Type of Article: MacMinute Web Site

Microsoft today announced that it would bundle Word and Excel 2001 for US$149 as part of an “SE” package due to ship this July, according to MacCentral. There’s no word on whether customers who purchase the package will be eligible for a discount for the Carbonized version, due this fall. Microsoft has been running a promotion of Office 2001 that offers a $50 rebate as well as half-of the upgrade to the Carbonized version.

MCE has begun shipping its Xcaret Pro Expansion Hard Drive with IBM’s new 5400 RPM 48GB Drive. The expansion bay is available for Bronze (Lombard) and FireWire (Pismo) PowerBook’s for US$799. A different module is available to accommodate the original PowerBook G3 series (Wallstreet) for the same price.

An eWeek TARGET=”_top”>article offers commentary from analysts on Apple’s retail store strategy, including the benefits they present and the struggles they face. According to one analyst, Apple will need to maintain a gross margin of at least 25 percent to profit from the stores. Apple has said it expects margins for the next quarter to come in between 26 and 27 percent, where it typically likes to see margins.

MacMinute reader Scott Stevenson pointed out this Tech Info Library article, which explains that support for symmetric multiprocessing is disabled under Mac OS X Server when the Network File System Service is enabled. Apple doesn’t say when a fix will be available.

MacUser UK has published an article discussing the lack of a good backup solution for Mac OS X. The article notes that command-line (UNIX) solutions will not recognize the resource fork of some Classic/Carbon applications, while straight file copying skips invisible files required by the system. Finally, Classic backup solutions do not function properly.