Apocalypse Happens

From: spencer_katt@ziffdavis.com

Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 12:42 AM

To: eWEEK readers

Subject: Sun shading; Nash bashing

“Its the end of the world as we know it,” Spence droned along with the R.E.M. tune blasting from his MP3 headset as he mulled Scott McNealy and Steve Ballmer making nice. “This is fire-and-brimstone kind of stuff,” fretted the Furball. “Whats next, dogs and cats sleeping together?!” As the fear-filled Feline fibrillated, he tried to focus his attention on Mike Nash, Microsofts vice president of security, who was demoing new XP security capabilities at the Microsoft Security Summit in New York.

The Furballs fragile attention span was soon overturned by an IM from a crony who claimed that while McNealy and Ballmer were giggling like schoolgirls, Rich Green, Suns vice president of developer platforms, was leaving after 14 years with the company. Was it, the Kitty queried, because Sun had sold out to the evil empire or because the company made John Loiacono, not Green, Jonathan Schwartzs successor as head of software? Neither, thumbed back the crony. It seems Green, who helped hammer out the deets on the Microsoft deal, tendered his resignation weeks ago to go join former Sun colleague and BEA wunderkind Bill Coleman at his infrastructure startup, Cassatt.

/zimages/3/28571.gifClick herefor this weeks Katt cartoon.

Spence shut off his MP3 player when he began hearing jeers and catcalls directed at Nash from the large audience of security specialists and CIOs. As several demos failed to work, some attendees shouted XP instructions at the amazingly unflustered VP. Blaming the malfunctions on the machine being reset incorrectly, Nash bravely offered up his personal e-mail address for folks to comment on Microsofts security efforts. “That mailbox will be smokin,” thought Spence.

After the event, the Maven of Murmur imbibed spirits with some pals, one of whom claimed that Oracle is close to purchasing Retek, one of the biggest software providers for the retail industry. As the drinks arrived, another Katt crony said the CRM specialists at Onyx Software just acquired tiny business process management vendor Visuale. Onyx has also been shopping itself around, claimed the crony, with ERP player Lawson Software being the chief suitor. The Tawny Titan of Tattle took a long pull from his frosty draft and told the group that Dells laser focus on printers as a business ripe for change hasnt changed and that Michael Dell himself recently took a jaunt to Asia to eyeball the latest printing technologies.

The Kitty also regaled the table by recounting a recent e-mail hed received from a reader who claimed that a big computer maker was phasing out shipping boxes preloaded with Windows 2000 media and that its CPU product key codes will handle only XP. “I dont buy it, though,” said Spence, citing Redmonds recent rescue of Windows 98 support and reported “Longhorn” delays. “Win 98 and W2K are looking more like Chers Farewell Tour–never-ending.”