Last Thursday, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson dismissed Microsoft's efforts to limit Bill Gates' testimony to 8 hours. The company's lawyers argued that Mr. Gates is a busy man because of his role inside the company, but lawyers for the Department of Justice said they needed more time with the billionare. Later in the day Jackson ruled that Microsoft must hand over source code from Windows 95 and 98 to government investigators. Microsoft had refused to give up the source unless investigators were prevented for working for a competitor for a year. He also said the starting date for the trial will remain September 8.
Following the ruling, Ms general counsel William "Delay" Neukom filed yet another motion requesting that Judge Jackson throw out the whole case. The motion, which was accompanied by a response to the DOJ's preliminary injunction, said the government case "fails to meet the criteria for injunctive relief" and claimed that its goal was never to hurt competition but to benefit the consumer. The company went so far as claiming that it had plans to integrate "Internet browsing technologies with Windows" as early as 1992, nearly two years before the first web browser was created. The filing also looked at how other companies like IBM and Sun have integrated internet software with their operating systems.

Even though Microsoft is downplaying its significance, a Windows back door is generating anxiety among consumers and corporations. The program, dubbed 'Back Orifice,' can be attached to images or program files and, once installed, allows the sender to remotely control and monitor a computer running Windows 95 or 98. The software, released by legendary hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow, is intended to put pressure on Microsoft to improve security in Windows 95/98 (an NT version is promised). The Behemoth denies that the program takes advantage of any security problem and says that users who have "safe computing practices" (we have to assume this involves a huge condom) are not at risk.

More than $60 million of pirated Microsoft software has been seized by German customs officers after an 18-month criminal investigation conducted across Europe. Customs officers captured software CDs, labels, manuals and certificates worth about 108 million German marks near the Dutch-German border on July 31, in what Microsoft said was its biggest anti-piracy raid ever. CD production plants in the UK told Microsoft 18 months ago that a large number of CDs had been ordered by someone claiming to be an official from the company. Microsoft wasn't familiar with the man dubbed Mr S., so they monitored his business activities until a truckload of pirated CDs was uncovered.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology had to block their network from all MSN accounts a few weeks ago after being mail-bombed by someone using a Microsoft Network address. The problem worsened when MIT administrators were "unable to reach a breathing person" on the phone at MSN. Staffers finally sent an e-mail to the network's postmaster on July 31, but received an automated response saying "We are closed, try again on Monday." Someone from Microsoft contacted college officials the following Wednesday and the problem has now been cleared up.

While Microsoft was busy posting patches to fix a security flaw in the Outlook 98 and Outlook Express e-mail clients, impostors were sending a false e-mail patch to users, claiming it was a fix from Microsoft. The patch apparently uses the Outlook programs to send profanity-filled spam to several Bulgarian internet companies. The Trojan Horse e-mail identifies its sender as "Microsoft Internet Explorer Support Center" with an e-mail address of IESupport@microsoft.com. An authentic patch for the bug, which also affects Netscape and Eudora mail clients, is available from the Microsoft web site.

After selling more than 250,000 copies of Windows 98 in only two days, Microsoft Japan is now being deluged with customer support calls. To relieve pressure on its phone system, Ms Japan has taken out ads in local papers explaining some of the most common Windows 98 installation problems. This saves tech support the trouble of having to say "must be a hardware problem" 250,000 times..
Bill Gates and Paul Allen have annouced plans to unload a total 2.5 million common shares of Microsoft stock. In an SEC filing Gates said he intends to sell about 1.5 million shares of MSFT, worth around $165 million. In a separate filing Allen proposed to sell one million shares with a market value of about $108 million. The Microsoft co-founders both sell shares about once a year to supplement their salaries.
Microsoft is building a new 32-acre campus in Mountain View California, the middle of Silicon Valley. The new complex, which replaces several different facilities scattered around the Valley, will house WebTV, Hotmail and other divisions. This, perhaps not so coincidentally, makes it easier for Microsoft to raid talent from nearby Netscape, Sun and Oracle.
The Behemoth says that version 7 of the SQL Server database software will ship in mid-November. Licensing arrangements for the product, which replaces SQL 6.5, have not yet been announced.
Continuing its buying spree, the partially-Microsoft owned Lernout & Hauspie company purchased German technical publisher Heitmann. Heitmann, which primarily prints user manuals and documentation in a variety of languages, will boost L&H's document translation services.
Last week Microsoft announced that Encarta Africana, an African-centered CD-ROM encyclopedia, is due out early next year. The project, which will use video clips of celebrities to convey the black experience, was assisted by Maya Angelou, Whoopi Goldberg and Cornell West, among others. But one big celebrity, basketball star Michael Jordan, declined the offer. Nice to see there's still at least one celebrity bigger than BillG..

_{Microsoft to bolster NT authentication security
Report: Wait on NT 5.0
WinCE Sweep: Less Than Meets The Eye
Microsoft files charge against software pirate
Microsoft Preps Low-Cost Software Line}