BE DOPE NEWS (BDN) Late yesterday, Microsoft altered this page of their Press section, where they previously claimed Gateway shipped computers with the BeOS pre-installed. In keeping with their tradition of unbiased reporting, Microsoft made no mention of the previous error or any indication that any correction had been made. Fortunately, this copy of the original, un-altered page was pulled from a faithful reader's NetPositive cache and forwarded to Be Dope.

Gateway officials were truly perplexed by the error.

"All yesterday morning, we were flooded with calls from people wanting to know if we did indeed ship our machines with the BeOS," said Gateway Corporate Communications Senior Manager Angela Peacock. "We never have, we certainly never told Microsoft that we do, nor have they asked us if we ever plan to do so. It's almost as if they pulled the idea out of thin air."

Microsoft officials did not respond to Be Dope's emails or phone calls at press time. However, several industry analysts were not surprised by the move.

"Obviously Microsoft is extremely aware of what large OEMs like Gateway are doing in the OS space," said Jesse Berst. "To think they would 'make a mistake' about which vendors are shipping the BeOS is laughable."

Unofficial sources inside Microsoft speculate Microsoft's PR department included the Gateway/BeOS combination after following their usual method of research.

"I think what happened was that the brother-in-law of one of the PR guys had a cousin who once dated a UPS delivery guy who sort of remembers hearing the words 'be' and 'OS' while delivering some packages to Gateway," the unofficial source reported.

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