percentages - 4:49 am on Jul 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

>Yahoo Drops 5% on Microsoft Scare

Yahoo's stock is over valued and solely based upon future potential. The analysts seem to have been slow to realize that M$ was inevitably going to damage that potential in the future via both search and email and should have built a much bigger drop into the price a year ago.

The analysts seem to have only seen the play when it is almost over, surely their job was to see it before most of us? Maybe some WW members need to be offered consultancy positions with some brokerage houses.....LOL!

M$ will do considerable damage to Yahoo, it might deliver the final blow to Ask. If anyone thinks Google is going to come out of this smelling of roses they are living a dream. Google might be the biggest gross financial loser of them all.

Think about Internet growth and where all the new users will be heading once M$ has its play active.

Getting a webmaster to switch from Google is difficult, getting a typical tech savvy user to switch will not be easy....but, so what?

The majority of the market is in the non-tech users and the new users, and they are very much up for grabs.

To get them you will need billions to spend on advertising and a mouse trap that truly works.....I dunno, something like an OS maybe?

M$ is holding the trump cards, primarily control of the OS and browser, a very popular free email system, a huge online community, an ISP offering that is growing, and last but not least a huge amount of cash to spend on acquisitions & advertising.

Microsoft's second wind is about to come (next 3 years). They have competition, but I don't seriously see how you can bet against them taking a good percentage of the market for themselves.