While speaking in San Francisco at the NationsBanc Montgomery Securities Technology Week Conference in late January, Bill Gates told the audience that Microsoft would increase its PR and lobbying efforts in the coming months to change public perspective of his company. In the six weeks since the speech, BillG has been on sort of a Gatesapalooza, appearing on countless news and talk shows. In addition to that, Microsoft has been in several feature network news stories and the company has spent more than usual on advertising.
It all started with BillG's interview on 20/20 from his Hood Canal compound outside of Seattle (he refuses to let press into the main residence). In the interview, Gates discussed the malfunctioning NT-based entertainment system in his house, the future of technology and then sang 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.' Gates also said that he's against cloning (he has investments in biotech companies) and that he intends to raise his daughter in a religious environment, despite claims in a 1995 Time Magazine interview that he "has better thing to do on a Sunday morning" than go to church. Following the interview, he took Walters for a ride in a Ford Explorer (NOT a Lincoln Navigator) equipped with the Wince-based AutoPC, a device to distract commuters on their way to work.
Following that, Gates made appearances on several different morning news and talk shows such as This Morning and Live, on which he defended his company, apparently went to sleep during an interview with Kathie Lee Gifford, and announced that he and his wife have donated a great big pile (less than .5% of his personal fortune) of money to libraries in rural areas so they can buy Microsoft products and allow little children to get pornography off the internet. Later that week CBS news had a special two-part story on how "Microsoft Millionares" are benefiting society, leading us to believe Mr. Gates' wallet came open during his appearance on CBS' morning show.

In February, a US federal appeals court sided with a Microsoft motion to strike down Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's appointment last year of a "special master" to the Microsoft contempt case. In a one-page ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals in the DC Circuit granted the motion, suspending the work of "special master" Lawrence Lessig but explicitly saying the order should not impede discovery in the case. The court gave no reason for its decision.

While on a whirlwind tour of Europe, Bill Gates was pied (yes, pied) while walking to the Concert Noble hall in Brussels for an education conference. According to video made at the time, three members of a group calling itself L'Antartreur threw cream pies onto Gates' face and coat before his highly paid (yet strangely incompetent) security guards stepped in and stopped them. Two of the men were arrested, but BillG wouldn't press charges against them because lately [see the Gatesapalooza story above] he's been trying to come across as a "regular, easy-going guy." Gates, who appeared shaken and angry as he ran to safety, later joked that the pie didn't even taste all that good. It was later revealed that a disgruntled Microsoft employee alerted the group that BillG would be at the conference.

On March 1st, Microsoft agreed to drop contractual provisions that prevented ISPs from promoting non-Microsoft web browsers. The Behemoth previously prevented large internet service providers that distribute IE from telling their customers that other web browsers, such as Netscape, are avilable. Lawmakers in the US and Europe had recently started investigating the contracts, but the company denies it did anything wrong and claims that the changes are just part of the changing relationship between software companies and ISPs. The new contracts allow service providers to promote other browsers, but not more prominently than Microsoft's Explorer.

Back in January, Microsoft announced that it would no longer provide technical support to NT users who also run Novell Directory Services (NDS) software. Ms executives stated that NDS overwrites certain DLLs that control some of NT's security features, but since NT doesn't have any decent security features anyway, that defense was pointless. Most people figured this was The Behemoth's way of making its upcoming NDS competitor, Active Directory, sell better, and after about a week of protests from the NT community, Microsoft retracted its statements and then later denied making them at all.

In early February, 11 US states subpoenaed Microsoft. The states, Connecticut, California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin, each sent The Behemoth identical subpoenas concerning Windows 98. Last week the department of justice and 16 other states joined with the original eleven state attorneys general to conduct a full-force investigation of several different Microsoft business practices.

There's a new calculation bug In Excel '97. The new bug is not corrected by the patch for that last bug or fixed by service release #1. It also can't be corrected like the last problem could by forcing Excel to recalculate. Microsoft blew off the last calculation bugs, saying they were "obscure" and most users would never have any problems with them, but you should be able to depend on your software to produce accurate sums with simple calculations. Makes one wonder what other unknown calculation bugs are burined deep in the program... If you use Excel '97 and your calculations are important, we suggest double checking them with earlier versions of Excel or Lotus 123.

Last Friday, Sun Microsystems asked a federal court in San Diego to prevent Microsoft from using the Java Compatable logo on IE4. Sun told District Court Judge Ronald Whyte that Microsoft violated its Java licensing agreement because the software development kits for IE4 don't comply with Sun's compatability tests. Microsoft contends that it passed tests with the earlier JDK as required under its contract, but Sun attorney Lloyd Day Jr. said Microsoft is also required to pass all of the tests with the upgraded JDK. Microsoft countered that the JDK avilable when the license was signed is the one it has to work with.
Sun attorney Day said Microsoft should have discussed changes in the Java JDK with Sun before using the Java logo on its products, but Microsoft claims that the licensing agreement gave it the right to change Java and that's exactly what they did. "We have the right to make the changes," McDonald said. "We're not constrained to use just what they sent us." However, Sun officials say that by modifying Java as it has and then using the Java-compatible logo, Microsoft is misrepresenting its compliance with Sun's approved Java technology.

The Behemoth is entering into the "personalized internet gateway" business. Starting at the end of this year, all IE users and MSN customers will have a new default home page, Microsoft Start. The new page will compete with established services like My.Yahoo!, C|Net Snap!, AOL and others that give internet users a page with their own customized news, information, stock quotes and etc. Microsoft's version will, of course, use almost all Ms content such as MSNBC, Sidewalk, Exepedia and CarPoint, and will also be integrated with The Behemoth's HotMail company and its upcoming search engine. Update predicts that if Ms has its way, sometime in the not-so-distant future every Windows computer will load this new page as soon as you boot it up. All Microsoft, all the time.

The Software Publishers Association (SPA) issued new guidelines last month that alienated its biggest member, Microsoft. The new princles condemn the leveraging of a dominant personal computer operating system to boost other software products, agreements that provide access to some web sites only through specific browsers, and vaporware, the announcement of software products that never materialize. Critics have accused Microsoft of using all of these tactics. Microsoft blew off the news by saying it's due to 3 or 4 large companies inside the SPA that just don't want to play fair.

BRIEFLY: Without comment, the Supreme Court denied Microsoft's appeal of a 1997 court decision entitling former employees to company stock options. The eight former workers, hired between 1987 and 1990, were told that they were ineleigible for the extremely valuable options because they were hired as "temporary agency employees," even though they did the same jobs as other Ms workers, who are entitled to options and other benefits.
Starting last Sunday, new commercials starring Bill Gates have been running on television and in select magazines. The new series of commercials for Callaway Golf Co.'s Big Bertha golf clubs are part of Gates' recent efforts to seem like "one of us." [see Gatesapalooza story above]
The Palm Computing division of 3Com is suing Microsoft because of its new PalmPC devices. Palm, maker of the popular Palm Pilot handheld computers, claimed in its suit that Microsoft chose that name deliberately to confuse customers and increase sales of the company's new Wince-based computers.
By mid-April, the badly lagged Microsoft.com site will be testing a new interactive store feature. Still in the development phase, the store (code-named NITRO) will have a "Buy Now" button on every page with a Microsoft product, allowing you to give them your credit card number instead of just having them steal it like they have to do now. The new store is expected to be fully operational by September.
Microsoft's Exepedia travel reservation site reportedly booked over $100 million in sales in 1997, the site's first full year of operation. Airlines, car rental companies and hotel chains usually pay middleman companies like Exepedia a 5 to 10 percent commission, meaning that the site had five to ten million dollars revenue last year. However, due to the high costs of creating, promoting, and staffing the service, it's still operating in the red and isn't expected to post a profit until mid-1999.
The Microsoft Network has stopped producing unpopular channels @WaterCooler, Getworking, One Click Away, Forever Cool and CMJ New Music, and also announced that before the end of the year CarTalk, Cinemania and Music Central will also recieve death sentances.
Starting on April 4th, Microsft will begin showing a free preview of Windows 98 and other products in 38 theaters around the country. The two-hour film, "Microsoft Extreme," will show off such new features as DVD video support and integrated web browser technologies. To get people to watch the glorified advertisement, The Behemoth will also be giving away free popcorn and drinks.
To compete with "instant messaging" services from AOL, Netscape and Yahoo!, Microsoft purchased Flash Communications Company. Flash, whose main product is a client/server internet messaging program, was completely bought out by The Behemoth. Ms will most likely integrate the company's software with its servers and operating systems.
In related news, Microsoft also paid about $6 million for a minority stake in General Magic Corp, maker of the Serengeti pager/information service. Serengeti lets customers get phone messages, e-mail, faxes, news and stock quotes from telephones or off the web. It isn't clear what Ms will get from the investment, but they wouldn't have made it if they didn't think they'd get something out of it.
The last week of February Microsoft released new versions of IE4 for Windows 3.x and Sun Solaris 2.5 and higher. A version for HP-UX was promised this summer, and The Behemoth said IE5 will have versions for all UN*X platforms (providing NT doesn't wipe them out by then *snicker*). When asked why the new versions of IE dont have the Active Desktop software, executives stated that "none of our Unix customers asked for it," apparently forgetting that Windows customers didn't ask for the shit either.
Insiders say that Microsoft is phasing out Natural Keyboard, a (admittedly) nice product that still, however, isn't worth the $100 pricetag. The replacement product, Natural Keyboard Elite, will be cheaper, flimsier, made in Mexico and have a new layout for its smaller arrow, number pad and function keys.
On February 24, Microsoft joined General Electric Corp. as the only companies ever to be have a market value greater than $200 billion. But by the end of trading that day Microsoft (MSFT) slipped back down to a mere $199.9 billion. Microsoft remains the #2 most valuable company in the world, right behind GE ($251 billion) and slightly ahead of Coca-Cola ($170 Billion).
For the seventh time since going public in 1986, on February 6 Microsoft set a 2-1 stock split. The now 2.4 billion MSFT shares have been riding pretty high ever since, with the exception of a $3.00 loss on the day of Bill Gates' congressional testimony.
Since The Behemoth purchased it for $350 million back at the end of 1997, many HotMail customers have reported that the company's free e-mail services have been very unreliable. One anonymous customer stated that her account has been down two days or more at least three times since December, which hardly ever happened before the buyout. To make matters worse, sources inside HotMail say that Microsoft is pushing them to switch the company over to NT servers, which would pretty much make the service useless.

_{Unix Won't Be Muscled Out By NT
Readers: ActiveX sputters out
Microsoft to further 'Window-ize' Java
Ms to Test Broadcasts of Web Content
Intuit challenges Microsoft study
Teledesic Launches Test Satellite
Microsoft-TCI set-top deal getting cold?
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