More Orifice '98 bugs, more MSN and Bill 'More Money' Gates does Barney.

The Continuing Crisis

•This week MSN announced plans to join with partially Ms-owned UUnet and double the number of dialin modems it has installed. Currently The #2 internet access provider Microsoft Network has around 150,000 (estimated) modems, about 1 per 11 customers. They will supposedly have 1 modem for 7 every customers by the end of this year, as compared to AOL which has an estimated 1 modem for every 20 customers. This move precedes an expected fiercer battle against #1 Access Provider AOL next spring.

•Thursday Microsoft posted yet another large bug fix on its web site for the Visual Studio programming tool. This makes the second "service pack" (read: bug fix) for VStudio posted in the last six weeks. The new patches fix compatability problems with VS and earlier versions of Internet Exploder, along with some other minor technical problems. Service Pack 2 includes all the patches from Service Pack 1 and can be downloaded or ordered (not cheap!) on a CD-ROM. Just be thankful Borland still exists, just imagine Ms programming tools with no competition whatsoever..

•After many months of eager anticipation by preschoolers across the nation, Microsoft's new Interactive Barney has hit store shelves. The $99 toy ties a company with inexplicably popular products that thousands of people loathe to a pay-TV reject kiddie show which also has inexplicable popularity and is hated by millions. This fits into Microsoft's new plan we mentioned last week to addict preschool-age children to its products.

Bug Watch

•The Ms Office Service Pack released on August 6 was removed from Microsft's web site last Friday. The "Service Pack" (bug fix, same as above), which included a binary converter to make 'Rich Text Format' .DOC files compatable with older .DOC files, occasionally causes "data loss" when saving changes to an existing document. Microsoft officials have said the bug is rare, but that probably doesn't matter after you've lost two hours work on a deadline assignment.

Microsoft Stock Track

MSFT Stock Price^*136 1/2

Bill Gates' Worth$38.5 Billion

*As Of Closing, 8/25/97
Thanks to Bill Gates Personal Wealth Clock.

Other News From The Wires

Microsoft pulls Office Service PackFrom InfoWorld

DOJ Eyes Microsoft InvestmentsFrom TechWeb

Ms posts bug fixes for Visual StudioFrom TechWeb