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Microsoft promotes multiple machines, Wi-Fi gateway discount for MSN Broadband: In what could only be termed a pro-consumer bundle, Microsoft is offering 20 percent off its reasonably priced home wireless gateways when purchased as part of a subscription to MSN Broadband, their high-speed partnered Internet service that costs $40 to $50 per month, depending on location. MSN seems to be promoting the notion that any number of computers could be connected for no additional charge, and promoting adoption of their gateway by discounting it to $120.
Here's where I have to wonder, as always, if Microsoft's OS bias winds up blinding them to real profit. Their Macintosh Business Unit has made the company a small fortune in adapting hardware (mice and keyboards) and writing software (from-the-ground-up Office) for Mac users. The wireless gateway from Microsoft is another excellent opportunity for Microsoft to get Mac customers: the $150 list price device has most of the features that Apple's stubbornly $300 AirPort Base Station includes. (If you're a dial-up Internet user, the AirPort Base Station is a better choice unless you look at the Agere (now Proxim) residential gateway with built-in modem, which is more or less a $150 version of the AirPort Base Station.)
The MacBU has already announced that MSN 8 will be coming to the Mac, written from the ground up for OS X, sometime in 2003. Bundle that software with a custom Mac front-end (or just a nice, working Web interface), and the company could suck many AOL users away, as well as pick up more broadband customers.
802.11g's ratification process spelled out: A brief article that re-emphasizes the fact that the final version of 802.11g is still many moons away from ratification as a full IEEE standard. That won't stop folks from burning silicon, but it might cause buyers to hesitate from getting gear that calls itself 802.11g compatible before such a thing exists. The final version of 802.11g is unlikely to change in the last few months before ratification, but it's not unheard of. [via the unblinking eye of Alan Reiter]
Portable, sustainable wireless networking: At a celebration of sustainable existence and other laudable goals in England, a wireless network with a satellite network was run through solar power -- and a lot of excellent kludges. [via Adam Engst of TidBITS]
Chaos Manor gets unwired: Jerry Pournelle's writes with his usual combination of wit and technical detail about an above-average user's attempt to get a Cisco system running. It almost works, a rarity in Chaos Manor (usually things fail with clouds of smoke and items flying about), and the culprit turns out to be the authentication controller. [via the unsleeping gaze of Alan Reiter]