Now that the time for action has passed, Microsoft is sending Y2K compliance notices to 120 million customers around the world. According to the company, 61 million e-mails were sent out in July, and the remaining 59 million customers will be contacted via direct mail before the end of August. The notices reportedly list the Y2K status of post-1995 Microsoft products, along with information about where to obtain patches and other information. The list of software that needs patching includes the original English-language Windows 98, as well as some versions of Win 95 and Site Server. Other 'minor' products like the Danish, Finnish, Greek, Norwegian, and Thai editions of Windows 98 have yet to even be tested. Microsoft's late action isn't particularly reassuring, since the first of three major Y2K dates has already passed, and the next one - 9/9/99 - is about two weeks away.

Microsoft's Windows Media Audio 4.0 was highly promoted to music companies as a secure format to distribute music, with built in safeguards to ensure that only the person who buys and downloads the file will be able to play it. But that protection was short lived, with cracks for the piracy protection features popping up around the Internet only two weeks after the new format came into use. The cracks are simple, avoiding the protections all together by saving the files in an unprotected format as they're downloaded and/or played. A company spokesman confirmed the cracks, but wouldn't go so far as to call them bugs or holes.
The defeat of Microsoft's touted piracy protection eliminates the main reason why companies such as Sony agreed to use that format in the first place. But the ink has already dried, locking music publishers into Microsoft's unpopular format, even if it is lower quality than consumer-favorite MP3. That hurts music companies since their copyrights are in jeopardy, it hurts musicians because they're using an unpopular format to distribute music, and it hurts consumers because Ms Audio 4 is lower quality than MP3. So who does it actually benefit? Exactly.

Mirroring recent investments by their partner AT&T, Microsoft has announced a US $126 million investment into Brazil's leading cable television operator, Globo Cabo. While neither company would give any firm numbers, it was reported the investment will give Microsoft an 11 percent share of the cable operator. After publicizing the investment, Microsoft announced plans to use Globo's existing network and established brand name on a forthcoming Internet portal and interactive television service. Microsoft has several other pacts with Globo's parent company, and may eventually combine MSN Brazil with Globo Cabo's own Internet properties.

Again trying to take the moral highground away from America Online, Microsoft has made public the protocol used in its MSN Messenger software. The company claims its move was in response to "customer demand," but we suspect it was actually intended to turn up the heat on America Online. A company spokesman also said the protocol will be turned in to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) before the end of August, to be considered for part of IETF's forthcoming Instant Messaging standard. AOL is also helping with the creation of that standards set, diluting the effects of Microsoft's recent efforts to hurt their public image [see NewsSource, July 26].

The government of Spain, as part of a movement to reduce chronic sexism, has asked Microsoft to remove several entries from a Spanish dictionary. The phrases in question, included in Spanish Word's dictionary function, give different (often derogatory) definitions for the male and female versions of several words. The word ansioso, for example, was defined as "covetous, yearning, painstaking, ambitious," while ansiosa - the feminine sense of the same word - was said to mean "nymphomaniac, lecherous, sexually avid."
Spain's Women's Institute said that when the complaint was filed, they offered Microsoft help in correcting the problems. A Microsoft representative said she was unaware of any complaints related to the Spanish dictionary. Microsoft has been similarly unresponsive to other requests from small countries; back in 1998 the company refused to create an Icelandic version of Office - even after the government of Iceland offered to cover the costs of creating one. The last we heard, they were enjoying native-language copies of WordPerfect. Perhaps Spain will choose to do the same.

A week after assuring customers the problem doesn't exist, Microsoft finally admitted to finding a version of the Office 97 Data Jet bug [see NewsSource, Aug. 09] in Excel 2000. The bug allows 'malicious' documents to execute programs, some of which could do damage to a computer's files or operating system. Microsoft said patches are now available for both sets of bugs.
Microsoft and eCharge have teamed up to make it easier for MSN customers to get ripped off. Now when someone installs MSN Internet Access software, they can select an option to have the monthly charges automatically added to their phone bill. This was presumably designed for the average MSN customer that isn't intelligent enough to write his or her own name on a check.
Bowing to pressure from OEM partners and chip makers, Microsoft has announced a modification to Windows 2000's planned multiprocessor support. The change will reportedly double the number of processors supported by each flavor of the OS, but none of that matters anyway if they're never actually shipped.
Thomson Consumer Electronics' RCA unit has delayed the shipping a new line of televisions with built-in WebTV until sometime early next year, according to a company spokesman. According to reports, Thomson is waiting on more WebTV-optimized content and for Microsoft to finish integrating Windows CE into WebTV.

_{MSN Messenger Security Flaw Discovered
Linux gains ground on Windows 2000, others
Microsoft does multimedia in slow motion
Is Bill Gates the Ginger Rogers of the industry?}