Hairy Potter

From: spencer_katt@ziffdavis.com

Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 12:02 AM

To: eWEEK readers

Subject: The OS That Must Not Be Named; Scotty, RIP; data hygiene

With a serious whack, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" landed on the doorstep of the Katts lair. Spencer turned from his Quidditch 3-D video game to retrieve the highly touted tome and curled up for an afternoon of escapism. But the Lynxs literary bliss was abridged by his BlackBerry, which was flashing a Muggles message that seemed from another time: The OS That Must Not Be Named was really, really, really—really—dead.

There it was: Hogwarts on the Hudson—er, IBM—will stop supporting OS/2, effective next year. "Thats like cemetery groundskeepers saying theyre going to stop mowing the grass over the family plot," pondered the Puss. "Alas, poor Warp, I knew it well," the Shakespearian scribe thumbed back to his pal. Warp indeed. The call of the KattPhone linked Spence to a Trekkie who insisted Spence hop a plane to attend the funeral of James Doohan, the Scotty of "Star Trek." The Trekkie said Doohan died July 20, the same date in 1969 that Apollo 11 landed on the moon and the same date the Viking spacecraft landed on Mars in 1976. The reverent rumormonger paused for a moment of silence for the patron saint of engineers and IT people. "Alas, purrrr Scotty, just like IT folk, never got the resources to properly fix the Enterprise, yet was always called on to make things work," the Mouser meditated. Spence noted that Doohan would go on a final vol de mort when his ashes are released into outer space. Nice.

Spence turned to an e-mail from a buddy and Lotus Death Eater that asked if IBM has the same fate in mind for the Lotus brand that it has finally brought upon OS/2. Despite the revival of the Lotus Notes and Domino platform, IBM still seems bent on killing the Lotus name, the buddy wrote. First, Lotus Development Corp. became IBMs Lotus Software division. Now, the Lotus name seems to have vanished, as Lotus GM Ambuj Goyal was referred to as "General Manager, Workplace, Portal and Collaboration, IBM Software Group," when IBM announced its acquisition of PureEdge Solutions last week. Seeking peace, the Cornelius Drudge retired to the potty with a press release from a computer forensics technology vendor, Intelligent Computer Solutions. "The WipeMASSter is designed as a compact, stand-alone hardware solution for sanitizing and erasing drive data for up to nine drives simultaneously at speeds exceeding 3GB/min," read the release. "Thats Timely," thought the Puss, mindful of protecting sources and loath to find himself in the same fix as a certain reporter for a major newsweekly.

"Note to self," scribbled Spence, "Buy a WipeMASSter, ASAP."