Jan. 29 2001

MSFT  $61.94 B.G.  $45.9B 02.05.01. Thanks to BillG Networth.

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Around 5 PM eastern time on January 23, almost every Microsoft Web site - including microsoft.com, msn.com, expedia, msnbc.com, windowsmedia.com, bCentral, and a handful of others - was cut off from the outside world. The outage, which lasted almost 24 hours, inconvenienced millions of people needing information from the company, looking to make travel plans, wanting the latest news from MSNBC, trying to check their Hotmail account, or any number of other activities. The actual sites still worked the entire time, but they were inaccessible because Microsoft's DNS servers had gone offline and other DNS servers around the world gradually overwrote their cache of server IP numbers and were then unable to get new ones from Microsoft.
When the sites finally came back up on Wednesday night, Microsoft blamed the problem on a low level technician. Apparently the unidentified employee "misconfigured" a router that connected the company's DNS servers to the open Internet. A single router that connected all of Microsoft's DNS servers to the Internet. So even if a technician did do something wrong, the blame for Microsoft's outage really lies on the incompetent person who set up the company's network with a single point of failure that could bring down dozens of popular sites. Properly designed networks should have redundant DNS servers on several different routers, ideally in different parts of the world (or at least in a different room). A proper network setup would also log any configuration changes, so something devastating could be tracked down and corrected in minutes instead of hours. This is yet another reason why no one should buy products or consultation for the Internet, intranets, or networking from Microsoft. If that's how they run their own business, what can they do for yours?
ALSO SEE: Wired News, CNET, Wired News, The Register, The Standard, CNET

The day after Microsoft's sites were set back in working order, they all shut down again - although this time the problem was caused by crackers and not internal error. The cause of that shutdown was a denial of service attack (DoS), where one or more computers send so much junk traffic to a single server that it shuts down. But Microsoft never mentioned that the DoS attack was made worse by the same poor network design that was responsible for the previous day's trouble. A single router for all of Microsoft's network traffic is an easy target for a DoS attack, nearly irresistible to any cracker with an agenda or a grudge against the company. Service was restored again by the same afternoon, although access remained spotty for several days afterward. Microsoft blamed the problems on "illegal activity" and called in the FBI to track down any culprits. (We suggest they begin with the company's IS department.)
ALSO SEE: Wired News, InfoWorld, The Register, Salon.com

The weekend before Microsoft's big outage, the company launched a new ad campaign - Software for the Agile Business. The $200 million campaign promoting Windows 2000 and server software is aimed at business customers, with a push towards .NET in the future. Of course, a $200 million advertising campaign with television, billboard, and print spots can't possibly make up for the headline news stories about Microsoft's Web site outages that made the company look like an incompetent mess. One of the TV ads shows a room full of Web servers, supposedly so reliable that employees of the fictional company are out celebrating instead of worrying about their Internet operations. The ad was filmed months ago, but it's probably the best explanation yet of what really caused Microsoft's sites to go down.
ALSO SEE: WinInfo, CNET

Sun Microsystems announced late on the 23rd that the lawsuit between itself and Microsoft over Java is now over. The suit, filed by Sun in 1997 [see Oct. 06, 1997], accused Microsoft of violating its contract with the company by producing Java applications that only run on Windows. To end the suit, Microsoft agreed to pay Sun a $20 million settlement, permanently stop using the Java logo in its products, and stop developing new applications with Java technology. In exchange, Sun will drop the case and allow Ms to keep selling older products that include Java for seven years. Microsoft also agreed to drop its pointless countersuit against Sun.
The settlement comes as no surprise, since the case was apparently heading nowhere - Microsoft managed to drag it out much longer than the government antitrust case that was actually filed AFTER the Sun lawsuit, and the whole thing was doing little except making both sides look bad and ringing up millions of dollars in legal fees. Plus Microsoft has publicly expressed a desire to abandon Java entirely and replace it with C#, a key part of the .NET platform. So the settlement won't do much to help divisions between developers, since the ones who chose Java will still be using Java, and the ones that chose to follow Microsoft will still be using whatever Microsoft tells them to use. All in all, a very anticlimactic conclusion to an overall boring and pointless lawsuit.
ALSO SEE: InfoWorld, ZDNet, TechWeb, The Register

Two days after the Java settlement was announced, Microsoft introduced new tools intended to push Java developers towards C# and .NET. The three tools, known as the Java User Migration Path to Microsoft.Net (yes, 'JUMP to .NET'), change Java applications to run on .NET and can convert old Java code to C#. The company also launched a new consulting service to help Java developers move to Microsoft's proprietary new platform. A spokesman said that the new tools and services are intended to help Visual J++ users move into the 'future', but the tools work with Java code created on any tools, not just J--. The JUMP software won't ship until fall 2001 or later (release schedule says 'after VisualStudio.net'), so we'll have to wait until then to see exactly how Microsoft plans to pull this off without opening itself up to another lawsuit from Sun.
ALSO SEE: CNET, InfoWorld, The Register

On January 24, beta testers received an e-mail about changes Microsoft has made to the last few builds of Whistler. The modifications, which apparently involve a new user interface theme, are so significant that Microsoft has been holding details of them back from the testers to keep them from leaking details to the media. So far no word on what makes the new theme so special, but it could relate to the browser - perhaps replacing Internet Explorer 6 with MSN Explorer or the NetDocs interface. That would end internal debates over that issue [see Jan. 15, 2001], allowing the user to choose which browser to use along with the interface themes (although the browser options are still limited to ones made by Microsoft). That's not necessarily what the change was, but it makes more sense than anything else we've heard rumored. Whatever the change was, if anything, it'll be revealed sometime in early February when the second Whistler beta is released to testers.
ALSO SEE: ZDNet, The Register

We've recently seen several questionable reports that suggest Sega is preparing to abandon its unpopular Dreamcast game console and develop game titles for Microsoft's X-Box device. The rumors and reports certainly make sense, considering the failure of Sega's last two console devices and the potential it has to be a successful developer by using its existing game titles and characters. Considering how much money the Japanese company has lost over the last five years trying to sell its own hardware, the decision makes a lot of sense. The rumors and reports also say Sega is going to help Microsoft make the X-Box compatible with old Dreamcast games, a move that would give the X-Box have more existing titles when it launches. That one isn't quite as likely, but at the same time it can't be totally discounted quite yet. The whole thing should be sorted out in a few months when more X-Box details are revealed.
ALSO SEE: The Register, Gamers.com

Last week, Microsoft's Expedia.com spinoff introduced new technology to makes its services more competitive with other travel reservation sites. Several of the new features replace ones that violate patents held by Priceline.com, which settled its lawsuit against Microsoft and Expedia several weeks ago [see Jan. 15, 2001].
Free downloads of Internet Explorer 5.5 were temporarily halted on January 25, supposedly to update a few features of the included Internet Tools Service Pack. A company representative refused to be specific about the changes, only stating that the change was not to add any additional features or correct bugs - meaning that there was probably an installation or compatibility problem with the download.
As part of its efforts to attract small business customers, Microsoft has purchased a minority stake in American City Business Journals, publisher of localized business newspapers around the US. ACBJ content will now be made available on Microsoft's bCentral and MSNBC sites, while ACJB can in turn use stories from MSNBC on its own Web site. American City is still majority owned by Advance Publications, whose subsidiaries publish high profile magazines like Details and Vogue.

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