To: Tony Viola who wrote (82794 ) 6/4/1999 9:42:00 PM From: Maverick Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 186894
MSFT continues to invest, this time in Careerbuilder, Inc. and Nextel. MSFT A-2-1-9 Price EPS FY99 (E) EPS FY00 (E) P/E CY99x 5 Yr Growth (E) $80.69 $1.39 $1.49 58 20% Release: [PRNewswire, 25 May]--WebTV Networks, Inc., a subsidiary of Microsoft Corp announced that president and co-founder Steve Perlman is leaving the company at the end of the month. Merrill Lynch: Perlman is leaving WebTV and Bruce Leak, one of the co founders of WebTV, will become president and a member of Microsoft's executive staff. Leak has the respect of senior management as a leader and visionary. This management change should not distract the company from continuing its investment in the Internet and interactive programming. WebTV is a strategic play for Microsoft and will not have an impact on the bottom line in the foreseeable future. Release: [Reuters, 24 May]--Building on its recent $18 million investment in newly public CareerBuilder Inc, Microsoft Corp. will unveil plans to add a job search area to the grab-bag of media properties on its Microsoft Network (MSN). Merrill Lynch: Microsoft's investment in CareerBuilder, Inc. bolsters content on the MSN network of sites. Monster.com is the 800-pound gorilla in this space, but CareerBuilder is a respectable contender that adds good content and should increase traffic to MSN. We expect no short-term impact on the stock price. Release: [Dow Jones, 25 May] A federal district court issued several tentative rulings in Sun Microsystems Inc.'s legal battle with Microsoft over Java. Merrill Lynch: In a sidebar to its legal wrangling with AOL/Netscape, a Federal District judge issued a tentative ruling in a separate case on Sun's complaint against Microsoft that several Microsoft products including Windows 98 and IE 4.0 do infringe on Sun's Java copyrights. This ruling strengthens Sun's claims that Microsoft altered Java to favor Windows. The judge also commented that Microsoft can develop its own version of Java as long as it doesn't include Sun's proprietary Java code thus obviating it from passing Sun's compatibility testing. Both sides came away from the rulings claiming victory, but until a final ruling is announced, both sides will continue to argue their case. Release: [Reuters, 28 May] Software giant Microsoft has acquired a 4.25 percent stake in the wireless phone company Nextel for $600 million. Merrill Lynch: Microsoft's investment in Nextel is part of the agreement between the two companies whereby Microsoft's MSN portal and related will be distributed over Nextel's wireless network. Microsoft's stake in Nextel is a long term play and further evidence of their commitment to the Internet and broadband/wireless. The $600MM investment will have a negligible effect on Microsoft's $22B war chest.