Our preliminary conclusion is that, although Microsoft is not out of the woods, it will be slightly more free to compete on its own terms than we expected it would.

The majority of today's pure-play Internet companies will never make money and will not exist in three-to-five years. There will be a lot of consolidation and a lot of failure, and ultimately valuations will fall more in line with historical norms.

I could see Amazon and eBay merging. Amazon operates in a huge market, but it's got lower margin revenue. eBay has higher margin revenues, but the secondhand and small-business markets will always be limited relative to the size of the retail market. Combine the two, though, and that could be a very powerful entity.

Our estimate for fourth quarter product revenue is approximately $1 billion. To achieve our estimate, we believe Amazon has to book about $750 million in the eight week holiday season. Our back-of-the-envelope analysis of the Delight-O-Meter suggests it is off to a solid start.

Near-term, in a market environment in which investors are fleeing to quality, its stock could continue to do well. Our analysis, however, suggests that the company's long-term earnings growth is likely to be slower than the 15 percent to 20 percent consensus.

After that point, it is likely that the case could be appealed to the Supreme Court, which could add at least another six months to the outcome. So the case may not conclude until 2003.