Message-Id: <55206A473154D011924D0020AFF7ACB553CA3F@mail1.oulan.ou.edu>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 08:37:11 -0600
From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@ou.edu'" <it-fyi@ou.edu>
Subject: Edupage, 22 January 1998
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Edupage, 22 January 1998. Edupage, a summary of news about information
technology, is provided three times a week as a service by Educom, a
Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities
seeking to transform education through the use of information
technology.
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TOP STORIES
AOL Admits Mistake In Revealing Subscriber Information
Microsoft Avoids Contempt Citation
Prodigy Gets Out Of The Content Business
RCN Buys Erol's
ALSO
Microsoft Browser Strategy In Europe
Microsoft's Dominance
Lawyers Expecting To Profit From Year 2000 Problem
Sun Exec Rewarded With Promotion After Rejecting Apple's Courtship
AOL ADMITS MISTAKE IN REVEALING SUBSCRIBER INFORMATION
America Online has said it should not have revealed subscriber
information to a U.S. Navy investigator had not obtained a subpoena in
his investigation of a sailor (and AOL subscriber) charged with
violating the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rule governing gays in
the service (see Edupage 18 Jan 98). AOL also accuses the Navy of
deliberately violating Federal law and misleading the AOL employee who
tried to cooperate with it. (New York Times 22 Jan 98)
MICROSOFT AVOIDS CONTEMPT CITATION
Microsoft has agreed to offer PC manufacturers the latest version of its
Windows 95 software without requiring them also to install the company's
Internet Explorer software for browsing the Internet. This action
settles one part of a larger antitrust suit brought against Microsoft by
the U.S. Justice Department, and lets the company avoid a contempt of
court citation from U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. (AP 22
Jan 98)
PRODIGY GETS OUT OF THE CONTENT BUSINES
Prodigy has decided to terminate the activities of 50 staffers that
develop "content" for its information service, and instead to link its
users to the content of Excite, a Web directory and search engine.
Prodigy will now become more a pure Internet Service Provider, offering
connections to the Internet. (Wall Street Journal 22 Jan 98)
RCN BUYS EROL'S
Princeton, N.J.-based RCN Corporation, a phone and cable company, is
purchasing Erol's Internet Inc., the largest provider of Internet
service to subscribers in the Washington, D.C., area, for $83.5 million
in stock and cash. Acquisition of Erol's 300,000 customers will help
RCN in its plan to wire homes from Boston to Washington for alternative
phone, cable and Internet service. (Washington Post 22 Jan 98)
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MICROSOFT BROWSER STRATEGY IN EUROPE
Deflating the antitrust inquiry begun by the European Commission,
Microsoft has announced that contracts with European providers of
Internet services will be revised to drop Microsoft's requirements that
the service providers offer their customers the Microsoft Internet
Explorer browser as a condition for being listed in the Windows 95
operating system. Microsoft claims that the action is an independent
business decision, unrelated to the EC's antitrust inquiry. (New York
Times 22 Jan 98)
MICROSOFT'S DOMINANCE
A new survey of 300 corporate executives by Olsten Staffing Service
shows the extent of Microsoft's expanding dominance in the software
business. Since 1995, the percentage of survey respondents who used
Microsoft Word has grown from 43% to 80%, whereas the percentage using
rival product WordPerfect dropped from 61% to 21%. During the same
period, comparable statistics for spreadsheet, groupware, and
presentation graphics software were: Microsoft Excel rose from 44% to
79%, in contrast to Lotus 1-2-3's fall from 65% to 27%; Microsoft
Exchange rose from 19% to 32%, in contrast to the fall of Lotus Notes
from 49% to 31%; and Microsoft Powerpoint rose from 18% to 86%, in
contrast to Harvard Graphics' fall from 27% to 3%. Microsoft attributes
its success to its "consistency of delivering better products in the
marketplace," whereas critics of the company attribute it to the power
of "bundling" - packaging separate products into the software suite
called Microsoft Office. (USA Today 22 Jan 98)
LAWYERS EXPECTING TO PROFIT FROM YEAR 2000 PROBLEM
New Orleans attorney Peter Butler Jr., who specializes in year 2000
computer problems (arising from the inability of old software to know
which century a two-digit date code designates), says: "If there is a
problem caused to a business, somebody is going to be responsible for
that." But Heidi Hooper, an executive at the Information Technology
Association of America, says: "Obviously, when there is a hint of
anything, the lawyers come out. Why worry about suing now instead of
fixing the problem? People need to ask the questions and find out
whether they have a problem." (Washington Post 21 Jan 98)
SUN EXEC REWARDED WITH PROMOTION AFTER REJECTING APPLE'S COURTSHIP
Apparently as a reward for his decision not to pursue Apple's interest
in considering him for the position of permanent CEO, Sun executive
Edward J. Zander has been promoted to the position of Sun's chief
operating officer at Sun, where he will run the company's daily
operations and participate in the executive committee that develops
strategic planning for the company. (Wall Street Journal 22 Jan 98)
Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl@educom.edu) and Suzanne Douglas
(douglas@educom.edu). Telephone: 770-590-1017
Technical support for distributing Edupage is provided by Information
Technology Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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