Extra Edition - The US Government vs. Microsoft Corp, plus new IE holes and Gates vs. Slate

The Continuing Crisis

•Monday afternoon, to the delight of intelligent computer users everywhere, United States Attorney General Janet Reno announced that the US Department of Justice is accusing Microsoft Corp. of violating a 1995 antiturst agreement. The agreement, ordered by a judge in 1995, bars Microsoft from "imposing anticompetitive licensing terms on personal computer manufacturers." The DOJ stressed how Microsoft has forced PC makers to install the Internet Explorer web browser in order to keep their Windows license. Attorney General Reno asked a federal court to stop Microsoft from forcing OEMs to bundle IE with Windows, make the bemehoth notify Windows users that they can use other web browsers, and to impose a fine of one million dollars per day if the violations continue.

According to the department, Microsoft's power over the industry exists because most programs, from word processors to games, are written for its Windows operating system. Microsoft denied the allegations and several of the company's senior executives stated the DOJ's allegations weren't worth the paper they're written on. In later statements, Microsoft said Internet Exploder is a feature of the operating system, not a product. This will be hard to prove, as Microsoft has a version of this "feature" for sale in stores around the world for $49.95.

Testimony by Compaq executive Stephen Decker on October 17th proved that Microsoft, on several occasions, had threatened to remove the company's Windows license if it didn't give Explorer preferential treatment. Decker testified that "if Compaq chose a Netscape icon over a Microsoft icon on its desktop computer screen, then Microsoft would terminate our [Windows] agreement for doing so... We had a relationship with Netscape and we had been shipping their product for a while." Decker also testified that Netscape was the preferred browser partner that they wanted to put on their PCs, but Compaq backed down: "We put the (Microsoft) icon back on." We will keep you updated on this story.

•Late last week Microsoft scrambled to patch a security hole in Internet Exploder 4. The new hole allows 'malicous' webmasters to download files from a user's computer, as long as the webmaster knows where the files are located (similar to a problem MSBC discovered in IEIEO 3.02 this spring). The new security breach takes advantage of Microsoft's version of Dynamic HTML. Firewalls and other security measures have no affect on the bug. A consultant, Ralf Hueskes, of Jabadoo Communications, in Freiburg, Germany, found the hole while reviewing Explorer 4.0 for c't, a German computer magazine. Hueskes' findings can be seen at www.jabadoo.de/press/ie4.html.

•Microsoft has signed a deal with the search engine company Inktomi. Inktomi, which provides the technology behind Wired's HotBot search engine, will give MSN a 75-million page web search feature along with a wide selection of daily and hourly updated content. The new MSN search engine, likely the same project previously known as 'Yukon,' will hit the 'net next spring (the same time Windows 98 is expected to be released).

•And finally, at a recent speech at Cambridge University, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates admitted he prefers print magazines to online "e-zines." Gates' comment didn't exactly please Michael Kinsley, editor of Slate, Microsoft's money-hemorrhaging online newsmagazine. In a column entitled "Now he Tells Us," Kinsley responded to BillG's speech: "Although we disagree with Mr. Gates about the best way to read magazines, we do agree that sometimes the old way is still the best. For example, we generally prefer typewriters to Microsoft Word, and we find that our sturdy abacus crashes less often than Excel." When they start fighting among themselves, the end is getting near.

Microsoft Stock Track

MSFT Stock Price^*135 9/16

Bill Gates' Worth$38.5 Billion

*As Of Closing, 10/24/97
Thanks to Bill Gates Personal Wealth Clock.

Other News From The Wires

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NT 5.0 beta earning poor marks

Microsoft to government: You don't understand

Senator Sees Microsoft Probe As Positive Step