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

To: dumbmoney who wrote (22382)	5/9/1999 2:05:00 PM
From: ed	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

You are wrong!!! It is the content that consumers will choose their ISP, and there will be more to come in the near future, i.e DSL, Optical, wireless...etc, and cable is not the only solusion. For AOL , think about that the subscriber pays $20 /month, which is $240 per year just for subscription, and as long as the consumers sign up for the service, that fee is paid every year. For software, it is a one time deal, and you do not upgrade your software every month, every year or even every couple of years. So , AOL's revenue will eventually be higher than Microsoft, because almost 100% of the PC owners will sign up with some ISP service. Besides, the subscription fee, what about the advertisement fee ? and other things AOL can sell on the internet, so the potential is unlimited. If Microsoft did not do anything now, it will have a hard time in the next 5 to 10 years. It can be very easy to market the set top box and software business, think about that, if AOL announces tomorrow that any AOL 's subscribers will get a PDA with the CE loaded with 20% discount from the retail, and you can use this PDA for access of the internet from any where , any time around the world through satellite global network. You can use this PDA for phone call, e-mail, pager, Two way data transmission , extract or send data to your PC at home when travel, and this PDA can even work as a set top box when connect to your TV at home. So, Microsft should send its $5B to AOL instead of AT&T. Cable will not be the only choice in the near future, and more and more is coming, the optical, the wireless ( for AOL to be global), satellite, DSL ..etc, and probably the power line in your homw.