The Monopoly gets a Boardwalk, Another fix for Orifice '98 and coming soon: Ms Tamagrouchy!

The Continuing Crisis

•Ms spokesman Larry Cohen confirmed last week that the behemoth is working on a new web site that would "focus on residential real estate." The new project will reportedly be a new Carpoint or Exepedia-like site devoted to selling houses and property. Coming soon: when you sell your house, Bill Gates gets his own cut! Coincidentally the project is code-named named Boardwalk, which is the best thing to own when you're playing Monopoly (playing for keeps that is).

•Microsoft posted a new version of Office Service Pack 1 on their web site last Tuesday. The new version replaces one removed a few weeks ago because of several bugs in it, including one that caused document data to be lost when saving an existant document. However Microsoft has not released anything for the thousands of users who installed the older version of Service Pack 1 and now have crippling bugs on their system. The bug shouldn't be a problem for long though, most people using Windows '95 have to reformat their hard disks weekly anyway.

•In a related story, also on Tuesday Microsoft showed off a beta of Office '98 for the Mac. Expected to be on sale by the year 1999, the office suite will include such time-consuming features as Word '98, Powerpoint '98, Excell '98, Outlook Express, Internet Exploder 4.0 and everybody's favorite dancing paperclip help thing. This is yet another step in Microsoft's ongoing effort to give Mac users the same bugs 32-bit Windows users have to deal with.

•Ms has released a first draft of the requirements to get an official seal of approval for Win 98/NT 5.0 products. In order to earn the "Designed for Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 98" sticker, programmers will have to include features from Ms' Zero Administration Windows standard, which is aimed at bringing down the cost of PC ownership by costing developers five times as much to make software. Developers will have to make their products support OnNow power management, keyboard access, System32 lock down, NT registry features, an NT upgrade DLL system and a great big steaming pile of other useless crap designed to cost you more money more often.

•Finally, Microsoft and Bandai (maker of all those wonderful Power Rangers toys & TV shows) plan to bring the completely irritating 'virtual pet' Tamagotchi to PCs this fall. We always figured those toys and Microsoft's dancing paperclip technology would get together someday.. It also fits into Ms' master plan of addicting young children to their products at the earliest age possible. Just what we need, something else on a PC to take care of 24 hours a day...

Microsoft Stock Track

MSFT Stock Price^*132 3/16

Bill Gates' Worth$37.3 Billion

*As Of Closing, 09/01/97
Thanks to Bill Gates Personal Wealth Clock.

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