--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: jnoble@pop.dgsys.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 13:09:13 -0400 Reply-To: Law & Policy of Computer Communications <CYBERIA-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM> Sender: Law & Policy of Computer Communications <CYBERIA-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM> From: John Noble <jnoble@DGSYS.COM> Subject: Re: Microsoft Windows98 - Make your own decision. To: CYBERIA-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM At 10:22 AM -0600 1/9/98, Virginia Metze wrote:

Those are the Fortune 500 figures which they identify as total revenues and which I take to mean gross. Incidentally, Microsoft is 172, IBM #6. Destruction of Microsoft's Word revenues, which accounts for a lot of their profit, is what would really seriously damage them, and note the push of IBM into the desktop applications market...

And IBM is going to be way out in front of everyone no matter how it is measured.

I share Virginia's sentiment about MS-bashing, but if I were going to measure market power I'd look at profit margins. These figures are provided by Hoovers Stockscreener http://www.stockscreener.com which is a lot of fun to play with. Market Value (mils.): General Electric Company 243000.0 The Coca-Cola Company 164792.0 Microsoft Corporation 157473.0 Exxon Corporation 146881.0 Nippon Telegraph and Telephone 135252.0 Merck 127673.0 Intel 121575.0 Philip Morris Companies Inc. 112867.0 Royal Dutch Petroleum Company 112039.0 The Procter & Gamble Company 108281.0 Toyota Motor Corporation 105326.0 IBM 102912.0 Revenues (mils) (for mkt caps over 100 bil): Exxon Corporation 119507.0 Toyota Motor Corporation 98740.6 General Electric Company 86658.0 Royal Dutch Petroleum Company 85784.7 IBM 77928.0 Philip Morris Companies Inc. 71512.0 Nippon T & T 71262.4 AT&T Corp. 52839.0 The Procter & Gamble Company 36216.0 Intel Corporation 25003.0 Merck & Co., Inc 22810.9 The Coca-Cola Company 18610.0 Microsoft Corporation 12193.0 Pfizer Inc 12169.0 PROFIT MARGIN (for mkt caps over 100 bil.): Microsoft Corporation 30.4% Intel Corporation 24.7% Merck & Co., Inc. 19.6% The Coca-Cola Company 18.8% Pfizer Inc 17.1% AT&T Corp. 11.0% The Procter & Gamble Company 9.5% General Electric Company 9.3% Philip Morris Companies Inc. 9.1% IBM 7.1% Royal Dutch Petroleum Company 6.9% Exxon Corporation 6.4% Toyota Motor Corporation 3.2% Nippon T & T 2.9% John Noble --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>