Microsoft VP Steve Ballmer speaks

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BALLMER: Yeah, [Netscape] wants to be an OS. That's right.

C|NET: Is Internet Explorer 3.0 not headed for the same goal?

BALLMER: No, IE 3.0 doesn't need to reproduce that. We have to make sure that we share well with the rest of Windows. That's basically the difference. So it doesn't need to be another OS; it just needs to add on certain things that you don't get today in Windows. We need to integrate in. There doesn't need to be an Explorer and an Internet Explorer. There just needs to be one thing. We'll do that later this year. We don't need to have multiple ways of letting people view email. That can be integrated and not done twice. In other words, we don't need two programming models; ActiveX attempts to unify the programming model.

C|NET: How seriously is Microsoft going to get into providing content?

BALLMER: Quite seriously. The content field is vast, so it's not clear what it means to say "seriously." But we clearly have plans to try to add value, to do some exciting things in more than one area. Slate [an online political magazine set to launch this summer] is a good example. What we're doing with MSN is a good example. I read that rumor about old CityScape--who knows whether that's a good example or not, but we've done some stuff in health already. I think our pregnancy stuff is available today. I guess "health guides" is the best way to characterize what we've done there. Car Source, of course, will be 100 percent Web based. You can call it content or not--it's more of a shopping and information guide. It's a form of content, absolutely. The work we're doing with NBC certainly falls into that category. So we'll have a number of things that we try to do. Hopefully, some of those will be viewed positively. I'm sure we'll get some bumps and bruises from some of them.

C|NET: And your business model is to have users pay for the content?

BALLMER: Well it's a mix, like everybody else. Where appropriate, each of the properties will have sort of a different mix of zero subscription fees, all advertising-funded, to exactly the reverse. We know there's definitely a subscription fee for Slate. Not only might that be important in having it make money, but it's very important to [Slate editor Michael] Kinsley because he doesn't come from the same kind of world that maybe some of us do. He doesn't think anything is worth owning if you didn't have to pay for it. That's the magazine world.