Ballmer Has Magic Moment

Tramps like us—baby, we should click to run," sang the Springsteen-like Snoop, mocking Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmers proclamation that Windows Live software would be "click to run, like a Web site." The Furry One was in Orlando, Fla., for Gartners Symposium/ITxpo. Skatting about the Dolphin hotels convention center, the Lynx laughed out loud when he stumbled upon a Hewlett-Packard session titled "HP—Protect your corporate reputation to ensure business performance." Given HPs recent corporate-spying scandal, El Gato envisioned the HP seminar demonstrating the use of night-vision goggles and drone planes to track board members.

"Speaking of tracking down people, where in the world is Sammy Palmisano?" pondered the Puss. Sightings of IBM head honcho Sam Palmisano have been so rare lately that Spence wondered if maybe Big Blue would hire Disney to create an animatronic Sam just for road trips and carwash openings.

"IBM is launching the first virtual block party for its global employees to attend on the virtual-world site Second Life. Maybe Sam will virtually appear there," cackled the Kitty, stuffing goodies from the dessert tables into his pockets. A fellow attendee asked the Baron of Babble if he thought the Redmondians may be irked that Google bought YouTube. "I think its telling that Microsoft decided to send out mondo e-mail messages touting its Soapbox video-sharing site the same day the Google-YouTube deal went down," said the Furball as he jammed an éclair into his mouth.

Suddenly, the KattPhone alerted His Hirsuteness to a call from a Penguinista pal who said tensions between Symantec and Safer Networking are escalating. Since last December, Symantec has occasionally cited Safer Networkings Spybot software as a possible corrupter of Symantecs Norton products. "The Anti-Spyware Coalition, of which both parties are members, may have to call in U.N. peacekeeping forces soon," said the pal. "Hey, remember back in 2003 when the rumor mill was convinced that Microsoft was secretly backing BayStar Capitals $50 million investment in SCO as a covert operation to undermine Linux?" the pal asked Spence. "Well, Groklaw.com notes that BayStar exec Larry Goldfarb said in a sworn statement that Microsoft would guarantee the investment. The statement is contained in a recent court filing by IBM in its ongoing battle with SCO, but Microsoft has publicly denounced Goldfarbs allegation," said the pal.

Spence was about to leave the show and raise a glass in honor of the late Ray Noorda, the former Novell chief who passed away recently, when he was overwhelmed by the temptation to replay video of Steve Ballmers expo antics. There, Ballmer was stressing Microsofts dogged determination to tackle businesses like entertainment and search. "The bone doesnt fall out of our mouth easily," said Ballmer. "We keep coming and coming and coming and coming and coming and coming and coming." Realizing this was a moment akin to Ballmers "Monkeyboy" video, one Gartner analyst said, "Well, we now have our video."

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Spill your guts at spencer_katt@ziffdavis.com, or give the Katt a howl at 781-938-2627.