesting to compare AT&T and IBM over the past two decades. T was spurred to change by a lawsuit. IBM had to remake itself through internal change. While neither stock has been a high-flyer in the bull market, AT&T at least rose fairly consistently throughout the 80s and 90s despite some significant mistakes during the period, while IBM had to put itself through traumatic dips before getting to about the same place today. (And AT&T and its former children now have a market value greater than even Microsoft itself.) quote.yahoo.com I'm not suggesting that Microsoft should or will be broken up into bits as AT&T was, but only that significant structural change can be healthy for a company and can actually protect its shareholders from the future expense of dumping an outmoded business model.