Vista and Antitrust: Gates Is Still Gates
I thought after all those dinners with Bono and all those hours spent doing good
that we'd have a new, nicer, softer Bill Gates.
We don't. Gates has as much spunk and moxie as ever, and he showed his Bill-ish
bluster when defending
Vista in Europe. Don't forget, it was the Europeans who stalked Vista every
step of the way, pushing for this feature to be yanked, that item to be pulled
and those APIs to be opened wider than Bill O'Reilly's mouth. According to Gates,
the European authorities wanted to "castrate" Windows.
I hate it when columnists digress by actually saying "I digress,"
so I'll just briefly and slightly change the subject. The Gates quote reminds me
of the day in November 1989 when IBM and Microsoft announced that OS/2 would
serve as the high-end multitasking enterprise OS, and Windows would remain a
low-end product, leading then-Lotus chief Jim Manzi to remark to anyone within
earshot and with press credentials that Windows had been "neutered."
Who knew that desktop operating systems were all male?
Meanwhile, back in Europe, Gates argued that Vista came through the regulatory
process with all of its parts still attached.
Blue Screen of Non-Death
The Blue Screen of Death is never a pretty sight, though my XP box usually just
hangs and dies without ever turning blue (reminds me of how when the old Commodore
Amiga crashed, you'd get a blinking, orange "Guru Meditation Error"
-- and with the Amiga, you got these a lot!).
If you've managed to get your machine totally stabilized (tell us all how you
did that by writing me at [email protected])
and miss the Blue Screen, have I got a tool for you!
Microsoft has a "BlueScreen
of Death" screen saver that can fool even the savviest IT pro into
thinking that your machine has indeed rolled over and died. I wonder if I can
get a version for my Mac G4?
Intel Moves into Web Software
What do you do if your processor monopoly is being steadily eroded by AMD? Why,
get into software, of course!
To do so, Intel
is pulling out every Web 2.0 buzzword in the book, including Web 2.0 itself,
wikis, open source, RSS and blogs.
But Intel didn't turn hardware hacks into software jocks. Instead, it gathered
tools from various software vendors to build a suite for small and medium-sized
companies.
Included in the suite are RSS tools from SimpleFeed and NewsGator, wikis from
Socialtext, and blogging from Six Apart.
About the Author
Doug Barney is editor in chief of Redmond magazine and the VP, editorial director of Redmond Media Group.