Is it MICROsoft or microSOFT?

I found this satirical Microsoft vs. Apple piece on a site called NewsBiscuit.com.


Paperclip from Word Quits Microsoft for Apple

The I.T. world was plunged into controversy last night after it emerged that the animated paperclip from Microsoft Word has been headhunted by Apple and has now ‘jumped ship’ to work for the company. Rivalry between the two corporations has increased of late with Apple launching a range of adverts lambasting PCs for being geeky and dull while Microsoft have attempted to win customers back with their new Vista operating system. This high profile betrayal by one of Microsoft’s most trusted lieutenants is seen as a major embarrassment for the company.

The controversy arose when the paperclip – known as ‘Clippy’ – was spotted in the Apple store in Seattle discussing the new MacBook Pro laptops with a store assistant and eventually purchasing one, together with a 4GB iPod Nano. He is then shown stroking the smooth metallic casing of the Powerbook on his way out of the store. When this footage was made public, Clippy announced that he was quitting his $19 million contract with Microsoft and would henceforth be Apple’s new mascot.

‘It’s a logical move for us to make’ stated Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. Clippy is a professional, and his knowledge of laying out letters and punctuation tips is second to none. You may think he’s just an annoying bit of office stationary, but don’t be fooled – this is one high-powered individual with a remarkable vision for business’

Clippy’s former colleagues, Rocky the dog, the bouncing red dot, and the small scientist character refused to comment on allegations that Clippy left after persistent workplace bullying. But Steve Ballmer, CEO for Microsoft, declared himself to be ‘shocked and saddened’ by the news. ‘Clippy’s move is a blow, but his standing with Microsoft was at a low point. He kept turning up to work late, he was often drunk, and he would slump in his chair during board meetings and make lewd comments to the receptionist. Plus he would set the alarm off every time he came through the metal detectors in the lobby. He was an irritating little bastard, to be honest.’

Posted: 19 March 2007 by teambiscuit (photo by red)

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DRM Debate

I had an idea the other day . . . Hey! Why all the shocked expressions? I get them every now and then. Annnnyway, There have been a lot of stories on the net and in the papers about DRM (Digital Rights Management).

On the one hand, you have the huge recording industry representing the rights and earning potentials of themselves and their artists.

On the other hand you have the consumers who would like to buy their music at a fair price (one time) and be able to use it on their various devices at home, work and school. Much the way you can with CD's and cassettes.

On one side of a coin in one of the hands, some people say that the music shouldn't cost as much because you don't get anything physical (just a computer file) so it is cheaper to produce and distribute.

On the other side of that coin, others say it should cost more (or should be bought more frequently) because files can be so readily copied (as opposed to CD's and cassettes).

On one side of another coin (possibly in the other hand), are downloading services that are linked to giant companies (like Apple and Microsoft) who want to assure that the downloaded music will play only on their own proprietary devices and who want to limit the number of times the music can be copied by the purchaser or limit the number of devices to which it may be copied (or both).

On the other side of that second coin are individuals within the downloading business who would like to do away with DRM's altogether, saying it would stimulate sales rather than deflate them.

On one side of a third coin (in . . . let's say the first hand) are the actual pirates who fall into two categories. First, the really bad guys with deep pockets and a lot of technology, so no matter what anybody does about DRM's, they will find a way to defeat it and sell the pirated music. And secondly are some punk kids who, though amateurs, are mini versions of the pirates.

On the other side of this third coin . . . well, you get the idea. There are a lot of factions fighting over the rights and ownership and profit in a presumably shrinking market. (Sales have actually gone down in a heavily controlled DRM environment.)

Now, I was watching Turner Classic Movies the other day and a couple of things hit me at the same time.

A) The movie was uncut (without commercials).
B) It would be really easy to copy it onto tape or DVR.
C) They rotate through their movie library much the same way a radio station rotates through their playlist.
D) It would be hard to sell because of the constant TCM logo at the bottom of the screen.

This meant that I could copy it for myself or some close friends and it would be commercially unfeasible to try to pirate because of it's availability for free and because of that damned logo.

So why can't the music industry do the same thing? Charge a basic cable type of pricing to provide access to the readily available music. And encode the music with a subsonic tag (that can't be stripped out of the music later) to identify it's source.

If people want to download a lot of music, then after a set number of downloads covered by the basic cable type fee, charge a per download fee similar to the current pricing. But with no further restrictions. And cut out this nonsense of proprietary licensing. If I buy it -- it is mine.

Everybody will be happy except the pirates and then I can get back to writing the funny stuff.


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Bill Gates Rants; Apple Rocks

It seems like Bill Gates had something to get off of his puny, nerdy chest the other day. He attacked Mac's OS X's security system, Apple's "Get a Mac" ad campaign, and the idea that many of Vista's features are already available in Mac OS X.

For an interview designed to promote Microsoft's new Vista OS and Office 2007, he spent a lot of time talking about the competition. One of the cardinal rules from my old sales days was never bring up the competition unless the customer does, never vilify the competition, promote your own product and services. Apparently, Bill chose to play offence.

Mr. Gates started off the interview by touting security features in Vista. Providing a robust security foundation was even offered as a reason for having left out many of the features originally planned for Vista.

Translation: It could have been a lot cooler but we were thinking of you (the consumer) That's funny -- Mac is able to provide rock solid security without having to give up the "cool" stuff.

"We made it way harder for guys to do exploits," said Mr. Gates. "The number [of exploits] will be way less because we've done some dramatic things [to improve security] in the code base. Apple hasn't done any of those things."

Translation: No, Apple hasn't done any of those things because they haven't needed to.

Further Translation: Microsoft needed to because their security was like a leaking sieve.

In another portion of the interview, he added, "Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine."

Translation: Gates is referring to a nasty hacker's contest called "Month of Apple Bugs" where they supposedly found a way to hack through Mac's security each day of the month of January. Many of the hacks were through third party software and every one of them were addressed and fixed by the next day. Despite this competition, there are no Mac viruses in the wild.

Further Translation: "I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine." Pretty big talk for a company that has an entire industry built around maintaining Microsoft's security. And this includes the new Vista. Otherwise what are McAfee, Norton, etc. doing out there?

Bill Gates seemed to have the most pent up anger when it comes to the "Get a Mac" ads that shows PC as needing to undergo major surgery in order to upgrade to Vista.

Mr. Gates said, "I don't think the over 90 percent of the [population] who use Windows PCs think of themselves as dullards, or the kind of klutzes that somebody is trying to say they are."

That "somebody" would be Apple, of course.

He added, "And I don't know why [Apple is] acting like it's superior. I don't even get it. What are they trying to say? Does honesty matter in these things, or if you're really cool, that means you get to be a lying person whenever you feel like it? There's not even the slightest shred of truth to [the ideas about Vista upgrades presented in the Apple commercial he said he had not seen]."

Translation: Calm down Bill! You are absolutely right -- you don't get it.

Mr. Gates took exception to the idea that many of Vista's new features came first in the Mac.

"You can go through and look at who showed any of these things first, if you care about the facts," said Mr. Gates. "If you just want to say, 'Steve Jobs invented the world, and then the rest of us came along,' that's fine. If you're interested, [Vista development chief] Jim Allchin will be glad to educate you feature by feature what the truth is. I mean, it's fascinating, maybe we shouldn't have showed so publicly the stuff we were doing, because we knew how long the new security base was going to take us to get done."

Translation: Let's see. Mac OS X has been out for over five years. So you're saying that you [Microsoft] pre-announced these features, worked for years and years to get them to the market, but Apple was able to implement them over five years ago based upon your too public blatherings . . . back then?

Further Translation: If Apple can take a concept and get it to the public immediately while Microsoft's "rocket scientists" fiddle over it for the better part of a decade, why should anyone wait around for Microsoft?

And after all of the huppola, at the end of the day, Vista is still a pale wannabe compared to Mac OS X.

But the thing I really don't understand is if Microsoft has over 90% of the operating system market and Mac is down around 7%, Why is Bill Gates so worked up?

It's sort of like God being mad at the Governor of New Jersey.

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2007 Consumer Electronics Show

The story so far:

Apple iPod 2001.............................................Microsoft Zune 2007

.........Mac OS X 2001.............................................Windows Vista 2007

How does Bill Gates do it?



ADDENDUM:

Apple iPhone 2007

Bill Gates just announced the new Microsoft WinPhone expected to debut the first quarter of 2013.


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The Liars Club

I used to be a professional liar. Ahem. I mean . . . I used to be in sales. It's funny, really, how the two go hand-in-hand. Lying and sales. And with a little age and perspective, it's funny how everybody knows it. It is only the young, budding salesmen of the world who are unaware of the course they've set. After all, no one sets out to be a liar. Do they?

Young salesmen, especially in retail sales, don't have a clue what the are doing. They could be selling widgets, or shoes, or mens clothing, or hardware. It doesn't matter. All they know is that they are required to make sales. They have been given (sometimes) a very basic understanding of their product. They are told (in most cases) where their product is and (most importantly) they are taught how to operate the cash register. Everything they know about their product is (apparently) learned from the packaging.

Yet they all act like they are experts. This is where the lying comes in. If they portrayed themselves to be as ignorant as they truly are, they'd never make a sale. So in the lulls between customers they read the packaging. They arm themselves with a few key features and memorize some jargon. But virtually all of their answers come from the packaging. Prove it to yourself. Go ask a salesman (or saleschick -- mustn't be sexist) a question about a digital camera or an iPod. Then go back later and see if you can't find that same answer on the product's box. Sometimes, they will read the box in front of you to prove that they are right.

Where am I going with all of this? I am what you might call an "informed" buyer. I read ads. I check out products on web sites. I check out reviews. And, believe it or not, I can read the words on the product's packaging. So, one of my frequent complaints about "shopping" is that I usually know more about the item that I am considering than the sales person does. I usually have to inform them about certain features and sales points. And they STILL act like they are the final authority. I'm just a lowly customer.

So I started messing with them. I went to a local Best Buy and started making some really outrageous claims about the new Microsoft Zune player. Comparing that wannabe piece of crap to the iPod. I lied about the ease of use and the user friendly DRM that allows users to share their music with all of their friends. I talked about how cool the music videos looked on the device, knowing full well that no videos were available for it. I even praised it's innovative turd brown color.

I went back the next day and asked another salesman about the Zune, expecting to hear my spiel from the previous day. But the salesman artfully steered me to the iPod display.

Which proves my point. No one sets out to be a liar. When I got home that afternoon I saw an ad for the Microsoft Zune. Now those people are professionals!

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Zen and the Art of iPod

O.K. I admit it, I'm weird. I cannot relax. I try really, really hard to relax but then I realize that the effort is self-defeating for this particular goal. I am always doing something. When I am watching TV, I am also flipping through a magazine or reading the newspaper or checking something out on the Internet or discussing tomorrow's plans. I multi-task.

I bought an Apple iPod a few months ago thinking how relaxing it would be to just sit back and listen to a few of my favorite tunes. I now have 598 albums, representing 150 artists in 17 genres that includes 8,007 songs that would last 23.5 days to listen to it all. I still have about 150 classical music albums to copy onto the device.

Once I had all of my CD's copied onto my iPod I got to thinking, "Maybe I can make better use of the bookshelves" in the living room where I have had all my music stored and displayed. So I backed up my digital music from the iPod (just to be safe) and boxed away my CD collection. When the bookshelves were empty, I thought they looked a little old and dinged up and decided to get new shelves because here was an opportunity to get the rest of my books out of the attic.

So we went shopping for new bookshelves. While we were at it, we bought a new couch and chair for the living room and a new bed frame for the spare bedroom. I decided to buy four foot high book cases for the living room and to use the top of the cases as a mantle which required me to repaint the wall that was behind the old bookshelves. Now that we had some wall space above the new book cases I moved a painting from above our bed in the master bedroom to the new honored position.

This left an empty space above the head of our bed. While we were looking for something to fill that space we ended up buying a new bedroom suite so naturally we had to paint the entire bedroom.

Since I had an opportunity to unpack the last of my books stored away in the attic, I now had a choice of which books to have in the living room and which ones to have in my office. By the time I was done I had moved every book I own (14 book cases or 70 shelves of books).

This all brings me back to the iPod. I was looking at the other things it does besides play music. One of its neat features is what they call Podcasts. These are little, several minute, syndicated radio and/or video type shows that you can download from the iTunes store (for free). I thought I would like the humorous ones so I subscribed to six of them. I figured it would be a hoot to listen to a few minutes of silliness every now and then. They automatically download every day. I am currently 111 podcasts behind and the pressure of "getting to them" is driving me nuts.

I can't honestly say my new iPod has helped me relax. But then again, I'm a little weird.