stevew@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Steven L Wootton) (03/13/91)
CNN is reporting that Microsoft is being investigated for anti-trust violations. This has caused the value of their stock to fall 1/2 on NYSE today. They aren't reporting anything else yet. Anyone know what this is about? Steve Wootton stevew@ecn.purdue.edu stevew@pur-ee.uucp stevew%ecn.purdue.edu@purccvm.bitnet
rdippold@maui.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) (03/13/91)
In article <1991Mar12.185141.4559@en.ecn.purdue.edu> stevew@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Steven L Wootton) writes: > >CNN is reporting that Microsoft is being investigated for anti-trust >violations. This has caused the value of their stock to fall 1/2 on NYSE >today. They aren't reporting anything else yet. > >Anyone know what this is about? I would say that they've got a pretty good case vis a vis Microsoft using their position as the operating system supplier to leverage their way in the applications markets. All from a "back seat lawyer" perspective here, of course. Microsoft has long made use of features in their operating systems that they have told noone else, but have then used the features to get an advantage in the applications market. SideKick worked because Borland discovered one of these undocumented features. PC Magazine recently had a write-up on them, and the list is amazingly large In the dirty tricks department, Infoworld a week or two ago reported (in the unofficial / rumors column) that Microsoft had been sending many programmers down to Go Inc. to look at their new pen-based operating system and supposedly enable them to begin writing applications for it, but in actuality they were the people who were writing Microsoft's own competing version of a pen-based system! Last week, they reported what may have sparked the final push towards an investigation. Some Microsoft people have been boasting that now that Windows is fully accepted and has a large applications base, Microsoft intends to drive all the other major producers of major applications software (spread- sheets, word processor, etc) out of the Windows market. IBM has pretty much lost the FUD factor (Fear, uncertainty and doubt) in the PC Market, but Microsoft seems to be carrying the torch.
valley@uchicago (Doug Dougherty) (03/14/91)
rdippold@maui.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes: >In article <1991Mar12.185141.4559@en.ecn.purdue.edu> stevew@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Steven L Wootton) writes: >> >>CNN is reporting that Microsoft is being investigated for anti-trust >>violations. This has caused the value of their stock to fall 1/2 on NYSE >>today. They aren't reporting anything else yet. >> >>Anyone know what this is about? >I would say that they've got a pretty good case vis a vis Microsoft using >their position as the operating system supplier to leverage their way in the >applications markets. All from a "back seat lawyer" perspective here, of >course. Yup. And the stock dropped another 3 1/2 yesterday... Could drop quite a bit further, too. Not that I'm recommending any short selling. No, not at all...
rdippold@maui.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) (03/14/91)
In article <valley.668892064@gsbsun> valley@uchicago (Doug Dougherty) writes: >rdippold@maui.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes: > >>In article <1991Mar12.185141.4559@en.ecn.purdue.edu> stevew@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Steven L Wootton) writes: >>> >>>CNN is reporting that Microsoft is being investigated for anti-trust >>>violations. This has caused the value of their stock to fall 1/2 on NYSE >>>today. They aren't reporting anything else yet. >>> >>>Anyone know what this is about? > >>I would say that they've got a pretty good case vis a vis Microsoft using >>their position as the operating system supplier to leverage their way in the >>applications markets. All from a "back seat lawyer" perspective here, of >>course. > >Yup. And the stock dropped another 3 1/2 yesterday... > >Could drop quite a bit further, too. Not that I'm recommending any >short selling. No, not at all... To follow up on this, according to this week's InfoWorld, Microsoft worked long and hard to get other companies to market some multimedia programs for Windows so it could get accepted as a multimedia tool. The companies are now selling these products, which cost about a couple thousand dollars. Now Microsoft has decided that it's going to sell software that does the same stuff. For $80.