On December 22, Microsoft announced that its Chief Financial Officer Greg Maffei had handed in his resignation and would be stepping down on January 7. Maffei, who became Microsoft's CFO in 1997 and has been behind many of the company's high profile mergers and acquisitions, decided to leave for an interesting (and one assumes enrichening) offer to become the CEO of Worldwide Fiber, a fiber optic network management company. He is rumored to have received better offers from Apple and RoadRunner, but may have chosen the Canadian Worldwide Fiber position to get away from several ongoing US government investigations into Microsoft's questionable accounting methods. Maffei's decision to leave may also have been helped by friction between himself, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer over the recent hiring of former SGI head Richard Belluzzo. Maffei has been replaced by enterprise group vice president John Connors, an 11 year company veteran and former accountant. Connor's previous duties will be temporarily given to Jeff Raikes, VP of worldwide sales and support. Maffei will reportedly retain his position as chairman of Microsoft spinoff Expedia.com.

Shortly before the Christmas holiday, key MSN sites such as Hotmail were temporarily crippled when Microsoft's Passport.com centralized login/registration site went down. But unusually, the site didn't fall victim to a hacker, nor was it brought down by Microsoft's sub-par infrastructure. No, this time the site went down because of pure ignorance on the part of MSN staffers who failed to renew registration of the passport.com domain. Microsoft was notified about the problem at least 24 hours after the fact and tracked it to the lapsed registration - only to discover Tennessee Linux programmer Michael Chaney had already paid the renewal fee. Fortunately for Microsoft, Chaney re-registered passport.com in Microsoft's name instead of his own, since doing so would have given him rights to the domain - putting a significant kink in Microsoft's plans to unify every MSN site. Once the story was uncovered, Passport director John Pope called Mr. Chaney and personally thanked him, then generously offered to repay the entire fee of $35.

Back in July, you may recall, Microsoft's struggling MSN Internet Access unit announced several 'cash back' and 'free PC' offers for customers agreeing to buy a multi-year Internet service contract. One popular plan gave anyone buying an MSN Internet contract at Best Buy, OfficeDepot, OfficeMax or Staples an immediate $400 purchase credit at the same store. That plan became even more popular last week after a San Jose Mercury report explained how anyone in California or Oregon could, because of laws in those states, sign up for the multi-year MSN service, get their credit purchase, then cancel the account and keep the $400 in free merchandise.
When the story first broke, Microsoft spokestoad Tom Pilla expressed confidence that there would be few, if any, cancellations because the MSN deal is so wonderful for consumers. His confidence in the company was critically injured the next day when participating California and Oregon stores were filled with thousands of people subscribing and then canceling multi-year MSN Internet access accounts. On Friday, after waffling about the issue for a good four days (all the while losing uncounted millions through the program's $400 loophole) Microsoft sent Pilla back out to announce the program's cancellation in California and Oregon.

Just like the rest of us, Microsoft survived the 2000 date change without any major Y2K-related incidents. However the Behemoth Web site did have several date-related glitches, including new books scheduled for release in January 1900 and a product information page claiming it was last updated on " 1, 70 " (whenever that was). Internet Explorer and Hotmail also had minor rollover problems involving dated e-mail and JavaScripts, but those too were insignificant. Not bad at all, considering Microsoft only started its Y2K preparation last spring.

Boosted by investor's hopes about Windows 2000, Microsoft stock hit an all-time high of 117.125 on December 22 - pushing the company's market value over $600 billion for the first time. Since Bill Gates still owns around 15 percent of the company, that would push his own market valuation near or over $90 billion - nearly making him the first human being worth a 12-digit number.
Last week Microsoft announced an agreement with retail bookseller Barnes & Noble to sell titles for the Microsoft Reader electronic book system. The contract calls for the creation of a Microsoft e-book 'store within a store' at each BN retail location (similar to the recent deal with Radio Shack), and the addition of an e-book section on the barnesandnoble.com Web site. No word yet on plans to produce a second e-book title.
In a CBS News poll, Bill Gates was named top executive of the 20th century. 34 percent of people polled chose Gates, while only nine percent picked second runner-up Henry Ford, with John D. Rockefeller and Donald Trump receiving two percent each. Also in the poll, 79% of people questioned expect Microsoft to survive the 21st century - although less than half of those polled believe Amazon.com will exist that long.
Again revealing how it intends to become less dependent on Windows, Microsoft on December 30 invested $20 million for a 4.7 percent stake in Internet application host Comtouch Software. Comtouch already has a contract with Microsoft to handle some aspects of MSN's Web-based messaging and e-mail, and is now expected to provide other services like calendaring.

Clerical Error Leads to Security Leak
Nader slams MS pricing, licences, demands Office ports
WebTV To Patch Email Hole
China refutes report of Windows 2000 ban
MS exec illegally chased and shot 4 antelopes
Microsoft invests $30 million in Intervu