Microsoft Enters Pie Business

(Redmond, WA) Microsoft, Inc. has announced that it will start packaging
cream pies with every copy of their Windows 95 (TM) operating system.

Microsoft officials deny that this is in response to the pie-in-the-face
incident last week in Belgium where Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, the
richest man in the world, was pelted in the face with three cream pies.


``We had always planned on entering the cream pie business.  The incident
in Brussels just pointed out to us how vital the business is and moved up
the schedule slightly.''

Meanwhile, officials at Sarah Lee dismissed these claims. ``Microsoft was
totally unaware of the pie business until it hit them in the face.  The
move to give away pies with Windows 95 is a clear attempt to use their
monopoly power in the operating system world to drive out competition in a
new area.''

Indeed, stories are emerging from computer software retailers of new
requirements that the Windows 95 product be housed in a freezer section.
``This is ridiculous!  We don't have any of that equipment!'' said a
retailer who asked that his name not be used for fear of retaliation by
Microsoft. ``Most of our customers live on cookies, chips, and sodas which
don't require that kind of elaborate storage,'' i.e. a fridge.

The move has also piqued the interest of the Justice Department's anti-
trust division, which filed briefs in Federal Court demanding that Microsoft
make available a version of Windows 95 without the pie.  Lawyers for
Microsoft claimed that, ``The pie is integral to to operating system now. It
is impossible to remove it without giving the customer a version of Windows
that won't run.''  But Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson seemed skeptical as he
opened a box containing the Windows 95 operating system and slid out the
pie.  In what seemed to be a direct challenge to Microsoft, he ordered the
pie sliced up and served to observers in the court while he used the CD-ROM
to install Windows 95 on his lap top computer.

Attorneys for Microsoft tried to put the best spin on the events stating
outside the court, ``We think it is now obvious to the judge and to the
court observers that Microsoft is making a quality pie product.''  They
also tried to point out that any separation of the pie from the OS would
soon be moot, since ``We intend to fully integrate Windows 98 and the pie
by making the OS CD-ROM part of the pie pan.''