Shoveling IT

From: spencer_katt@ziffdavis.com

Sent: Monday, November 7, 2005 12:32 AM

To: eWEEK readers

Subject: Digs galore; Boffo Benioff; Sun exposure; Son, ex-poseur

“&%*$ Big Dig!” yelled Spence from the KattMobile as paving work from Bostons eternal traffic project delayed El Gatos egress onto the Mass. Turnpike as he headed to do spade work at the Open Source Business Conference held in “The Garden City” itself, Newton, Mass. Once there, the Rumorists road rage took a quantum leap when he found that all media folks invited to a CIO Roundtable, hosted by Northbridge Venture Partners, were being asked to sign a release requiring reporters to obtain written approval for any statements made by any attendee they planned to quote.

The Katt arched his back and hissed violently along with other apoplectic journalists who refused to sign the release and were thus not allowed in to what was billed as the “Great Open Source Debate.” The invite described the session as “everything you ever wanted to know about open source but were afraid to ask” and touted a panel that included Marc Fleury, CEO of JBoss, and Kim Polese, CEO of SpikeSource. “Sounds more like the Great Closed Source Debacle,” fumed the Furball. Sitting out the session, the Baron of Babble eyeballed an e-mail from a crony that contained a forwarded memo from Salesforce.com head honcho Marc Benioff addressed to his “all strategy committee.” The memo mocked Bill Gates and Ray Ozzies recent announcement of Internet-based software services from Microsoft, which Benioff noted just appended the word “Live” to several existing product names.

Labeling the announcements “Microsofts Day of the Dead,” Benioff wrote that the product line should really be called Windows Dead, Microsoft Office Dead and Windows Live Messenger Dead. Benioff knocked Microsofts Internet innovation by pointing out that there were no Word Live, Excel Live or Outlook Live product announcements because a new generation of products such as Writely, NumSum and Zimbra have already stepped up to meet demand.

During the conference, Spence eavesdropped on two attendees discussing a new beta online at validator.opml.org that tests the specs of Outline Processor Markup Language documents. They were also wondering how Sun CEO Scott McNealy was taking the fact that 84 percent of Suns stockholders voted to eliminate any poison-pill provisions the company had to block potential hostile takeover bids.

The clarion call of the KattPhone broke the Kittys reverie and drew some angry stares from fellow attendees. The caller was a crony who claimed that the owner of the self-styled IT revolution lifestyle company SoftBank, Masayoshi Son (who once owned Spences company, Ziff Davis, in part of what he called his 300-Year Plan), is rumored to be secretly investing in Hondas Super Aguri Formula 1 racing team. “Hmm, I guess the 300-Year Plans timeline is currently being measured in laps,” laughed the Lynx.