cyril_kearney - 4:07 pm on May 1, 2002 (gmt 0)

I think some of the points made earlier about the anti-trust suit were right on. Technical stocks seemed to be indexed to the value of Microsoft. As the suit diminished the value of Microsoft, other stocks dropped value too. This lose of liquidity is having a big impact on the marketplace.

FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) makes companies do nothing. The anti-trust suit is causing FUD and it freezing companies because they don’t know which parts of the technology will be affected. It certainly has negatively impacted the economy. I know dozens and dozens of developers that are out of work. Microsoft with its 40 Billion or so cash reserves will weather this storm better than others.

Case in point, Sun is trading under 7 dollars a share and both their CFO and President / COO have been shown the door. Sun is facing extinction because it has been late to market with products like Jini and Sun ONE, but this has been made worse by the drop in spending.

Curtailing illegal behavior is a top priority in a capitalist marketplace. So the thrust of the anti-trust suit is right. Microsoft needs to be a good citizen just like everyone else. However, it isn’t the government’s responsibility to reorganize the marketplace.

I think the anti-trust suit has gone astray and the dissenting states are trying to manage competition. They are trying to take advantages and intellectual property to other major competitors. They are not focusing on the consumer or on the broader marketplace so that they can craft a solution that protects all businesses not just a few big ones.

I think they are in error but have a fair likelihood of getting concessions on middleware.

Middleware is the target because the network is the operating system and web services are the killer apps of the future.