China Nuts for ‘Net
It may be restricted and it may be censored, but Chinese youth are still nuts
for the ‘Net, so much so that the communist nation has opened its first
center
to treat Internet addiction. According to AP, some 94 million Chinese have
access to the ‘Net, and for kids and teens, games and chat rooms rule
the roost—like here in America. Just as it’s hard to oppress people
who are armed, it’s also hard to subjugate people who are educated and
connected to each other and the world—like 94 million Chinese.
Microsoft vs. Spyware
Microsoft has released a major position
paper on spyware, supporting U.S. government efforts to pass anti-spyware
legislation. And of course, as you already know, Microsoft has a client side
anti-spyware tool already in place—at least in beta form. These efforts
are great, but I’d like to see what Longhorn has to offer in the way of
greater protection.
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Antitrust—the Good News
Microsoft announced that it’s off the hook for antitrust
violations against IBM. Redmond paid Big Blue $775 million to settle claims
relating to OS/2, which Microsoft co-authored and then killed, and SmartSuite,
which Lotus wrote and Office killed.
It’s ironic that IBM is getting paid
for antitrust when it was clearly the king of unfair competition back in the
day. And IBM tried a couple of proprietary shenanigans with OS/2 Extended Edition—but
the software wasn’t good enough to lock anyone in! Even more ironic, part
of the settlement includes giving IBM $75 million of Microsoft software!
Antitrust—the Bad
Just as Microsoft got IBM off its back, pen computing has-been Go
jumped right on. The case is a lot like Caldera, which bought the rights
to a defunct product, DR-DOS, just so it could sue Microsoft. It won.
Founded in 1987 before computers were powerful enough to really handle handwriting,
Go was later sold to AT&T. Jerry Kaplan, Go’s founder and co-author
of Lotus Agenda, bought enough rights to Go earlier this year to sue Microsoft—just
as Ray Noorda of Caldera did.
The iPod’s Not That Cool!
I think the iPod is cool and all, but it’s still just a gizmo that plays
music downloaded from the Internet—certainly not worth dying over. But
Samuel Darran and Daryl Stephen wanted the unit so bad they stabbed
a 15-year-old boy twice in the back to get one. Can you say scumbags?
About the Author
Doug Barney is editor in chief of Redmond magazine and the VP, editorial director of Redmond Media Group.