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Oh Microsoft They still don't get it. Emailing with an exec at MSN, he argues right and wrong. It's wrong to make Microsoft pay the full burden of making the browser market compeitive. AOL could do it single-handedly by investing in Netscape, and building it into the AOL client. I hope I'm not incorrectly summarizing his comments. He doesn't like my response so we go around and around. Since when does right and wrong have anything to do with it? This is the old trick Microsoft plays, they count on my sense of right and wrong, but don't have any responsibility of their own to do the right thing. No more of this. I don't care if it's right or wrong that Microsoft is broken up. They lost my support when I read the emails. Jim Allchin's comments particularly. He should have been fired on the spot for suggesting that Microsoft use its dominance of operating systems to win the war with Netscape. Of course he wasn't fired, because this is the business model at Microsoft. And it's illegal. And totally wrong. And unfair, and everything else that evokes my anger. Another thing that gets me angry is arrogance and stupid public relations. I was at Microsoft the day they pulled the stunt on Judge Jackson. I met with Tod Nielsen and said that's it man, you crossed my line right there. Do you argue with the traffic cop too when you get pulled over? If so, you get what you deserve. We must respect some things. Like we live in a lawful society and we respect judges. I learned this at jury duty in 1996. It's all about respect for the law, and rightly so, or else we'd live in a police state. The very first thing for Microsoft to do is have some shame. You got caught doing something that's very wrong and illegal. Admit that much. I can't believe it, I feel like I'm talking to a four-year-old. Stop treating us like we're stupid. A lot of us get it. You got caught. Nailed. That's where the conversation begins. Postscript: Later today news that Tod Nielsen is leaving Microsoft. I wish him the very best. Sad to see him go! The end of Microsoft? Someday you'll hold a child on your lap and he or she will ask what it was like in the 20th century. I thought this was interesting last year, this year I hardly think about it. But it's still going to happen, no matter how I feel about it, and it might be spooky. If Microsoft is falling apart now, will we have the same experience? I've always assumed that it would morph into something like what IBM is today. A huge company with its fingers in lots of pies, but lacking the dominance they once had. But what if Microsoft plays chicken with the government all the way to the end? What if before that happens all the smart people leave? What then? On a hot day A plunge and a few laps in a cold pool provide an instant sense of well-being, at the bones level. PacBell on the line I just picked up the phone to call back a reporter and two people were talking on the line. Uh hello, I said. What's going on? We're just doing routine maintenence. Who are you? We work for PacBell. How long will you be? Just a few minutes. Hey this feels so invasive. Is it legal? Morning pointers The DotCom Shakout is rolling right along. Sorry but I think this is very cool. So many resources were being channeled into dead-ends. Now maybe there will be people to staff new net startups around ideas with real substance. A half-baked theory, one things many of the shaken companies have in common, they were trying to capture the Web. Imho, the winners will be ones that step aside and supply tools and infrastructure to the Web, companies and people being treated equally. Each is given a chance to compete on a level playing field. The business I like is providing interesting playing fields that intrigue the smartest people. Always moving, always the most interesting environment, or we lose. That's the flow I want to support. IQ points flowing over the Internet. I guess, to use a VC term, that's my business model. Surprise: "The American soldiers would give chocolate and cigarettes to the people and generally people were not afraid of them. One of my mother's best friend married an American soldier and went with him to live somewhere near Chicago. This was a long time before I was born so that she became for me 'my American aunt'." Joel Spolsky reviews RealBasic from a developer's point of view. He says it's tantalizingly close to allowing two-way running of Basic apps on Mac and Windows. A new process for DaveNet. After letting yesterday's piece rest on the Web for a full day, I softened some of it, reached out to Java and open source developers, added notes about news that hasn't been covered in email, and invited email readers to join the daily news loop here on scripting.com. This might be workable. The piece feels more done after 24 hours, and I don't have to juggle two versions of the essay. I also updated the distributor script to strip out all HTML tags, which means I don't have to limit the number of links in an essay, something that always bothered me. What is the Personal Desktop Portal? What an awful site. Geez. I just want a couple of screen shots. Andrew Wooldridge: How do you know a vision when it hits you? "How do you take something that's a passing thought over dinner and make into something substantial? How do you find or get someone else to see your vision?" Press release: Moreover raises $21 million from Wit, Reuters. NY Times: Death Sentences Being Overturned. "The report is likely to intensify an already gathering debate about the death penalty, which has been provoked by the release of some death row inmates after new DNA technology helped exonerate them." Biermania! I won my battle with Bob Bierman to start a weblog. He's taken responsibility for shaking the incompatibilities out of Frontier for Linux. He will use that site to ask questions. You should be able to follow the process on Bob's site. And he will have links to other sites, much as Andre, Brent and Jake do. One step at a time. Thanks for taking the plunge Bob! Postscript: Bierman is a natural born weblogger.
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