MICROSOFT ANSWERS ORDER WITH OLD VERSION.

Byline: Rory J. O'Connor Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

To comply with a federal judge's order in an antitrust dispute, Microsoft Corp. said Monday it would offer two new versions of its Windows 95 operating system - one that wouldn't work and another that is very old.

Even some of the company's supporters suggested that the strategy could well backfire by angering the judge and consumers and spurring the Justice Department to take even tougher action.

Microsoft insisted it was responding to the order compelling the company to remove all files associated with its Explorer Internet browser from Windows 95 in a manner that made technical and ``business sense.''

``This is an order that requires Microsoft to comply with a preliminary injunction immediately,'' said William H. Neukom, vice president of law and corporate affairs for the company. ``If there's second-guessing about what we have done, we can't stop the second-guessing.''

Some industry experts were skeptical.

``It sounds as if they're being disingenuous,'' said industry expert Esther Dyson, who publishes the Release 1.0 newsletter in New York. ``It sounds like they're creating an arguing position, not something that's useful for customers.''

Opponents of the company's marketing tactics called the decision another example of corporate arrogance that makes the Justice Department's antitrust actions against Microsoft even more justified.

``They've had the sort of foresight to tell the federal judge seated on their case he's both incompetent and stupid at the same time,'' said Jamie Love, director of the Consumer Project on Technology, a Ralph Nader-led group.

The company announced the alternatives at the same time it filed an appeal of the order, issued last week by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. In his 19-page order, Jackson told Microsoft to stop forcing computer-makers to license Internet Explorer as a condition of obtaining the Windows 95 operating system.