Cold Warrior

From: spencer_katt@ziffdavis.com

Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 12:20 AM

To: eWEEK readers

Subject: Sunspots; Hurd thinning; holy bodcast!

"SNARF!" sneezed Spence, who instantly mused that the convulsive expulsion sounded like the acronym Microsoft came up with for its new Social Network and Relationship Finder, a downloadable app that uses social networking to sort personal e-mail. El Gato mixed all of his daytime and nighttime remedies into one heady over-the-counter concoction and skatted off to check out the Big Apple launch of Suns CoolThreads technology.

At first, the rhinoviral Rumormonger thought he was hallucinating when he saw an oil derrick with a Sun logo outside the Nasdaq building. A bit later, when he saw the usually business-casual-attired Scott McNealy dressed in a charcoal-gray suit and red tie at the unveiling of Suns T1000 and T2000 servers, the sniffling Sourcerer was sure he had overdosed on his cold meds. "Leave it to McNealy to decide to dress like Gordon Gekko the day hes preaching his companys green energy-saving message," laughed the Lynx. Alas, the Furry One was soon seeing spots, and they didnt resemble the dot in Web 2.0 that Suns Jonathan Schwartz has said his company wishes to be.

Soon, the KattPhone vibrated with a call from a crony who said Microsofts Steve Ballmer gave out his e-mail address at a gathering of government contractors at the Capital Hilton, in Washington, and told "the journalists in the room" not to publish it. "Mmm, doesnt everyone know that its steveb@microsoft.com?" asked Spence.

Spence hopped a cab to the Waldorfs Bull and Bear bar in hopes that a few cocktails would clear his head. There, he stumbled into an old industry vet who told him that, as many software companies rush to componentize software development, IBM is leading the way by rewarding its developers to reuse or create reusable components within Big Blues software portfolio. Unfortunately, developing a component that already exists will put a developer in deep doo-doo.

Spence asked the tech vet if she knew why Hewlett-Packards software chief, Nora Denzel, recently resigned with the usual corporate "personal reasons" excuse. One can only speculate that she was "Hurded" out the door as an FOC (Friend of Carly), said the vet, who noted there were rumblings that HP had called on two search firms to hunt for her replacement a month before the announcement.

When the contagious Kitty finally got to his room, he spotted an e-mail from a pal labeled "the perfect holiday gift." The note contained a link to www.audi-oh.com. Spence was shaken, not stirred, to find that the Web site offers an item being billed as a personal stimulation and massaging device with a direct audio input jack for MP3 players. The device uses sound to create variable vibrations. "Holy bodcast!" mused the Mouser. "This could herald a comeback for disco!"

Check out eWEEK.coms for the latest news, reviews and analysis about productivity and business solutions.