MacComedy

Shares tumble as Wall Street reacts to news

By Dan Ketterick

REDMOND, Wash. — Microsoft stock tumbled Thursday on news the software giant would include Apple’s powerful operating system (OS) in its own new system, Windows XP.

Investors, alarmed by the Washington-based company’s sudden switch to supporting such a well-designed OS, began selling-off Microsoft stock as trading resumed after the Fourth of July holiday.

“For the first time, Microsoft’s product may work correctly, right out of the gate,” CNET writer Dan Wilcox says. “No one knows how the add-on software market can cope with a fully functional operating system on every business desktop.”

Aftermarket software companies that patch holes in Microsoft products, such as Norton, maker of the popular Norton Utilities, show signs of cautious concern over Microsoft’s move.

“Our strength and growth has come through improving good products with problems, mainly Windows,” Norton V.P. David Cassell says. “Now that Microsoft will ship a product, OS X, that’s so close to perfect in our areas of strength — file and hard drive management — we could struggle to find our niche in the XP-dominated world.”

Microsoft observers dismissed such charges as “typical anti-trust scare tactics.”

“Whenever they [Microsoft] ship a product, enough bugs come through to support a whole industry of software bug patches,” former Microsoft PR spokesperson Mike McCredal says. “Even with the stability of OS X included in the new Microsoft XP, software users will no doubt be foiled by the blue screen of death soon enough.”

Gates only had a few comments, given after a screening of “MacArthur Park”, a new movie featuring the founder of Microsoft.

“We believe in innovation and the power of free-markets,” Gates said in an apparent nod to the company’s growing acceptance of open-source software, such as Apple’s OS X.

Microsoft says it remains confident that Wall Street will grow accustomed to the typical consumer having a working, productive computer in their homes and at work.