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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bridge Player who wrote (29803)	8/21/1999 9:22:00 PM
From: Brian K Crawford	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

can someone who is more accounting-oriented than I am, please explain why the gorilla is expected to report, for fiscal year ended June 2000, $.62 eps fully diluted (according to consensus estimates), up just $.02 from the $.60 fully diluted and including all extraordinary income and charges reported for fiscal year ended June 1999? FYE 6/1999 includes the gain from sale of Excite holdings, some $567 million.

To: Bridge Player who wrote (29803)	8/21/1999 9:51:00 PM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 41369

Investor's business daily for Monday talks about AOL Europe taking hold....new service called Netscape Online to attract mainly young single men who don't want to pay for premium services. Also,column by Doug Tsuruoka called" more signups up the pressure on AOL"....goes on to say that AOL has over 18million subscribers as a result of improved network,increased marketing and became the haven for all the nontechies as well as techies looking for an easy place to enter the internet. AOL president Pittman said they are hitting on all cylinders....business has never been better.ML predicts AOL to have 42% of US internet service provider market by year's end....MSFT and WCOM only will have 6%!......don't despair ...our day will come again! Charges, Countercharges Point To Security Flaws By Lee Copeland Redmond, Wash. 3:28 PM EST Fri., Aug. 20, 1999 Bad blood continues to flow between Microsoft Corp. and America Online Inc., as security flaws in both companies' instant-messaging systems come to light. In an effort to gain access to AOL's subscribers, Microsoft appears to have cracked AOL's code, which heretofore prevented MSN Messenger users from sending instant messages to the AOL network. Microsoft programmers recently discovered a means to connect to AOL Instant Messenger service, said Richard Smith, a security expert and president of Phar Lap Software Inc., Cambridge, Mass. "Microsoft found out that AOL uses a buffer overflow area to detect the difference from Microsoft clients and AOL clients," he said. "That code executes because of a buffer overflow error. Microsoft figured it out last week and can recognize the packet." Microsoft has since updated its client software so users can access AOL instant messaging. Microsoft executives could not be reached for comment. For the past few weeks, AOL, Dulles, Va., has blocked MSN users from accessing its Instant Messenger service. Microsoft wanted to offer connections between the two instant-messaging services, when it launched the service last month. AOL said it has 18 million subscribers and 28 million registered instant-messaging users; Microsoft MSN has only 1.3 million members. Privacy breeches may result from the executable-code capabilities of the buffer overflow on AOL clients, Smith said. "This is a serious bug that needs to get fixed. It could allow AOL to poke around on users' computers," he said. "AOL could cause systems to crash because it's hard to use buffer overflow. They are using it right now to figure out if it's their client software, but they could change the code and do other things." In related news, Microsoft also faces newly discovered security breeches in its on MSN Messenger that exposes HotMail passwords and user names. If someone types in a certain set of keystrokes, passwords become visible. Microsoft executives said a bug fix would be available soon. Earlier this week, Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft said it plans to publish its instant-messaging specifications for MSN Messenger and hopes AOL will do the same. "It's a big step, but one that Microsoft had to take for its demands on AOL to be credible," said Mark Levitt, an industry analyst at International Data Corp., Framingham, Mass. "They are committed to interoperability, and in order for that commitment to move forward, they need products on market to use their protocols," he said. Representatives of the International Engineering Task Force (IETF), which oversees ratification of new protocols, said a decision on an instant-messaging protocol is still far off. Keith Moore, researcher at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and the Area Director for Applications with the IETF, lauded Microsoft's effort but questioned how effective it will be in establishing a protocol. "We're happy to have a contribution from Microsoft, but just because Microsoft or AOL has submitted a specification doesn't mean the standard will be based on it," Moore said. Once a secure, scalable and wireless protocol exists, instant-messaging usage in business, academic and consumer markets should take off, Moore said. At that point, two-way pagers and personal digital assistants would be able to take advantage of the technology, he said. AOL executives said they plan to work with the IETF.