Simmering Rebellion

From: spencer_katt@ziffdavis.com
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2004 1:46 AM
To: eWEEK readers
Subject: Boston to harbor IT; Treo reprise; extreme cell phone makeovers

“Who says nothing revolutionary is going on in technology these days?” chuckled Spence at the SIMposium conference in Chi-town. The Kitty was enthralled by a skit put on by members of SIM Boston and SIM Central Connecticut touting next years event, SIMposium 2005, which will take place in Boston. Decked out in full colonial garb, the chapter leaders promised their event will be a revolutionary-style protest against the numerous IT “taxes” that have been bandied about recently, such as a proposed spam tax. “Maybe theyll have a Boston IT party and throw actual spam, instead of Earl Grey, into the harbor this time,” mused the Mouser. Suddenly, “Surfin USA,” the KattPhones latest ring tone, blared from the Baron of Babbles blazer, distracting him from the powdered-wig production.

The caller was a surfing buddy who had recently taken a day off from riding the waves near Tricky Dick Nixons old San Clemente digs to check out the Demomobile conference in sunny La Jolla. According to the Big Kahuna, rumors are that the Treo 650, a follow-up to the 600, may be released as early as next month. Attendee buzz claimed that High Tech Computer, a Taiwanese OEM known as HTC, has begun shipping the 650 to PalmOne and should hit stores soon.

The 650 is supposed to have fixed many of the problems found in the popular 600, but Treos biggest problem is still competing with RIMs BlackBerry. “Itll take the likes of Tony Soprano to rub out RIM,” cackled the Kitty. The surfer dude also noted that if youre one of the beautiful people, like actress Lindsay Lohan and heiress Paris Hilton, you sport a T-Mobile Sidekick thats been custom jewel-studded by the folks at NYC Peach.com.

Spence made a mental note to buy some Elmers Glue and some beads with which to embellish the trusty KattPhone as he took a call on the other line from a crony who had braved Hurricane Ivan to attend the Oracle Applications Users Group conference in Orlando. Unfortunately, the threat of Ivan kept many Oracle execs from attending, forcing frenzied PR folks to replace last Mondays keynote speaker, Cliff Godwin, senior vice president of applications technology, with a comedian they had hired for the previous night, Judy Carter, the self-proclaimed Goddess of Comedy.

The pal also told the Puss that folks attending PeopleSofts user conference in San Francisco this week will be greeted by a huge billboard across from the Moscone Center that states, “Theres nothing hostile about letting Lawson take over.”

Spence noted that Oracles antitrust win now has all the amateur meow-torologists making wild acquisition predictions, with Cognos, Hyperion and Siebel all being mentioned as likely takeover targets, and IBM, Microsoft and SAP as the suitors. “And you dont need a Doppler to know Hurricane Larry must love being at the eye of the storm.”