Fun_People Archive
24 Oct
Miscellaneous Industry News Clippings

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 97 03:44:29 -0700
To: Fun_People
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Subject: Miscellaneous Industry News Clippings

Forwarded-by: Brian Smith <bdws@Eskimo.com>
Forwarded-by: Karen D.
 <further forwards being assimilated>

Looks like Microsoft's been busy lately...


 WASHINGTON (Associated Press) - In a Rose Garden ceremony, President
 Clinton announced today that Microsoft has purchased 12 percent of the
 bridge to the 21st century. In what was called the first great metaphor
 merger, the bridge will connect to the information superhighway, and be
 traveled by a global workforce all over Spaceship Earth.

 Under preliminary arrangements, the bridge will be named after Clinton,
 but the toll booths will be operated by Microsoft.


 MOSCOW (AP) - In a joint statement with the Russian Federation, Microsoft
 announced today that it had purchased 8 percent of the MIR space station.
 Following Microsoft's recent purchase of 7 percent of Apple, its major
 competition on Earth, the move was seen as a pre-emptive expansion into a
 spacious new market.

 The plan includes a major upgrade for the space station, whose crew will
 now have the capacity to go onto the Internet and order pizza.  The next
 mission will also begin experiments toward developing the long-awaited
 zero-gravity spreadsheet.

 In a post-announcement ceremony, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and
 Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates stood on the Kremlin wall and reviewed a
 dress parade of Russian paratroopers and Microsoft programmers - a combined
 corps know as Generation Nyet. After the parade, Gates bought the Kremlin,
 which he plans to have reassembled next to this new house on Lake
 Washington.


 NEW YORK (Reuters) - In a press conference covered live over ESPN,
 Microsoft Inc., of Redmond, Wash., announced that it had resolved
 baseball's long-standing management problems by buying all 30 major-league
 teams. At an average price of $184 million - with a discount on the
 Pittsburgh Pirates - the total came to about five weeks' increase in the
 value of Microsoft Stock.

 In all major league parks, the change in ownership will be celebrated in
 a national promotion, Pocket Protector Night.  As the first Microsoft
 effort to revitalize the sport, bases will now be referred to as 1.0, 2.0,
 3.0 and homepage.

 In a possibly related development, the commissioner of baseball announced
 today that from now on, all players had to wear glasses.


 BRUSSELS (UPI) - Secretary General Javier Solana declared today that
 Microsoft is acquiring 12.5 percent of NATO. The Redmond, Wash.,
 corporation declined an offer to join Poland, Hungary and the Czech
 Republic as a new member of the organization, preferring to take an equity
 position in the military alliance.

 As part of the agreement, the organization will be renamed NATO '95, and
 the hot line will be replaced by a Microsoft tech support phone number.
 Principals declined to comment on a rumored new NATO strategy for peace in
 Bosnia - providing all sides with high-tech weaponry but having Microsoft
 write the users' manuals.




 HEARTLAND, USA (Reuters) - In a transaction unlike any that brokers could
 remember, Microsoft today purchased 16.4 percent of the American Dream.

 Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, speaking as a projected image that covered
 the entire state of Indiana, noted that while scientists thought most
 people dreamed in black and white, Microsoft now had the capacity to
 colorize the process, as well as include special effects and to allow
 Americans to click onto a wide range of pre-tested Microsoft dream options.

 The deal also gives Microsoft an option on the new Great American Novel.


 Projected title: Moby DOS.

 MARS (UPI) - According to computer data received in Houston this morning,
 the Pathfinder exploration craft has entered into a joint operating
 agreement with Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash. The Pathfinder message revealed
 that in exchange for planting a small flag claiming the entire planet for
 Microsoft,  it had received a package of stock options, retirement-planning
 software and the promise of a place at Gates' home on Lake Washington.

 A NASA spokesman in Houston insisted that the exploration craft itself had
 no authority to make such an alliance on its own, and charged that
 Microsoft was using its overwhelming control of software to intervene in
 NASA arrangements and to QZ--!!,ksepro34jwh20349j
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