Microsoft says that the last two versions of Internet Explorer are now completely year-2000-compliant because of recent "service packs" (read: bug fixes) for the products. The IE patches also make NT4 compliant because, according to Microsoft, all the millennium problems in that product were due to IE bugs. But other major applications - such as Windows 95, Office 95, DOS and much of Microsoft's older software - still have year-2000 issues of some form. Incidentally, all Ms products for the Macintosh except Outlook Express 4 are completely Y2K safe. Jason Matusow, Microsoft's Y2K Strategy-Manager, has admitted that problems do exist but explained that most of the company's newer software like Office only have minor issues that won't "threaten the core stability" of the products.

According to the Bangkok Post, Windows 98 is already available in stores around Thailand. CDs of the operating system upgrade started popping up last week, but, obviously, were not official Microsoft-licensed copies.
In New Orleans last week, Microsoft's chief thug Steve Ballmer said that the "designed for" logo program will be expanded to include Office and BackOffice certification in the near future. New ways to squeeze money from developers..
Also in New Orleans, Microsoft announced that future versions of Visual Studio will work (read: screw up) on non-Windows platforms such as Oracle databases and SAP's ERP suite. Visual Studio 6 is expected to go on sale this September.
Sunnyvale California's NeTpower Inc. has put itself up for sale. NeTpower, which focused exclusively on Win NT-based systems for niche applications such as video editing, has slashed its workforce from 200 to 15 and reportedly doesn't "have the capital to continue independently."

_{Ms kicks off Tech Ed with SQL, Office integration
Prices May Affect Microsoft Case
Windows NT Security Under Fire
WINDOWS 98: JUST HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?}