Microsoft

Two longtime partners in personal computing, Microsoft and Compaq, have agreed to a partnership that will put them in the forefront of emerging markets for hand-held, pen-based, voice-controlled and "plug-and-play" devices.The pact represents Microsoft's most extensive agreement with a hardware manufacturer since its 12-year-old partnership with IBM dissolved last year. It also gives the No. 1 software maker a strategic means of answering Apple Computer's Newton and the AT&T-backed EO, pen-based personal communicators and information managers.

For a while, it looked like the White Hats and the the Black Hats might settle without a shootout. But now it seems likely that a posse of government lawyers and attorneys general will try to hogtie the Microsoft Gang with the biggest antitrust lawsuit since Teddy Roosevelt went after the Northern Securities railroad tycoons in 1902.After talks with the Justice Department broke down over the weekend, Microsoft appeared ready to go ahead with plans to release Windows 98 to PC manufacturers today.

It's almost like a greeting from an old friend. You start up your computer, log on to the Internet, and up pops a little gray box: "Microsoft Critical Update Notification: New critical updates are available for your computer. Microsoft strongly suggests that you install these updates now." When you click the "View Updates" button, you're whisked to Microsoft's Web site, where you can download a fix for the latest Windows security flub. I've seen plenty of these warnings lately. Last week, it was a fix for a critical security flaw that threatened my "Digital Certificates," whatever they are. The week before it was yet another security bug in Internet Explorer that could allow a hacker to take over my computer, and before that, a flaw in Office XP that could allow a script kiddie in Kazakhstan to burn down my house by remote control, or something like that.

LAS VEGAS -- Microsoft Corp. introduced its long-awaited Access data base management program here last week, filling one of the last major gaps in the software giant's product line.In a bold attempt to pre-empt its probable main rival (the Windows version of Borland International Inc.'s popular Paradox program, not expected until early next year), Microsoft will sell Access for $99 until Jan. 31, 1993, when the list price of $695 will take effect.As a relative newcomer to the data base arena, Microsoft is essentially giving away Access in order to gain a share of the market now in the possession of Borland's Paradox and other more expensive data base programs, like Oracle.

Microsoft engineers will detail new security approaches in Windows Vista at an important technology conference in Las Vegas this week. But when it comes to grabbing attention, it won't be easy for them to top another session at the conference. Its title: "Subverting Vista Kernel For Fun And Profit." No, this is not your ordinary industry conference. In a first for Microsoft Corp., it will give a presentation at the Black Hat Briefings - an annual gathering in Las Vegas where hackers, researchers, government officials and corporate technology specialists unveil and analyze emerging computer security threats.

Next year, when you think of Chicago, you may not be thinking about Pizzeria Uno's deep-dish pizza, Mrs. O'Leary's destructive cow or Wrigley's bumbling Cubs.By that point, the Microsoft Corp. may have succeeded in persuading you that Chicago, the code name for the coming new version of Windows, is something you can't live without.Just last month, Microsoft kicked off a massive testing cycle aimed at hammering out the bugs, adding additional features here and there and making critical compatibility tweaks, all with the hope that it might deliver a finished product to customers before the end of the year.

THE MICROSOFT CORP. has long contributed to the electronic drain on America's productivity with games such as "Flight Simulator," "Solitaire," "Minesweeper," "Powerpoint" and "Windows Reboot."Its newest entry is "Microsoft Entertainment Pack: The Puzzle Collection," a project developed largely in Russia and overseen by Alexey Pajitnov, the Moscow-born designer of the infuriatingly addictive "Tetris." He works for Microsoft.The pack, on a CD-ROM, costs about $35; it is designed for Windows 95 computers with a 486/66 processor or better and can be installed to run entirely from your hard disk if you are willing to sacrifice about 30 megabytes of it.The nine games on the disk all demand strategic thinking.

TAKE COVER! THE paradigms are shifting again. Last year it was the $500 Internet computer, which was supposed to transmogrify the computing universe. Heralded as a bolt of inspiration from the computer gods on Mount Silicon, the $500 networked PC is likely to arrive not because of some profound paradigm shift, but rather simply because computers are getting cheaper all the time.Now comes the Microsoft Corp., trumpeting another paradigm shift. Microsoft says the software that people have used for the last 20 years is old-fashioned and will have to have its paradigms replaced later this fall.

CHICAGO - Bill Gates did not intend to provide us with a national civics lesson when he appealed the order splitting up Microsoft; he just wanted to save his company. Mr. Gates would have been happy with any judgment that reversed Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's decision to divide Microsoft in two. Still, there must have been particular rejoicing in the Microsoft boardroom when the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., threw out the breakup order - if only temporarily - and rebuked Judge Jackson for judicial misconduct that was "deliberate, repeated, egregious, and flagrant."

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks slid yesterday as Microsoft Corp. shares plunged and the price of gold soared to a three-year high.The Dow Jones industrial average closed 27.95 points lower, at 3,539.47, as computer-guided sell orders hit the market. Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co., AlliedSignal Inc. and Walt Disney Co., all of which reported second-quarter earnings in the past two days, led the decline."This still is a market that takes no prisoners and is very unforgiving" of companies that fail to match expectations, said Alfred Goldman, director of technical research at A. G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis.