As expected, Microsoft officially announced last Thursday that Windows 98 will be made available to retail customers on June 25th. Microsoft also said that the "suggested retail price" for the Windows upgrade will be $109, but the actual retail price will likely be around $90 (the lowest retailers can legally sell for is $89). This is the same pricing Windows 95 had almost three years ago, despite industry-wide price reductions. Since Win98 is basically just a glorified bug patch with some extra bells and whistles thrown in, we feel that charging the same for it as for Win95 is unjust. But since most people would pay $100 for a dog turd if it said 'Microsoft' on it, the company can charge whatever they damn well please.
This, however, does bring up some new issues about Windows' monopoly status. Last month even Bill Gates himself, testifying before the Senate, said that "Another sign of a healthy, competitive industry is lower prices," pointing out the "10 million fold decrease" in computing costs since 1971. But in the last four years, the price of Windows (full version) has risen by nearly 192 percent (191.74%); from $109 for Windows 3.1 back in 1994 to $209 for Windows 98 this summer, while in that same time period the average PC price has dropped and performance has more than quadrupled. Another sign of a healthy, competitive industry? And it can only get worse, the successor to Windows 98 will reportedly be in the NT series, which has traditionally cost three to four times more than standard Windows. Maybe the Justice Department will pick up on this trend and use it for evidence in their next case against Microsoft.

Microsoft lawyers and executives met with officials from the Department of Justice last Friday as the DOJ pondered whether or not to bring more antitrust charges against the company. Neither Ms nor DOJ officials would discuss the 3 1/2 hour meeting beyond admitting that it had occurred. Possible topics were likely to have been Microsoft's changes in content provider contracts (see 'Briefly' story below), pending legal action against the company by 11 US states or the ongoing antitrust case initially filed by the DOJ last fall. A Microsoft spokesman later said that the meeting "was a helpful exchange for both sides," but wouldn't give any other information. In the past, Microsoft has reached agreements with authorities when it faced a serious court challenge, such as the settlement of a contempt citation in January.

BRIEFLY: In an uncommon retreat, Microsoft announced that it has resolved the brand name dispute between itself and 3Com over use of the word 'Palm' in competing products. Microsoft will now refer to the class of handheld computers formerly known as "PalmPCs" as "Palm-size PCs," and in return 3Com will drop its lawsuits over the issue.
A month after the Senate Judiciary Comittee grilled Microsoft CEO BillG about it, Microsoft has modified its contracts with ActiveDesktop channel bar content providers. The new contracts allow content providers to advertise Netscape products on their sites, distribute Netscape software with promotional CDs or disks and no longer prevents them from becoming content providers for Netscape's own channel bar product, Netcaster.
After ignoring the issue for several years, Microsoft launched a Year 2000 Resource Center on its web site this week. Three of the company's products have been found to have Y2K problems so far; Word for DOS 5.0, Access 2.0 (part of Office Professional 4.3) and Internet Explorer versions 3 and 4. Windows 95 and NT, recent versions of Ms Office and all of Microsoft's web servers are Y2K compliant, but testing on Windows 3.x is still ongoing.
Tuesday, Teledesic announced that Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has pumped $200 million into the company. Teledesic, partially owned by Bill Gates and Seattle-based Boeing, is building an "internet in the sky," scheduled to begin operation in 2002 with 288 satellites sending content to users around the world. Prince Alwaleed, the world's richest man (Gates is #2), also owns stakes in Apple, Netscape and Motorola.

_{Microsoft buys IE users with NT
Brazil adds to Microsoft scrutiny
Ms Makes Its Move On CC:Mail Shops
Microsoft Plans Fake Letters?
Ms to license software to banks}