Microsoft Corp. said Friday that a “significant portion” of people who use the company’s Hotmail e-mail system and other Internet-based products were having trouble using the services. The company said it was an internal problem rather than an attack on its system and that it hoped to have service restored Friday night. Microsoft said people were also having trouble using products such as MSN Messenger instant messaging program.
Goodrich Corp. will supply fuel gauges and related software for the Boeing Co.’s new 7E7 jet, the companies announced. The deal is worth up to $100 million to Goodrich over the life of the program. The system, consisting of fuel sensors, electronics, software, harnesses and the wing refueling panel, will be designed and manufactured by Goodrich’s Fuel &Utility Systems unit based in Vergennes, Vt.
Instead of profits, WorldCom should have reported combined loss of nearly $65 billion for 2000 and 2001, according to a long-awaited restatement of the renamed company’s tainted books that wipes away a vast accounting fraud and reflects the plunging value of its telecommunications assets. The financial restatement by MCI, totaling $74.4 billion in additional expenses for the two years, is likely the biggest in corporate history, surpassing a $54 billion writedown recorded by AOL Time Warner in April 2002 to reflect the declining value of the America Online business.
The deficit in the broadest measure of trade swelled to a record $541.8 billion in 2003, according to a government report that comes as trade and the loss of jobs have become major issues in the presidential campaign.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Friday it is critical for the country to supply adequate education and job training to all citizens in order to bolster eroding support for global trade. Speaking to a finance conference sponsored by Boston College, Greenspan delivered his latest plea to the country not to turn its back on the global economy, arguing that it would be a mistake to try to preserve U.S. jobs in threatened industries by erecting protectionist barriers. “Time and again throughout our history, we have discovered that attempting merely to preserve the comfortable features of the present, rather than reaching for new levels of prosperity, is a sure path to stagnation,” he said.
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