MSBC NewsSource is currently being produced in a shorter format to give our writers and editors a well-deserved break. To make up for fewer reports, we are including an above-average number of links to reports on other sites that will make up the difference. Standard NewsSource production will resume on January 10, 2000.

In the same vein as last spring's Melissa [see NewsSource, Apr. 19], a new e-mail based worm is terrorizing Microsoft customers around the world. The latest beneficiary of Microsoft's head-in-the-sand security is BubbleBoy, named after references to a 'Seinfeld' television show character buried inside its code. Just like Melissa, BubbleBoy takes advantage of Outlook and Outlook Express shortcomings to make minor modifications to the operating system and then e-mail itself to others, but this one can do its damage without any attachments being opened - something Melissa never achieved. Fortunately for the millions of people fooled into using Outlook, this virus is only a demonstration and has not actually been circulated - but we have no doubt it will be in the near future.

Proving that it no longer cares who it partners with, last week Microsoft made a $100 million investment and a new branding agreement with Tandy subsidiary RadioShack. The investment into RadioShack gives Microsoft a stake in the washed up electronic store chain's new Web site, radioshack.com. Microsoft will prominently feature that site on MSN, hoping to build traffic to both. In exchange, RadioShack will put displays promoting Microsoft Internet services like MSN broadband and WebTV in its 7,000 US stores. RadioShack already has similar 'store in a store' deals with Compaq, Sprint and RCA. Following the announcement, Tandy and Microsoft stock prices rose significantly.

Back when NT5 was renamed Windows 2000, Microsoft ran into a little legal trouble because the name had already been copyrighted by the owner of windows2000.com [see NewsSource, Nov. 09 '98]. The owner, antique securities collector Bob Kerstein, never filed a copyright violation suit against Microsoft, but he also refused to hand over the domain. With Windows 2000 now expected to ship in mere months, Microsoft finally hit Kerstein's price: in exchange for the windows2000.com domain, The Behemoth has allowed Bob to move his Web site to bob.com, a site it registered in 1996 to promote the highly unsuccessful Microsoft Bob product. (We can now assume Microsoft has no plans to update that particular piece of software.)

Shares in Expedia soared by some 280% from $14 to $53 following the MSN unit's initial public offering on November 10. Microsoft, after making $80 million from the spinoff, still controls nearly 85% of the travel reservations site. As we previously reported [see NewsSource, Sep. 27], the success of this accounting trick could prompt Microsoft to IPO other Internet properties like Hotmail.

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