There's a New Boss in PC Town
There have been a lot of PC leaders in the past. IBM made a run for the crown,
and further back we had the likes of Kaypro, Osborne, Eagle and the very cool
Vector Graphics microcomputers.
HP (with Compaq under its belt) is now the clear and decided leader, and its
recently gained edge over Dell is growing
quarter by quarter. HP now has 17 to 18 percent of the worldwide market
while Dell has 14 to 15 percent.
I contributed to HP's success when I bought my daughter a new laptop late last
year. It turns out that replacing the screen on her old Toshiba was almost as
much as a new lapper. Whadda ya bid for a sweet Toshiba with a dead display?
HP Spy Saga Continues
Last week, I complained about a low-level private investigator forced to plead
guilty in the HP spy case. The state of California might let
young Bryan Wagner off its Golden State hooks because the 29-year-old is
already being punished (lightly it seems) by the feds.
Meanwhile, former chairwoman Patricia Dunn and three other alleged conspirators
were offered what sounds like the deal
of a lifetime. The feds will drop felony charges if they plead to a misdemeanor.
So far, the defendants haven't taken the deal. As a longtime watcher of "Law
& Order," I've got three words of advice: "Take the deal!"
Vista Just a Download Away
Microsoft doesn't want you to go all the way to the local Circuit City to get
your Vista fix. Instead, you can sit in your chair with your bathrobe (or whatever
else you care to wear) and just
download the darn thing. Sounds like a decent idea. I just hope there is
a darn good utility to make sure your machine can handle what is a pretty demanding
OS, and an easy way to back out of the deal if your machine chokes on all that
code.
About the Author
Doug Barney is editor in chief of Redmond magazine and the VP, editorial director of Redmond Media Group.