IP: "Confronting Microsoft" panel at Stanford

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

It is a great conference. If I was not in Hong Kong I would be there


Dave


Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 19:08:04 -0700 (PDT)
From: John Wharton <jwharton@netcom.com>
To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
Subject: "Confronting Microsoft" panel at Stanford


Dave--


Forgive the shameless self-promotion here, but it occurs to me that some 
of your Silicon Valley readers might like to know about the "Hot Chips" 
conference being held at Stanford next week, 8/16 through 8/18.  Hot 
Chips is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on 
Microcomputers and Microprocessors; this is the tenth year it's been 
held.  A full program and registration information may be found at:


    "http://www.hotchips.org";.




One particularly promising session, if I say so myself, is a rather late 
addition to the program, not listed in the early promotional brochures.  
This would be a panel session I'm running Monday night, 8/17, from 7:30 
until 9:00.  The topic of the panel is "Confronting the Microsoft 
Challenge", and I'm quite frankly astounded at the qualifications and 
collective experience of the panelists we were able to bring together.


An description of panel goals and panelist qualifications is attached. 
I'm sure this is going to be a lot of fun.  




  --John Wharton




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            Hot Chips Conference, Stanford University
              Monday evening, 8/17, 7:30 until 9:00




Panel:        Confronting the Microsoft Challenge
              ===================================


Moderator:    John Wharton
              Applications Research


As Microsoft broadens the scope of its products and service, it has 
begun to face competition (or finds itself under attack, depending on 
your perspective) on many fronts, not just in operating systems and 
application software, but in internet services, anti-trust litigation, 
electronic commerce, and even consumer appliances and high-tech toys.  


Linux and Be offer new alternatives to the Windows OS, Netscape and Java 
provide OS-independent application platforms, and the Palm Pilot has 
established a huge, new, non-Microsoft computing paradigm -- a situation 
Redmond seems determined to derail.  Civil lawsuits are being waged by 
Sun, Caldera, and others, and antitrust charges have been leveled by the 
Department of Justice, the FTC, various states' Attorneys General, and 
many -- perhaps most -- foreign governments.  Even consumer advocate 
Ralph Nader has now joined the fray, lobbying that the public interest 
would be better served by increased competition in the software arena.  


Can Microsoft be stopped?  /Should/ it be?  Where, if anywhere, might 
the company be vulnerable?  What strategies should its competitors 
follow to improve their chance of success?  


Monday night's panel will try to address these issues.  The panelists 
represent a wealth of experience in the venture capital, business, 
legal, and software fields today, and bring with them the lessons 
they've learned in trying to deal with Microsoft in the past.  




Panelists:     Robert Carr
               Managing Director and Venture Capitalist
               Sofinnova, Inc.
               (former CTO of Go, Inc. and Vice President of Autodesk)
               "Thriving in a Microsoft World"




               Donna Dubinsky
               Cofounder and CEO
               JD Technology, Inc
               (former President and CEO of Palm Computing and 
                    Cofounder and Vice President of Claris)




               Ian Feinberg
               Litigation Partner
               Intellectual Property and Technology Group
               Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich
               "Can Antitrust Laws Encourage Innovation While 
                    Distinguishing It From and Preventing Predation?"




               Tom Rolander
               Founder and Chief Technical Officer
               PG Soft, Inc.
               (former Director of Engineering, Digital Research Inc. 
                    and Project Manager at Novell) 
               "Deja Vu All Over Again"




               Bryan Sparks
               Chief Executive Officer
               Caldera, Inc.




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