Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will officiate at the MSN 8 launch event, which will take place at Wollman Rink in New York's Central Park. The software giant is constructing an 11,000-foot dome that seats 600 for the festivities. Microsoft also plans to stream the event live on the Web, but not the Lenny Kravitz concert that follows afterward. Kravitz's "Fly Away" is the theme song for Microsoft's $300m ad campaign for MSN 8. Microsoft plans to leave the dome set up in New York over the weekend, before the company takes the structure on an eight-city tour, with destinations that include Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. Besides showcasing the new version of the online service, Microsoft will conduct "taste tests" between MSN 8 and AOL 8, said Bob Visse, MSN's director of marketing. He likened them to the "Coke and Pepsi taste tests" of the 1970s. Thursday's launch pits MSN 8 against AOL 8, which America Online released last week. MSN--whose 9 million subscribers leave it lagging well behind AOL at 35 million subscribers--hopes to get a boost from a completely revamped online service client. Microsoft has added many new features, some of which will be available only to paying customers. The company is trying to differentiate features and services offered for free on MSN.com from those available to MSN.com subscribers. "The parental controls are nice for families with a home network and, the integrated services are nice features converting to broadband," said Gartner analyst Paul-Jon McNealy. Like AOL 8, MSN 8 eliminates pop-up ads, those from first and third parties. But the no-pop-up feature works only on MSN.com Web sites. Subscribers visiting other Web sites using MSN 8 could still be subjected to unwanted pop-up ads. Microsoft on Thursday also plans to announce that it is freezing the monthly access fee for MSN dial-up access at $21.95 for 12 months. AOL currently charges $23.95 for the same service. MSN broadband access will cost $39.95 or $49.95 a month, depending on the access speed. Customers using another Internet service provider (ISP) will have to pay extra if they want to use MSN 8. Earlier versions of MSN were usable with another ISP for a fee. Microsoft charges $9.95 a month or $79.95 a year. Mehdi said he expects MSN to get many bring your own access (BYOA) broadband customers. But Gartner's McNealy disagreed. "I don't think they're going to get many customers through BYOA," he said.
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