18th May, 1998
Microsoft vs the US Department Of Justice (DOJ)
The US DOJ and 20 US States have launched a historic law suit against the US software giant claiming it has engaged in various monopolistic and bullying practices to further it's own operating systems and software at the expense of it's competitors.
Did you realise Office 97 and Windows 95 are two different products? It seems some inexperienced users think Office 97 is their operating system, and don't even realise they are still running under Windows 95.
We are hearing more and more stories from users saying they feel they "have" to use Microsoft products because "that's all everyone is using". This is not true by the way, there are still alternatives ... for the moment. But perhaps the US DOJ has real reason to be concerned for the future of competition and free choice within the computer industry.
Zdnet's story at: http://www5.zdnet.com/zdnn/special/msvdoj.html

Yahoo! News have extensive coverage of the Antitrust Suits from various sources including United Press International, who quote US Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein quoting from Microsoft documents as saying "Microsoft first went to Netscape and proposed that, rather than compete with each other, the two companies should enter an illegal conspiracy to divide up the market." (but) When Netscape rejected that offer, Microsoft then used its Windows monopoly to, in Microsoft's words, 'cut off Netscape's air supply'.''
Yahoo's Microsoft Antitrust Suits Coverage is at: http://headlines.yahoo.com/Full_Coverage/Tech/Microsoft/

New iMac Internet "Computer for the rest of us"
Apple Computers has just announced an aggressive push back into the consumer hardware market with a new line up of fast G3 desktops, competitively priced Powerbooks (notebooks) and a cheap, fully self-contained, fully loaded "iMac". The iMac includes built-in modem, multimedia capablilities, internet software, CD-ROM and a 4Gb hard disk, etc etc - all ready to work straight out of the box for (approx) $1,299(US). (Australian pricing and availability as yet unknown. ed.)
Get the full story at: http://www.apple.com/

Editors note: IBM have also been working on a cheap java-based internet "terminal", web-TV is on the way, and a number of other cheap, non-PC based Internet access options are starting to surface. If you are concerned about the security of your business (or home) data on your internet connected PC (or Mac), one of these stand-alone cheap access solutions may be worth considering - ed. If you would like to see an article on these alternatives in a future newsletter please email the editor and quote "stand-alone cheap access solutions" in your subject line.

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You can erase your hard drive with FrontPage 98
Zdnet covers this story: "A confusing series of commands in Microsoft Corp.'s FrontPage 98 could cause users to delete their entire hard drive -- including the operating system -- although the company knows of only one person who's been affected so far."
Zdnet's story at: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/zdnn/0505/313529.html

The source of their story, BugNet, claim to be "the global authority on PC bugs and fixes." BugNet can be found at http://www.BugNet.com/
BugNets story on Frontpage can be found at http://www.BugNet.com/bugalert.html

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