Gates: Microsoft Will Invest $6.8 Billion In FY '04 On Research -- "It's a serious number. The goal is to take R&D activities to be synergistic, to take XML Web services, management [and] UI advances, and drive those across all the different [Microsoft] products. Longhorn is not just release of Windows client. We're in the same time frame [for] Office and server products, where everything is synchronized to build on this platform and take advantage of that." (Comments: $6.8 billion? Holy guacamole, Batman! Then again, they have something like $40 billion in cash reserves. Maybe it ain't that much. Thanks Daniel Szuc.)