Microsoft moves ahead

investmenttool.com technology journal

Microsoft, which might be able to settle its Windows 98 anti-trust case in the months head seems on a collision course with the courts again. The product this time is Windows XP. The environment however is radically different.

The story is the same. Microsoft claims they are putting features into Windows XP, the successor to both Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition that people want. Microsoft competitors claim the large software company is incorporating features into the product that will put them out of business.

The story is probably somewhere in between these two positions. The bottom line is that the attorney generals of two of the states suing in the Windows 98 case are threatening to do it again. This might worry Microsoft stockholders except there will probably be one seat absent at the table in this latest case.

That empty seat will be the seat occupied by Clinton Administration appointee Joe Klein. Don't count on the Bush administration to jump into this case unless the violations are much stronger than those in the Windows 98 case.

The fact is that Microsoft's new product is going to put pressure on competitors. If the OS is too restrictive, more software developers will move to Linux, which is gaining market share at a pace that should alarm Microsoft shareholders.

Windows XP will hit the market and the big question is how big a hit it will be. Is it a must have release? No. Will business buy into it? No. Windows 2000 provides a rock solid platform and is a known quantity. This product will not spark an acceleration in technology spending.

There is however enough upgrade business in the pipeline to insure tens of millions of copies of this operating system will ship between its release date, planned for October and the end of its first year on the market.

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Shmuel Protter
investmenttool.com

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