To: Drake who wrote (19298 ) 3/30/1999 3:53:00 PM From: Punko Respond to
Re: Msft ability to eat AOL's lunch...wouldn't that depend on Msft's keeping their cash cow -- i.e. no break up? A broken up internet baby bill minus the monopoly os biz and the mountains of cash is just another online company. Until the settlement with Uncle Sam and his nephews is finalized, it would be premature to write AOL and others off. I personally would not throw any new non-speculative money into msft because of this great uncertainty. The possibility that the OS business will be split off into a separate independent entity may be unlikely, but then again, Uconn beat Duke. nearly as predictable or as fast as it otherwise would be with the advantages that 1 and 2 give them. And it's the predictability that scores with me (and i would suspect with many others who unlike me, control the big bucks). With 1 and 2, AOL is dead meat long term. That's a no-brainer. So is Oracle, CA, SAP, just about any other software company whose business Microsoft wants. And let's not stop there. How about on-line financial services, big and small ticket item sales, telecom and broadcasting, etc. etc. The sky's the limit. That's what makes Microsoft such a great investment. But without 1 and 2, it's just another Amazon, On-sale, Yahoo, or AOL. These are a dime a dozen.
