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Is it just my imagination, or is the small tally of reports on Y2K+1 bugs actually higher than what the dreaded Y2K bug produced?” pondered the Puss. The new year kicked off with the state of Connecticuts DMV double-billing 22,000 people for motor vehicle taxes, 7-Eleven cashiers finding their registers reading the date as 1901 and the Norwegian State Railway dealing with more than 16 unstartable trains—all because their clocks rolled over to 2001.
Speaking of glitches, Intel head honcho Craig Barrett is annoyed at Californias mishandling of its energy affairs. According to The Boston Globe, Barrett would consider building a new fab in Massachusetts, Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico or Ireland before expanding a facility or building one in Silicon Valley again.
The reason? Fluctuations in the power grid can destroy chips during the manufacturing process. But possibly even more maddening, cackled the Katt, is that Barrett said he has to turn off the lights in his cube during the day to conserve energy.
A Katt crony reports that Lotus may be planning to send Dear John letters to most of the market research companies it works with. According to the tipster, Lotus, which uses myriad companies for industry reports, will soon scale back the number to one or two. Lotus must see this as a smart belt-tightening move that will eliminate expenses like costly trips to Lotusphere for analysts, assumed the tattler.
Not quite happy with misinformation it was receiving from its third- party fulfillment house, Intuit reshipped close to 2,500 copies of its TurboTax product to customers. A spokeswoman for the company informed the Furry One that to guarantee customer satisfaction, it was deemed wiser to reship the orders than waste time trying to figure what small percentage of the orders had been sent out.
Intuit also sent a note telling customers to feel free to pass along any duplicate copies they might have received to friends as New Years gifts.
El Gato hears from someone in the know that Mi8, a major New York ASP, is aggressively seeking to acquire another ASP. Although the Furry Ones friend couldnt reveal the name of the intended acquisition, the Puss pal did say that Mi8 managers have turned away offers to be bought by larger, publicly owned ASPs. His Hirsuteness can only assume that USinternetworking, Corio, Breakaway or FutureLink may have been one of the handful of public companies that had courted Mi8.
The Kitty smiled when he saw that La-Z-Boy and Microsoft have joined forces to produce an e-cliner with a WebTV receiver, wireless keyboard, drink holder and two free months of Internet service. “If only it came with its own litter box,” gushed the Grimalkin, “Id never have to get up again!”