If you're a fan of
Seinfeld (or former fan, after Michael Richards'
Tourette's-like outburst), you'll remember the episode where Elaine got
a cartoon published in the
New Yorker. Unfortunately for her, the idea
was lifted subconsciously from a Ziggy.
Well, Scott Adams of Dilbert fame did the very same thing to yours truly.
My October 2006 Redmond column was entitled "Bill for President."
In late November, Adams had the exact same brilliant idea which he wrote
up with great fanfare on his blog.
Now, media all over the world are jumping on this bandwagon, and giving Adams
all the credit. Hey, aren't he and his awful cartoon famous enough already?
The wheels really started to turn when Paul McNamara, a former employee of
mine at Network World, picked
up on the Adams post.
Then Slashdot, which was offered my column for its readers to make fun of,
promoted
the "Adams" idea.
Now, I'm calling on loyal Redmond readers from across the globe
to right this grievous wrong. Let these bloggers, pundits and hack cartoonists
know where the idea really came from -- a hack blogger and pundit from Redmond
magazine!
For the real story, go
to a source you can really trust.
Posted by Doug Barney on December 05, 20060 comments
Maybe Microsoft should have shipped the consumer version of Vista first. After
all, home users were the first to buy speakers, CD-ROMs and high-res graphics,
and I dare you to find a corporate PC that is the match of a 12-year-old's gaming
machine. Many of these pre-teens will move to Vista on day one, with some standing
in line at Circuit City to be the very first.
Corporate types are different, and for a good many it will be a year
to a year-and-a-half until Vista upgrades begin in earnest, at least according
to Endpoint Technologies.
Posted by Doug Barney on December 04, 20060 comments
A 2,000-year-old astronomical computing device of Roman origin has been found
in the waters off of Greece. No, this isn't a fake news report from theonion.com
--
it actually
happened.
No word on what OS it ran, but the corroded remnants of the Ctrl, Alt and Del
keys do offer a clue.
Posted by Doug Barney on December 04, 20060 comments
Windows 3.0 and Windows 95 were monster launches -- you would have thought
cancer had been cured. But despite
calling
it the "biggest launch in company history," last Thursday's Vista
press conference in New York was as subdued as Don Rumsfeld getting his walking
papers.
As Redmond magazine editor Ed Scannell explained, he expects the real launch
to happen in January, when the consumer version of Vista appears.
But how many times can you launch a product?
Despite the ho-hum Vista debut, 2007 will be a huge year for new tools, like
Exchange 2007 and about 29 other products. Microsoft will be keeping this writer
very busy.
Posted by Doug Barney on December 04, 20060 comments
A new operating system isn't much without new apps, and the news on Vista is
good and bad. The good news is that
ISVs
are arriving in droves to announce Vista plans.
The bad news: These apps in general ain't showing up anytime soon. First up
are utilities like communication software from Attachmate (not sure how terminal
emulation software will exploit the Vista interface!) set to ship this spring,
and security, backup and disk imaging software from Symantec due this month.
But the killer software meant to exploit the new UI will, like Masson,
not ship before it's time.
Posted by Doug Barney on December 04, 20060 comments
Recent research shows that despite having a brand-new search engine,
Microsoft
continues to lose ground to Google. And you know why? Because Microsoft's
Live Search isn't as good. I made the vain move of Googling myself (admit it,
you do it to!), and came up with 18,700 results. Live Search crushed my ego
with only 3,527 pages. I'm not switching till Live has at 20,000 Barney hits.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 30, 20060 comments
Craig Ferguson is not my favorite talk show host (he was the annoying English
boss in the "Drew Carey Show"), but he did a
mildly
amusing riff on the Zune. Ferguson assumes the Zune is inferior to the iPod.
Just looking at the features list, I have the opposite impression. Have you
used both? What do you think? And what gizmos are you asking for/buying this
holiday season? Let us know at
[email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on November 30, 20060 comments
Microsoft
announced
a plan to let software developers use the Office User Interface royalty-free
to build apps that should be easy to learn -- provided you are adept at Office
(I still find Word to be about the most difficult app to fully master, and sometimes
even keep under control).
Looks to me like Microsoft flaks are recycling press releases. A decade or so
ago, when I wrote for InfoWorld, Microsoft announced what seems to be
the exact same thing. As I recall, some folks like Visio hopped onboard, while
competitors like Lotus and WordPerfect politely declined.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 30, 20060 comments
I'm all for free speech, but I'm not sure if the U.S. Supreme Court got it
exactly right when it ruled that bloggers and those who host blogs are pretty
much
immune
to libel and defamation suits.
I can understand the part about the hosters. If I'm an ISP or host a site
with blogs, I don't want to pay for the misdeeds of those who might visit and
post from time to time. Nor do I want to spend my days censoring each and every
nugget. But to allow people to knowingly post false and harmful information
about others with no repercussions seems a mite insane. Your thoughts, libel-free
of course, are welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on November 29, 20060 comments
Bill Gates
gave
an interesting speech recently about why he started giving away his money,
and why it made him want to retire. It seems that spending your days making
money -- and evenings and weekends giving it away -- might get confusing. So
Bill decided that as long as the Microsoft money keeps pouring in on its own,
he might as well devote himself to philanthropy.
Gates is now helping to solve problems few of us have even heard about. Instead
of learning that half-a-million children die each year from rotavirus, we are
subjected to hours of TomKat's wasteful wedding, Paris Hilton getting hammered
and Michael Richards' ridiculous rants.
Gates really nails the disconnect between the goals of capitalism and the needs
of the world. For instance, companies have very little interest in curing problems
for which they can't get paid. It's the nature of the beast. But as capitalism
creates wealth, some of this can be diverted by individuals to treating disease,
curing hunger and spreading education. Can Gates save the world? Probably not.
But I'd settle for him saving half-a-million kids.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 29, 20060 comments
Most PR folks are moral, law-abiding citizens who help bring us all information
about companies and products and people. And some are as honest as a nun attached
to a lie detector.
Then there are those who would do anything to get their clients publicity,
and in the case of BetUS.com, the tasteless
tactic worked.
Recently, I got an e-mail asking if I wanted to interview an analyst. Hmm,
is there a new controversial tool from Microsoft, a major security breach or
a new government regulation concerning compliance?
Nah! This PR guy -- I’ll call him Charlie (because that's his real name)
-- wanted me to interview someone from BetUS.com
about the Rev. Ted Haggard sex scandal. Betting analysts have come up with odds
on the Haggard aftermath. The odds are 1-2 that another sex scandal will rock
the church, 4-1 that someone else will accuse Haggard of hiring them for, uh,
well, you know, and 6-4 that the original allegations will be proved true.
After all this ink, I guess Charlie really is a heckuva a PR guy!
Posted by Doug Barney on November 29, 20060 comments
The European Union fought like Conquistadors against XP, Windows Server, Vista
and operating systems to be named later, claiming they violated all manner of
antitrust law.
Despite an all-new wave of products, Redmond is still dealing with the aftermath
of EU decisions made years ago, like a March 2004 ruling that claimed Microsoft
leveraged its desktop monopoly to gain share in server operating systems. The
company gave out over 8,000 pages of documents attempting to prove that Windows
Server is as open to third parties as it is to Redmond itself. If you want to
read Microsoft's obtuse explanation of the situation, go here.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 28, 20060 comments