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

To: J Krnjeu who wrote (19525)	4/2/1999 3:17:00 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 74651

This case turns out to be a no win situation for all concerned, the judge, the DOJ and MSFT. The Antitrust laws and all the other restraint of trade laws passed have been a no win for the country, but we will never get rid of them. I sometimes think one of the worst things that happened in the '30s was the invention of the game, "Monopoly". It has helped convince everyone, while kids, that a natural monopoly is bad. I know that T2, and many others on this thread, are spending time trying to figure out this case. I am afraid that reason is of no use. It is going to be decided on emotions and politics, IMO.

To: J Krnjeu who wrote (19525)	4/2/1999 1:41:00 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

. The case was that the integration of IE into the operating system, which is considered to be a monopoly, was an attempt by MSFT to put Netscape out of business. By the DOJ, that was an illegal use of a monopoly power to drive Netscape out of business. As well as the associated negotiations with the boxmakers intended to disallow navigator to be pre-installed on any windows machines. At least one company, Compaq (also the largest) had serious objections to this practice by msft but had no choice but to dump Navigator for fear of losing a competitive advantage with msft. As soon as it was clear the DOJ was weakening msfts position a little, Compaq put Navigator right back. I am a msft bull, but they really blew it with these practices with the boxmakers... I mean how arrogant can you be not to know this is going to cause serious problems down the line. They should have just integrated IE and let Netscape whither away. Michelle