From the Spotlicht front page. www.spotlicht.org

Microsoft is incurring massive losses and only by "accounting illusions" is it able to show a profit. What would happen to Microsoft's stock price if the public suddenly realized that the Firm LOST $10 Billion in 1999, rather than EARNING the reported $7.8 Billion?

Microsoft has more than 6 Billion shares outstanding. A drop of only one dollar in the Microsoft stock price drops that market value by 6 Billion dollars. When Stockholders discover Microsoft's fraud, there will be a massive selling of the stock, setting off a Stockmarket crash!

-- Market watcher (marketw@tcher.com), March 23, 2000

Answers

spotlicht.org doesn't work

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 23, 2000.

Buddy,

It's http://www.spotlight.org/

-- Flash (flash@flash.hq), March 23, 2000.

--try www.spotlight.org

M'soft is bankrupt in more ways than simply financial. That happens when you become not just the big gorilla on the block but the ONLY gorilla. The creativity of the late 70's and early 80's was squashed by this gorilla and the results are increasingly evident. I know where I don't "want to go today."

-- PhoeeyOn (M'softTheBig@Gorilla.com), March 23, 2000.

A highly questionable source of information, in my opinion.

Here's another story by spotlight.org:

ht tp://www.spotlight.org/03_04_00/Chemtrails/chemtrails.html

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 23, 2000.

Speaking of Microsoft, I hate Windows 95, Word 97, etc., I would like software that is just a simple writing program--for instance text for articles with out all the whistles, bells, burps, and talking paperclips that Microsoft has. Does anyone have any suggestions? Sure would appreciate any help.

I came from an old DOS computer to Microsoft and it has been difficult.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), March 23, 2000.

Yes, if they changed the accounting rules, MS would be broke. So would a lot of other companies. What is the point of such speculations? They see a loophole allowing them to pay their employees with stock options instead of money, and they took it.

Gilda, try using just WordPad. I use it for a lot of minor stuff.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), March 23, 2000.

Gilda:

I am using a word processing program by MicroVision, Word Express 2.02. It is compatible with Windows 95 and 98. I really like it. I do not have a Microsoft word processing program on my computer. MicroVision has a web site and they have good technical support.

-- Nadine Zint (nadine@hillsboro.net), March 23, 2000.

Gilda, by an iMac. They are wonderful! Mac had Windows 89, before Microsoft even thought about Windows 95.

-- ... (...@...com), March 23, 2000.

Yes, Microsoft is bankrupt. It's pretty complicated the way these things happen. Billy boy took all the profits and put it in his bank, so the company has none in theirs.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), March 23, 2000.

No, Microsoft is bankrupt because they spent all their money on Y2K remediation, not just for themselves, but for all of their hardware and software partners in order to prop up the entire computer industry. Then they had to spend more money to remediate all of their competition, lest they be accused of monopolistic practices. Finally, they took care of all the third world countries that supposedly did no remediation so that all would be well on Jan 1. They managed to get just about all of it done, only missing a few oil wells and some chips in a couple of MD-80 series airplanes. No big deal.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), March 23, 2000.

If Microsoft EVER goes bankrupt, it certainly won't be because *I* didn't help them stay solvent. I hardly have any software that ISN'T microsoft's.

Yes, Gilda...definitely use Word Pad for non-formal needs. You can even save it into a Word document if you like.

No doubt the other editors are fine, but when a client wants to see my resume, he/she expects it in WORD...NOT Wordperfect, or anything else...JUST WORD. Of course this assumes you E-mail your resume. Once in place, resumes are rarely updated, and updating is quite easy.

Contrary to what others have said, I've had Microsoft software running on my machine for 4 years without one hitch. I never had to reboot due to the software, and I've oftentimes used the machine 12 hours or more straight for telecommuting to a client's site.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 23, 2000.

Anita

As long as you keep an MS OS away from any kind of complex networking environment, it will be fairly stable. Put the darn stuff on a network, and weird things begin to happen.

NEVER run Novell Client32 unless you absolutely have to. It simply cannot be removed completely from the system. You will wind up reformatting that machine to get rid of it.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), March 24, 2000.

A lot of it too seems to do with questions like - where did you get the computer? Who installed the operating system and the programs? Did they include the latest patches for the programs (important with Office 97!) and for Windows? Latest drivers? Was it a clean install or an upgrade to a previous OS (usually a formula for disaster) What type of hardware is it - generic clone, poor quality or good quality? or proprietary? No-name clones from a trusted builder (or build it yourself) seem to be best. The worst problems I've seen with Windows 9X are on machines with proprietary hardware such * NEC/Packard Bell * - nightmare city. Or any machine with AOL installed. :^)

WordPad is great for lots of basic tasks! A minor nit about it is you can't have more than one doc open at the same time.

Often MS products can be a dream and wonderfully stable. What sometimes seems to happen is that once they start going downhill for whatever reason, it snowballs because you have GPFs, rebooting without proper shutdown, file corruption and eventually a fine mess.

What do you want to reinstall today?

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), March 24, 2000.