After Win95, What Do You Do For An Encore?

Patty Stonesifer has just moved into her digs at "Redmond West," the new campus for Microsoft Corp.'s ballooning consumer group, located a mile and a half from the software giant's headquarters sprawl. The walls are still bare. A clock sits conspicuously on the windowsill--a reminder of her breakneck schedule. Only a vase of long-stemmed red roses hints at another side to Stonesifer's manifestly Type A personality. Or maybe not. The roses bear a recurring message from her husband: "Stop and smell the roses."

Maybe later. Now is the eve of the all-important Christmas selling season, when 60% of consumer software is sold. Stonesifer, senior vice-president of Microsoft's consumer division, is about to unleash the software maker's second big campaign to capture the minds and dollars of home-PC owners. Just as the hubbub over Windows 95 is dying down, Stonesifer's division is preparing nearly 20 new consumer software programs to give PC owners something to play on those Win95 systems--everything from 3D Movie Maker, which lets kids play director, to Microsoft's first shoot-em-up game, Fury3. The group also has new hardware, including a big, egg-like trackball for kids, called EasyBall, and a precision joystick, Side Winder.