• During the first nine months of 2000, Microsoft invested in or acquired 42 companies; at this rate, they will exceed the number of deals they made in 1999. Everywhere one looked in mid-2000, Microsoft was positioned to pounce, with a $17.8bn portfolio of equity investments in a variety of companies and $23.8bn in ready cash and marketable securities to enter new ventures.
• The company previewed its Xbox, a new video-game console that could be linked to the PC or to a television and aimed at supplanting Sony's PlayStation2.
• Microsoft pursued Rob Glaser's RealNetworks by integrating for free its Media Player software into Windows both for the desktop and for servers.
• Mr Gates chased Palm and its more than 80% market share by introducing a new version of its Pocket PC software for hardware manufacturers such as Casio, now offering such enticing features as colour, a web browser and the ability to play music or video clips.
• For the first time in years Microsoft saw MSN's subscribers grow at a faster pace than AOL's - doubling in 2000 - although by the autumn of 2000 AOL had 25m subscribers to MSN's mere 3m.
• In June, the company undertook a radical companywide restructuring during the course of the trial, shifting the company toward what it called "next generation Windows services", aiming to promote a seamless Windows platform on any device connected to the internet, integrating all services and applications.
• Microsoft continued its spending spree -spending more than $2bn on joint wireless ventures worldwide, billions on new wireless devices, and hundreds of millions on web-hosting companies that deliver software online.
• Microsoft made big bets on cable. In concert with John Malone's Liberty Media, Microsoft set out to construct a global cable empire. Overall, by September 2000, Microsoft had made more than $11bn in broadband investments worldwide - including a $3bn stake in Britain's Telewest and a $500m stake in NTL, England's third-largest cable operation and an 8% stake in UPC, Europe's largest cable broadband company, whose reach stretched over 12 countries.
