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Microsoft Corp. today announced the release of the newest version of its personal finance software, Microsoft Money 2001 Deluxe. Many enhancements in this release of the product are based on contributions from American Express, which has been providing financial planning expertise for Microsoft Money since 1998. Money 2001 Deluxe is the third release of the product to which American Express has contributed. Money 2001 is available right now in three different editions: Standard, Deluxe, Deluxe & Business that cover all the users finance needs. Many new features were added to Money, making it the ultimate personal finance management software. Here are the top 10  new features included in the Deluxe Edition of Money 2001 priced at $64,95:

• Priorities: New Money Setup Assistant feature lets you choose the financial areas and goals you want to focus on. Based on these priorities, Money tailors your experience to your needs.
• Feedback pane: Real-time feedback in the Account Register provides essential information to help monitor financial health, watch for financial opportunities and pitfalls, and do common tasks related to account and bills management.
• Budget maintenance: Budget reallocation adjusts for financial changes or over- or under-spending. "Balance" overspending in one category by adjusting amounts in other categories or time periods.
• Cash Flow Review: Cash flow projected based on forecasted bills and historical data from your Money file. Money analyzes past transactions to estimate cash flow even if you have not set up bills or created a budget.
• 401(k) Manager: Creating and updating 401(k) and 403(b) accounts in Money is now simplified. Now you can download statements from participating plan providers, eliminating manual data entry.
• Asset Allocation: Step-by-step wizard helps you learn about asset allocation and determine the best allocation for your portfolio and short- and long-term financial goals.
• Tax Withholding Estimator: New Estimator helps determine the appropriate withholding amount for your particular situation and how many withholding exemptions you should claim.
• Integration with Kiplinger TaxCut: Full integration with Kiplinger TaxCut lets you review or update your tax-related data and import the data directly into TaxCut tax preparation software.
• Home Valuation: HomeAdvisorTM online real estate service provides quick access to home valuation data.
• Baseline Plan Comparison: Baseline Plan Comparison chart lets you see how your Lifetime Plan has changed over time, identify patterns, and see how changes affect your plan.

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Tomorrow, Aug. 15, at 10 a.m. from its Atlanta Office of the Special Agent in Charge, the U.S. Customs Service will announce criminal action against two Georgia-based businesses for the alleged distribution of counterfeit Microsoft® software. Customs will also display a large sampling of the counterfeit software seized from the two companies. A Microsoft corporate attorney will be present to talk about the impact of software piracy in Georgia and to announce the launch of a new statewide campaign by Microsoft intended to thwart piracy in the local area through consumer education and increased investigations and enforcement against illegal suppliers.

In Georgia, the current piracy rate is nearly 26 percent, an increase from 24 percent in 1998. This means that more than one in four copies of software are pirated. In 1999 alone, the state lost more than $206 million in taxes and wages due to software piracy. Consumers who acquire counterfeit products have an increased potential for obtaining viruses, often find that their software is missing key elements, and are ineligible for valuable technical support, warranty protection and upgrades.

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Continuing its commitment to partners and customers, Microsoft Corp. today announced broad support for Microsoft® BizTalk™ Server 2000 from leading application vendors and consulting partners such as Nortel Networks, Compaq Global services, Clarus corp., Navision software, Onyx software, etc. BizTalk Server 2000 is a comprehensive, open and standards-based platform upon which partners can develop e-business integration solutions.

BizTalk Server 2000 will unite, in a single product, business process orchestration, secure and reliable delivery, routing and transformation of business documents, as well as development tools and application adapters to a wide range of applications. Microsoft is working with a variety of partner organizations to provide complementary product and service offerings to enable e-business integration solutions for customers. Concurrent with the broad availability of BizTalk Server 2000 beta, Microsoft is pleased to announce significant and building support from leading application vendors and consulting partners toward building and deploying e-business integration solutions for customers.

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With the rise of the digital economy and the advent of fantastic new technologies for sharing and processing information has come the promise of entirely new ways of doing business. The vision: seamless electronic networks that allow companies to manage the exchange of goods, services, and market intelligence automatically, not only within their own organization, but across their entire value chain of partners and suppliers. The result: a new kind of commerce characterized by once-unimaginable efficiency and transaction costs approaching zero.

So far at least, the reality has failed to live up to the promise. The combination of faster, more powerful computers and the Internet has, of course, led to new opportunities for business through increased efficiency, greater speed, and the possibility of global reach. But the new technology has also introduced unprecedented challenges. The complexity and cost of sharing data over proprietary and private networks and across often-incompatible applications has made the kind of friction-free commerce businesses have long envisioned almost unachievable.

That is about to change. A new product from Microsoft is about to deliver on this promise for companies of all sizes. Called Microsoft BizTalk Server 2000, and now available in beta release, it offers the tools and infrastructure needed to allow e-commerce business communities to integrate, manage, and automate business processes across boundaries that once seemed insurmountable.

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Imagine a classroom that's missing the one element long considered fundamental to reading, writing and arithmetic -- paper. No notebooks, no textbooks, no photocopied quiz sheets or wide-ruled tablets. Nor are there pencils, pencil sharpeners, paper clips or ink pens that seem to run out of ink at the critical moment. It's just such a vision that has driven and inspired middle-school teacher Stephanie Sorrell, who teaches language arts to seventh and eighth graders in the Eminence Independent Schools in Eminence, Ky.

"You have to learn to dig in and not be frightened by technology," says Sorrell, 25, who is starting her fourth year of teaching. "The year before we started this project, we worked out of three-ring binders. Then we took our projects and moved them to personal digital assistants [PDAs], which eliminated the need for paper."

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