Stories by: Dominic Gates

The resignation of top Microsoft exec Paul Maritz is a psychological blow to the software giant. For the technical people on the Redmond campus, only Bill Gates has a higher status within the company. Maritz's is the most serious in a now lengthy line of executive departures.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) announced details Thursday on a beta version of the latest rendition of its MSN service, which on final release this fall would be distributed via Internet downloads and free CD-ROMs. Driven by a renewed push to win customers from AOL, the new service is expressly targeted at beginning Internet users. An MSN Internet access subscription will not be a prerequisite for the service - it will be available to anyone.

Now appearing on department-store shelves, between the blenders and the microwaves, is a new class of device known as Web appliances. They range from clunky, Jetsons-esque machines to cool, futuristic tablets. One, designed for the kitchen, combines a TV, Web browser, DVD player and baby monitor, so that parents can cook, Net-surf, watch movies and keep an ear for Junior at the same time. The variety of these new devices is testament both to human ingenuity and to wishful thinking.

Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. Monday announced a partnership to deliver electronic books online. Amazon plans to open an online e-book store, offering consumers the chance to buy and download paperless books using a customized version of the Microsoft Reader e-book format. After years of maintaining a strangely distant relationship, the two Seattle-area companies are finally doing business together.

Under pressure from the European Commission in Brussels, Microsoft Corp. has agreed to limit itself to a minority interest in British broadband cable company Telewest PLC.

Deepak Amin spent 6 years at Microsoft Corp. in the '90s. As a lead engineer on Windows 95 and first senior engineer on the team that developed the Internet Explorer browser, he was at the epicenter of the competition to beat Netscape, the battle at the heart of the Department of Justice's successful antitrust case.

Slammed in a court brief for the proprietary way it implements the Kerberos Web security standard in Windows 2000, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) moved to reassure customers and disarm critics by publishing the formerly secret details of its version of Kerberos - just one day before the brief was filed.

Slammed in a court brief for the proprietary way it implements the Kerberos Web security standard in Windows 2000, Microsoft Corp. has moved to reassure customers and disarm critics by publishing the formerly secret details of its version of Kerberos -- just one day before the brief was filed.

In November 1998, RealNames Corp. CEO Keith Teare planned to have Microsoft and Netscape announce on the same day that they would be integrating his company's technology into their Web browsers.