WinInsider

This week, Microsoft's chairman and founder Bill Gates made it abundantly clear to anyone paying attention that the world's biggest software manufacturer won't roll over in its struggle with government antitrust lawyers. And he also demonstrated that the company is returning to its bare-knuckled ways when dealing with competitors. But this reappearance of Microsoft the Merciless comes at a somewhat dicey time for the Redmond, Wash., powerhouse.

Here is a picture for you all of the RC 1 CD that came with the Windows XP Preview Program. Enjoy!

Microsoft Corp. today announced the general availability of Microsoft® Operations Manager 2000 (MOM), the first version of a comprehensive operations management solution for Windows® 2000-based servers and Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers. Based on customer demand, Microsoft Operations Manager is the latest management offering that builds on Microsoft's continued investment in bringing the most advanced end-to-end management solutions for businesses' Windows environments.

Dell Computer reaffirmed its previous earnings outlook for the second quarter Thursday, ahead of its annual meeting with shareholders.

Dell expects to see sales at around $7.6 billion, with earnings of about 16 cents per share, excluding a previously announced charge. The company now expects that charge, which is related to job cuts, consolidations and writing down certain assets, to be around $700 million.

Microsoft Corp., in a move signaling closer ties with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., has signed a deal to build an upgraded version of its UltimateTV interactive-television technology with Mr. Murdoch's international satellite-broadcasting network.

The agreement, announced inside Microsoft this week in an e-mail message sent to employees, indicates that Microsoft hopes to expand aggressively UltimateTV to foreign markets in coming years, despite a rather lackluster response to the fledgling service so far in the U.S.

Microsoft has just unleashed the first interim beta build 3505 (after the massive Beta 2 release) of Windows .NET to several testers. Windows .NET is the brand new name, Microsoft has chosen, to distinguish its operating system dedicated to Servers. From now on Windows 2002 Server Edition (also known as Whistler or Windows XP for servers) will be called officially Windows .NET. This release will be the first incarnation of the Microsoft .NET strategy.

Microsoft on Wednesday petitioned an appeals court to rehear part of its antitrust case. The Redmond, Wash.-based company asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to readdress the finding that combining the Internet Explorer Web browser with Microsoft's Windows operating system violated antitrust law.

"Through this petition we are making a good-faith attempt to seek clarification on the issue of commingling," the company said in a statement. "This issue is important not only to Microsoft, but the industry as a whole, so we are asking for the court's guidance on this matter."

Sun Microsystems said it is "disappointed" by Microsoft's decision to not include Java software in its Windows XP and Internet Explorer products, although analysts said the move could help Sun in the long run. On the surface, removing Java from Windows XP looks like a blow to Sun, cutting off an important distribution channel for Java. But Microsoft's practice of shipping outdated copies of the software has slowed the distribution of more recent and faster versions of Java, analysts said, and has hurt the software's reputation.

Microsoft said Wednesday it will ease up on planned antipiracy measures in its upcoming Windows XP operating system amid fire from critics who say the measures will needlessly hassle innocent users. The change centers on a new feature called Windows Product Activation that asks for a unique code when first using the product, effectively tying the software to a single machine. Intended to prevent users from installing the software on more than one computer, the feature in essence takes a snapshot of hardware components in a user's computer.

The company said it filed the re-hearing request with the appeals court because it believes the ruling was based on "clearly erroneous'' findings of a lower court judge. "Microsoft respectfully submits that critical evidence was overlooked -- or misinterpreted -- on the technical question of whether Microsoft "commingled" software code specific to Web browsing with software code used for other purposes in certain files in Windows 98,'' the company said in its filing. The motion comes only days after the Justice Department and the 18 states behind the case filed a motion asking the appeals court to expedite the case back to the U.S. District Court ahead of schedule.