The imminent arrival of Y2K will no doubt draw out scores of hackers hungry to whip up the general hysteria by mimicking end-of-the-millennium computer crashes.
Mr. Connors said that the timing of Microsoft's announcement reflected its position toward the end of the computer supply chain.
He helped lead India's drive in the early 90's into the back-office end of the computer business, writing software code for big American companies.
*At the high end of the computer industry, the Windows 2000 server edition, introduced during the summer, for the first time gave Microsoft an entry into the big-systems software market dominated by I.B.M., Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and Compaq.
A piece of DNA, designed to act as a drug by interfering with the action of a different gene, was then automatically released from the end of the computer.
Whatever the outcome of the battle for the very high end of the computer industry, Microsoft is planning to spend as much as $200 million to convince corporate America that Windows 2000 is the right operating system.
Of particular concern to the commission was the deal's potential effect on the high end of the computer market, where both companies sell 64-bit Unix servers and chips.
But for years Sun's focus was on providing cheaper hardware to compete at the low end of the computer server market with Dell, Hewlett-Packard and other rivals.
Now, however, analysts who are optimistic about Microsoft's chances at the high end of the computer industry believe that the software publisher will finally make significant inroads against its Unix rivals.. "Windows 2000 acceptance will be very, very large," predicted Mark Anderson, a computer industry analyst and president of Technology Alliance Partners.
Missy's final cameo and the revelation that she somehow selected Clara ends up as little more than a tease, but as Moffat's big reveals tend towards being the more obvious ideas that people below the line have dismissed, we can probably safely assume that she was the woman at the end of the computer helpline after all.
