WinInsider

Microsoft on Tuesday released new versions of its personal finance package, including one that can be downloaded from the company's Web site. Money 2005 comes in four versions--premium, deluxe, standard and small business. The company noted that roughly 33 million U.S. households bank online and said it wants to reach them with its products, which enable consumers to access multiple accounts from one place. Users can download financial information from banks, brokerages and credit card companies.

Microsoft may make more large acquisitions than it has done historically and become a more distributed company as opposed to moving key employees to its Redmond, Washington, headquarters, Chief Financial Officer John Connors said Monday.

"I think there is a probability that we will do more large deals than we have done historically. There are not many SAPs out there, but there is the potential that we could do a few big ones, but not likely that big," Connors said. A big deal would be an acquisition valued over $1 billion dollars, Connors indicated.

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer each received total compensation of $901,667 in Microsoft's 2004 fiscal year, up 4.4 percent from $863,447 one year ago. Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, and Ballmer, the software maker's chief executive officer, each received a base salary of $591,667 and a $310,000 bonus for the 12-month period ended June 30, according to documents filed Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

In line with Microsoft policy, Gates and Ballmer did not receive any stock options or stocks. Both executives hold significant stakes in the company; Gates held 10.09 percent of Microsoft shares as of Sept. 10 and Ballmer held 3.78 percent, according to the filing. Gates has topped Forbes magazine's list of the world's richest people for several years.

Looking to get further into the storage business, Microsoft announced on Monday that it plans to enter the market for disk-based backup and recovery products.

The company, however, will be entering a segment of the storage market that is already crowded with such established players as Veritas Software. Analysts anticipate that Microsoft will focus on the low end of the market and later try to penetrate the high end, on which Veritas focuses.

Capping a two-year investigation into a sophisticated software piracy scheme, federal authorities yesterday announced charges against 11 people, including four from Washington state, in a case that included the seizure of more than $80 million in counterfeit Microsoft products.

The Redmond company called it the largest seizure of counterfeit goods in its history. Products purporting to come from Adobe Systems and Symantec Inc. also were seized in the case, bringing the total value to at least $87 million, according to federal authorities in Los Angeles, where the charges were filed.

Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, said yesterday its appeal against a European Union antitrust decision will benefit from the support of Airbus SAS, the biggest passenger-aircraft maker.

"The Airbus filing confirms that, as Microsoft has said all along, the negative effects of the commission decision will be felt well beyond the software industry," Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's top lawyer in Europe, said in response to Airbus' decision to back Microsoft's legal challenge against the EU.

Microsoft will allow governments around the world that use its software to have controlled access to the source code for its pervasive Microsoft Office 2003 desktop offerings for the first time.

The Redmond, Wash., software maker on Monday in Europe will detail how it is going to give access to the code, an expansion of the existing Government Security Program, or GSP, via a new Government Shared Source License for Office.

Despite the promise that Microsoft's Windows XP Service Pack 2 release will make PCs more secure, many businesses haven't even begun deploying it. One analyst warns that if companies don't pick up the pace of SP2 rollouts, they could face financial exposure if their computers are compromised without it.

Microsoft made SP2 available to business customers via download on Aug. 9, and by the end of the month, company officials said more than 1 million copies of the superpatch had been downloaded by businesses and many more by consumers.

Record labels and Microsoft are in discussions about ways that the next generation of the Windows operating system, code-named Longhorn, can support copy-protected CD technology.

The music labels, in large part led by top executives at EMI Group and coordinated through their U.S. and international trade associations, are creating a "wish list" of CD rights protection features they want to see provided or supported by Longhorn. Microsoft, in turn, has provided its own set of guidelines for the labels, without yet promising anything, sources familiar with the situation said.

As part of its efforts to combat software piracy, Microsoft is testing a new feature on its Download Center Web site that can lock out pirated copies of Windows. During the test period, users of Download Center can opt to have the Windows software installed on their PCs validated as genuine. If the operating system is a legitimate copy, users will get access to all Microsoft downloads. If not, they will be shown information on software piracy before they can download the software they selected.