From: larryba@polstra.uucp (Larry Barello)
Subject: Re: Thinking of investing in Novel (MS, how are you)
Organization: Polstra & Co., Inc., Seattle, WA
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 23:49:48 GMT

In various article folks vent their bladders against microsoft:

>In article pvonk@scott.skidmore.edu (Pierre VonKaenel) writes:
>>In article <BxxDr0.Gw@SSD.intel.com> tim@ssd.intel.com (Tim Gates) writes:
>>>I'm curious to see how well Novel holds on to thier 60% market share when 
>>>Microsoft unleashes NT.  From what I understand about NT, it has the
>>>networking software builtin (for the single user setup anyway, don't know 
>>>about the server side), which would make Novel's software unnecessary.
>>>
>>>Any thoughts from about this from an investment approach?

Microsoft has been beating on Novel for years and will continue to do
so until they dissapear as company.  How long will Novell withstand the
onslaught?  Microsoft stuff is technically good - better then Novell.
AS the marketing folks at MS say: the larger, the more entrenchted the
the bigger the fall.  Which sumo wrestler do you want to bet on?
>>
>>NT will require a BIG platform (lots of ram, disk space, fast
>>processor).  Do you think that the gobs of machines in businessland
>>tied to Novell servers are adequate for NT?  I think not.  MS is doing
>>a marvelous marketing push, I'll be curious to see how NT does when
>>reality sets in.  

Well, gee, where have I heard this line of crap before.  It was the same 
thing said about windows five years ago and about OS2 three years ago.
Get real dude.  The typical machine sold today is a great windows platform
and an Ok OS/2 platform.  THe P5 chip from Intel, due next year, will
be a great platform for NT (actually the 486/33 is pretty good).  How
much does it cost to get a 30mip 486 box with 1024x768x256 color monitor?
About $1800 and dropping fast.
>
>
>Look at what happened to IBM. They got big. They lost when technology
>revolutionlizes and they didn't keep up. Why IBM didn't keep up? Because
>they lose the big margin no matter which side they stand. Look at how big
>MS is today! Do you think they have quality products that requires so many
>engineers to work on them? Have you heard of the software myth? Do you think

Yup, they have tons of projects going on all the time.  One of the biggest
bottlnecks at MS is the lack of good engineers to execute all the great ideas
floating around.

>they will get to keep their margin? What MS is interested is simply lock
>everyone in, just like IBM. It's a sad thing to see that political manuvering
>is more important than technical invention.
>
>How much longer do you think the market have a ALPHA look alike for sale?
>Yesterday, when hardware was so special, everyone paid the premium for it.
>Today, it's more like commodity, we'll just have to bid for the lowest price.
>I believe the time for software is closer than it was for hardware! People

Oh yeah?  How can you possibly support that assertion?  By all accounts
windows has cleaned up all OS wars.  NT is already ported and running on
five or so major platforms.  NT runs windows apps.  OS/2 finally runs windows
apps since NO operating system is worth beans with out the capacity to run
windows.  Rant all you want, but the numbers prove me out.  Perhaps Ferrari
is technically the best car, but ford and toyota make a hell of a lot more
money.  MS/WIndows vs all the UNIX flavors is a direct comparison.  There is
no way any organization can clone windows.  MS/Windows is a moving, technically
complex product.  MS has doen the right thing by making Windows available
cheaply to ANYONE who wants to have it.  Cant say that for SUn, Novell or
anyone else - not even apple.

>simply have more information flow than it used to be. Look at GNU. It wouldn't
>be possible to exist a few decades ago! If only those commercial end users know
>they are paying for more payment in the future, we could be much better off!
>
>For me, I got this technical complex based fundamental analysis built in.
>I am not going to bet my ranch on MS for anything! However, I got the feeling
>that I am not a good investor in this respect. TOO BAD.....

DISCLAIMER:

Well, just to be fair: MSFT has made me a rich man.  Working there for five
years completely turned my head around with regard to the quality of their
products.  It also enlightened me to the need for SIMPLE TO USE software.
Maybe theirs isn't the simplest, but it is getting close and they have
a lot of resouces to make everything they sell the best in it;s class.

SO, who at YOU betting on?  Banyan?  Novell? Next? (Hah, hah, hah) SUN?
Heck, this year (93) MSFT will be bigger than SUN and they don't even sell
any computing hardware - just software.  You jokers have all missed the 
point.

Cheers!


-- 
Larry Barello			uunet!polstra!larryba