It was a little childish to hear the volume from the Microsoft booth crank up when Michael Cowpland was giving his CeBIT 2000 press conference at the nearby Corel booth. Even after a complaint to the CeBIT management, the volume was turned back down again for a short time only. But perhaps we are being unkind: maybe there is a high incidence of deafness amongst Microsoft users. If so, or in any event, they deserve our sympathy. ®