Microsoft said Wednesday that a company breakup would be the most significant remedy in the 113-year history of U.S. antitrust law.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said in a statement that many elements of the government's suggested regulations are unwarranted, even without the extreme breakup proposed. "The government's proposals would take away Microsoft's property by forcing us to disclose the source for our products, even though Microsoft spent hundreds of millions of dollars to develop these products. The government also seeks to interfere with the design of Microsoft's products," Gates said.

"The government's so-called conduct and disclosure remedies are just as damaging to the company, and just as bad for consumers as their breakup demand," said Microsoft president Steve Ballmer. "The government's proposals really represent government regulation of software design and an unwarranted taking of Microsoft's intellectual property."

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Microsoft Corp.'s formal response Wednesday evening to the government's recommendation to cleave the company in two probably won't have much effect on its trading price when U.S. markets on Thursday, an analyst said on Wednesday.

``It may have a mildly positive effect, if any,'' said J.P. Morgan analyst William Epifanio II. ``The response is rather predictable.''

Shares of Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft were trading at 65 1/2 on Instinet after the closing bell on Wednesday evening, down from 66 3/16 on the Nasdaq.

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Consumers who want to know if they are affected by a recently revealed bug inside some Pentium III computers at least have the satisfaction of knowing it's easy to get an answer.

Intel has set up a Web site providing details on how a bug in the memory translator hub, or MTH, can cause Pentium III computers to freeze and display a blue screen. The site also contains a utility to determine if a given computer contains the part.

Consumers are being urged to contact manufacturers and dealers as well if they are experiencing problems.

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A "Diva & Goliath" battle has broken out between Microsoft and a women's technology group that says the software giant is upstaging its act.

The dispute was touched off in April, when Microsoft launched a tech advice area on its Microsoft Network Internet portal called "Digital Diva." That was a little too close for comfort for Dana Whitmire, who says she founded her own "Digital Divas" group three years earlier to dispense tech know-how to Internet newbies.

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Gearing up for the biggest consumer product launch of the decade, Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. announced today its plans for the North American release of the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system. The PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system is designed to bring together games, music and movies, and will redefine the entertainment lifestyle, eventually serving as a network platform in the broadband era.

The PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system is scheduled to launch in North America on October 26, 2000 with an unprecedented initial launch shipment of one million units, followed by an additional two million units through March 31, 2001. Supporting both the audio CD and DVD-Video formats, the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system leads the fusion of interactive entertainment with music and video. The new system supports the existing PlayStation software catalog of more than 800 titles now on the market, bridging the generation of the two systems while protecting consumers' investment in their PlayStation software libraries.

Read more

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Microsoft's gaming character, "Raven," stands in a giant crate in front of the Los Angeles Convention Center May 10, that holds the Xbox demonstration to be shown during the E3 gaming convention through Saturday. Microsoft delivered the Xbox in response to an Internet fan survey demanding that the company reveal new Xbox material during the gaming convention. Microsoft had not planned to attend this year's E3 with great fanfare.

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Microsoft Corp has today launched their new look X-Box website. The site contains more information on the upcoming (late 2001) console including a news section, info on games creators and much more. Anyway - here is more from the press release:

The gamers have spoken! In an unusual move, Microsoft asked the gaming public at large how big of a splash -- if any at all -- the company should make with their future-generation video-game console at the Electronic Expo (E3) in Los Angeles this year. With well over a year before release of the console, Microsoft had not planned to attend this year's E3 with great fanfare. With the show a scant few days away, gamers overwhelming voted for Microsoft to bring Xbox to E3 -- and to do so in a big way.

The Xbox poll ran over this past weekend on gaming news sites and Xbox fan sites alike. With the votes counted, the outcome was clear: an overwhelming 86% of fans demanded that Microsoft go whole hog and bring the Xbox to E3. Honoring the fans' request, Microsoft made emergency preparations and delivered the Xbox to the Los Angeles Convention Center this morning. Raven was on hand to ensure the safe arrival of Xbox, and downloadable AVIs and images of the event, including action shots of Raven, will be available later today on the official Xbox site at http://www.xbox.com

Two weeks ago, top Xbox fan sites rallied together and asked readers to name Microsoft's animated "Two to Tango" demo diva, which was unveiled along with Xbox at the March Game Developers Conference. Based on that poll's overwhelming response, and with a curiosity for how gamers would react to a sneak peek at the system this early in the game, Microsoft launched its Xbox at E3 poll.

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Microsoft Corp. today urged U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson to dismiss the government's unprecedented proposal to break up the company and outlined more appropriate remedies as well as a range of procedures designed to move the remedy phase forward as quickly as possible.

"We are working to try to resolve this case as quickly as possible, in a fair and reasonable manner. We believe there is no basis in this case for the government's unprecedented breakup proposal, and we are hopeful that the Court will dismiss this excessive demand immediately so that the case can move forward much more rapidly," said Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

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Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) asked a federal judge today to throw out the Justice Department's plan to break up the software giant, saying the penalty would far exceed the antitrust violations the judge found the company to have committed.

Microsoft offered its own remedies to correct what U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled last month was illegal anticompetitive behavior. The company said it was willing to stop displaying the desktop icon in its Windows operating system that leads users to its Web browser, Internet Explorer. In addition, the company would allow computer makers to prominently feature any software, including from Microsoft rivals, on the Windows desktop.

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Windows 2000 was specifically architected to enable customers to easily add additional application support after the product had shipped for general release. The May 2000 package is the second release of such additional application support and includes software compatibility updates for Windows 2000. The May 2000 package includes the compatibility updates of the February 2000 package.

During product compatibility testing prior to release, Microsoft focused on the top volume business applications (thousands of applications run out-of-the-box). With that testing complete, we are now broadening our original focus and have addressed some minor compatibility issues with a few of the more popular home/entertainment/gaming applications. View the Read This First page for a complete list of the software programs addressed by this package.

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We would like to welcome you all to the new and improved ActiveWin mailing list. We have finally sorted out all of the previous problems we had with delivering our list to you all (Our server wouldn't send any more than 200 mailings out). So now you can all look forward to daily e-mails keeping you up to date with everything that is happening in the world of Windows and Microsoft.

Subscribe to the HTML mailing list

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Microsoft will outline the reasons it believes the government's breakup proposal is inappropriate when it files its rebuttal to the Department of Justice remedy later today. Microsoft (stock: MSFT) was trading down 1 7/16, to 66 3/8, in early afternoon trading ahead of delivering its brief to a federal judge in Washington.

The U.S. government and 17 states urged U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson to split Microsoft into an operating system company and an applications company in its proposed remedy April 28. The government plan runs over 10 years, with conduct restrictions for three years. Two of the 19 states involved in the case, Ohio and Illinois, said they preferred to evaluate the effectiveness of the conduct limitations after three years before deciding on a breakup.

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In his first major keynote as Microsoft's chief software architect, Bill Gates touted the benefit of the company's Windows 2000 product as a platform for the Internet.

The Internet is moving beyond the simple transaction phase toward becoming a full-blown platform, albeit one with many limitations, such as spotty reliability, security, and interoperability, Gates said at Networld+Interop 2000 on Tuesday.

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Microsoft Corp. is relentlessly pursuing supremacy in the market for delivery of audio and video over the Internet, engaging in aggressive tactics similar to the kind that caused the Justice Department to sue the company for breaking antitrust laws, experts say.

The stakes are enormous because the outcome will determine which company's technology will serve as the future platform for how music, television, film and other media will be delivered into homes and offices. That could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits for the companies that sell software to the various media distributors and content creators.

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A spokeswoman for Microsoft Benelux in the Netherlands has claimed that the love bug affects both Linux and Apple, in an interview with Egbert Kalse, a journalist with the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. The story subsequently appeared on the front page of the newspaper last Friday, and included:  "A spokesperson from Microsoft Benelux denies [the virus only spreads on Microsoft software] and said that other operating systems such as Apple and Linux are hit." 

A glance at the VB script of the love bug shows with no doubt whatsoever that it is impossible for there to be any adverse effect on non-Microsoft software. But that's not all.

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Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) has won a battle in its legal war with archrival Sun Microsystems Inc.(NasdaqNM:SUNW - news) after a federal judge ruled their dispute is a contract dispute rather than a more serious copyright violation, as Sun had claimed.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte in San Jose, Calif., issued two decisions late on Monday that dismissed Sun's allegations that Microsoft violated copyrights on Sun's Java programming technology. Microsoft spokesman Mark Murray said the decisions mostly reaffirmed earlier rulings by Whyte on the issue and did not amount to a dramatic development in the case.

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Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) chairman Bill Gates urged other technology companies to forge ahead in adopting smart cards instead of passwords as a way of ensuring security on the Internet.

``The weakest link in security is the fact that passwords are used,'' Gates said during his keynote speech Tuesday at the NetWorld+Interop 2000 conference, a six-day computer networking event attended by about 60,000 people.

Customers who want to buy products, bank or pay bills online usually have to choose a password when they register with the site. But Gates said that system wasn't secure because thieves can call online companies and pose as customers who forgot their passwords.

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Hollywood.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: HOLL - news) announced today that it has entered into an alliance with Microsoft Corp. Hollywood.com will be featured at WindowsMedia.com, the MSN guide to audio and video on the Internet, and within Microsoft's new Windows Media Player 7.

Hollywood.com, a premier movie and entertainment site, will provide video streams, including high bandwidth video streams for broadband users of the Windows Media platform. Hollywood.com video content will include movie trailers, celebrity interviews, feature coverage of Hollywood events and coverage of movie premieres. New content will be provided weekly to WindowsMedia.com and will be accessible from the Media Guide of the new Windows Media Player. It also will be accessible in the Windows Media broadband entertainment area on Hollywood.com.

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The U.S. Justice Department's top trust buster said Tuesday Microsoft Corp.'s anti-competitive actions were not invented for the new economy, but instead relied on the ``time-tested tricks'' of monopolists.

"When it comes to antitrust enforcement, the new, new thing isn't so new after all," Joel Klein, the assistant attorney general in charge of the antitrust division, said in a speech for the Haas/Berkeley New Economy Forum being held in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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A new security flaw has been discovered in Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq: MSFT) Hotmail program that could give a hacker access to a user's account. The exploit uses an HTML attachment to give a hacker access to the account, where he or she can read a user's e-mail messages.

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Microsoft Corp. and AT&T Broadband today expanded their commitment to each other to bringing advanced broadband television services to consumers and shared a progress report on some of their behind-the-scenes development work.

This week at Cable 2000, the annual National Cable Television Association (NCTA) convention, the two companies are demonstrating AT&T's interactive platform on advanced set-top boxes using Microsoft^® TV Platform software, showing a glimpse of the AT&T user interface design and a few "teaser" consumer services. The two industry leaders also announced the completion of definitive agreements for AT&T to license Microsoft TV Platform software - both client set-top box software and television server software - for AT&T deployment. These deployments will include the creation of two showcase cities that the two companies committed to establishing in May 1999 and will present opportunities for additional markets beyond those cities.

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The Justice Department's top trust buster said Tuesday Microsoft Corp.'s (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) anti- competitive actions were not invented for the new economy, but instead relied on the ``time-tested tricks'' of monopolists.

``When it comes to antitrust enforcement, the new, new thing isn't so new after all,'' Joel Klein, the assistant attorney general in charge of the antitrust division, said in remarks prepared in a speech for the Haas/Berkeley New Economy Forum being held in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Officials offer sneak peek at 64-bit Windows 2000. But the company's supposed "mainframe-killer" Datacenter release still remains nowhere in sight. In a corner of their booth at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Microsoft officials were offering a sneak peek at the future.

During his keynote speech earlier in the day, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates remained mum on any products under development. But that didn't prevent his company from demonstrating an early version of its 64-bit version of Windows 2000 to a handful of interested attendees at the NetWorld+Interop show.

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Today at NetWorld+Interop 2000, Microsoft Corp. Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates announced the availability of Microsoft^® Windows^® Services for UNIX 2.0 (SFU). Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX 2.0 provides an additional set of comprehensive tools to help bridge the gap between UNIX and Windows for users and administrators. It helps create a logical enterprise network where resources are shared seamlessly and access control is simplified. Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX 2.0 provides a mechanism to take advantage of existing UNIX resources and expertise while simplifying network administration and account management in a mixed Windows 2000-, Windows NT^®-, and UNIX-based environment.

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Microsoft Corp. today announced that, according to Media Metrix'Inc.'s March 2000 data, people are spending an average of four hours per month playing games on the MSN™ Gaming Zone (Applications), more time per month, on average, than is being spent on any other single activity on the Internet.* That means people are spending more time playing Spades, "Asheron's Call^®" and "Age of Empires^®" than they are on the leading auction, stock-trading and e-mail sites. In addition, Zone.com is one of the fastest-growing sites on the Internet. In March of this year alone, Zone.com grew 23 percent in unique users and over 40 percent in usage minutes per month, according to Media Metrix. ** Featuring a wide selection of single-player and multiplayer games, Zone.com has become the No. 1 multiplayer gaming site on the Internet with 14 million registered members and 125 available games.

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GameSpy.com has posted an interview with John Howard the lead designer on Crimson Skies the upcoming flight simulator come shoot em up to be released later in the year by Microsoft.

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We have just posted Microsoft's latest update of the Windows 2000 Hardware Compatibility List - This comprehensive list vitally lists all the hardware components that will work with Windows 2000. Check it out! The list is large - 1.7 MB in text format.

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We have added a small page stating Microsoft's guidelines on upgrading to Windows 2000 or Windows 98 SE. These guidelines should assist people who are confused on finding the right upgrade.

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We have updated our Windows 2000 Patches Page; This updated list includes several Critical Security-related updates - all preventing users from gaining unauthorized access. Be sure to check it out!

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Today at NetWorld+Interop 2000, Microsoft Corp. announced plans to deliver Visio^® Network Equipment (VNE) shapes to customers and industry partners via the Internet. VNE SmartShapes^® are vendor-specific symbols that represent equipment manufactured by leading networking and telecommunications vendors and are standard in Visio 2000 Enterprise Edition. Available in the third quarter this year, Web delivery of VNE will provide customers with immediate access to the most up-to-date VNE shapes and enable them to download only the shapes they need to accurately design and document their network infrastructure.

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Today at the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) annual conference, Microsoft Corp. and SeaChange International Inc. (Nasdaq "SEAC"), the leader in high-end digital video systems for television, agreed to collaborate on extending Microsoft^® Windows Media™ Technologies from broadband Internet delivery to cable and broadcast television systems. This collaboration will benefit content providers and television operators with a unified digital media platform that delivers video streams to both television and broadband Internet networks - doing with one video streaming server what today requires two separate server systems. In addition, content developers such as the film and video industry will be able to lower costs and maximize reach by creating digital media content once and delivering it anywhere.

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Microsoft Corp. today announced that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has acknowledged its submission of the latest version of the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) specification. Microsoft was joined by Ariba Inc., Commerce One Inc., Compaq Computer Corp., DevelopMentor Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp., IONA Technologies PLC, Lotus Development Corp., SAP AG and Userland Software Inc. in submitting the specification and proposing the formation of a working group in the area of Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based protocols. SOAP is an open standards-based interoperability protocol that uses the W3C's XML to provide a common messaging format to link together any applications and services anywhere on the Internet.

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Coming off of a successful 1999 season as one of the fastest-growing PC game companies, Microsoft Corp. arrives at next week's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles with new versions of its popular PC games and innovative titles that have already received industry praise as sure-fire hits. From fall and holiday 2000 releases such as "Combat Flight Simulator 2", "MechWarrior(tm)" and "Links(tm) LS 2001" to next year's lineup, which includes "Dungeon Siege" and "FreeLancer," the company moves further toward its goal of becoming the worldwide games leader.

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Global virus Armageddon will be the result of the breakup of Microsoft, "writes" Bill Gates in this week's Time magazine, due to go on sale today. Or very nearly, anyway; you may well wonder how the hell he makes that one out.

It's simple, really, as Bill, or whoever knee-jerked the piece out so swiftly, explains. The front line defence against viruses is apparently a "continually evolving" computer operating system that encourages large numbers of software developers to write for it. But if Microsoft is split into two, there would be less innovation in the software, hence fewer developers, and ultimately less defence against viruses.

"Bill" also claims that subsequent to a breakup new, more virus-proof versions of Office and Windows would be "much harder for computer users to obtain."

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Tweak Town have updated their Windows 2000 Tweak Guide and here is a snippet of it:

Let me guess... You've upgraded from Microsoft Windows 95 to Microsoft Windows 98 and were cruising along just fine. Then you delved into the unknown and upgraded to Windows 2000 and your saying 'Windows 2000 is so slow compared to Windows 9x' - Ahh well you see... That's what we are here for, to help you increase the performance of your Windows 2000 Operating System (aka NT5), as what you were used too with Microsoft Windows 9x.

I'll explain the settings in a language that everyone can understand and apply, we won't be focusing a great deal on the networking side of things because I don't have much experience with that as yet. When I do find some network tweaks I'll add them.

Read more here.

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The first Release Candidate, RC0 Build 2525, of Windows Me (Millennium Edition) was released to beta testers a short bit ago. In a message to testers, Microsoft wrote, "Many sources have commented that this is already the highest quality 9x release there has ever been. Thank you for helping us reach this goal through your cooperation, dedication, and quality of feedback. We could not do this without you." BetaNews has received mixed feedback on the subject, with some Windows Me RC0 users touting perfection and others still finding it buggy. Nonetheless, Microsoft is ready to complete testing, stating "we believe we are extremely close to being finished - functionally speaking, what you see today is what we plan to go out to the world in a released product, and we are very interested in hearing your feedback on it." Windows Me is expected to hit RTM the week of June 12th. Testers, what do you think - is Windows Me ready for public scrutiny?

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Farms.com wants to help the agricultural world get wired. The site was created by founder Benjamin Zaitz to get farmers in touch with more buyers and to cut out the middleman by conducting real-time auctions of agricultural products and commodities. It's a system that takes full advantage of the Microsoft® Windows® DNA platform. The company needed a robust platform on which to build its auction service, and one that didn't require extensive resources. With Windows DNA, Farms.com was able to get its service online in just over four months and with just two developers.

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Microsoft is helping Onyx Software Corp. to deliver a comprehensive e-business solution.

Microsoft has announced support for the Onyx Front Office 2000 suite of e-business software products. Built on the Microsoft® Windows® DNA platform, Onyx Front Office is integrated with key Microsoft technologies. Onyx Front Office 2000 on the Windows DNA platform provides companies with tools for marketing, sales and service, and allows them to integrate traditional and online business processes. This combination of technologies is designed to allow organizations to more effectively sell and market products, as well as interact with customers at any time, in any place, in any currency or language.

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Software giant Microsoft has announced a three-year deal with Atmel Corporation, makers of non-volatile memory and RF semiconductors, to produce a secure Smart Card system. Using Microsoft's newly developed Windows for Smart Cards and Atmel's AT90SC AVR family of flash-based Smart Card ICs, the pair plans to make waves in the e-commerce pool and bring security to online transactions with the Smart Card.

In the deal, Microsoft will create development tools for implementation on the Atmel hardware. Tools will include a Visual Basic and Visual C++ application builders, a platform builder, custom module APIs, compilers, and a testing system for Smart Card certification. It will also include the ISO 7816 communications protocol and several payment systems amongst other things.

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MSXbox has received official word (and proof) that Microsoft is working hard on making an impressionable presence at E3. Let me cut to the chase and give yah the goods and a behind the scenes picture of the "X-Theater":