Schadenfreude in Seattle

“Ich bin ein Penguiner,” caterwauled Herr Katze from the wall of Building 34 of Microsofts Redmond campus before security guards chased the fantasizing Feline from the property. SFK had thought his JFK impression would stir up more ire from the Redmondites than it did, considering recent reports that the burgermeisters of the German city of Munich will be dropping about 30 million euros to dump Windows and migrate to Linux.

As Spencer staggered toward Interstate 405, he took a call on the Katt-phone from a Tabby tattlemeister who claimed SuSE in Nuremberg may have directed its Bavarian barristers to see if any domestic action can be taken against SCO because of its Linux litigiousness. According to the tattler, it appears a complex German law could allow legal action against SCO on the basis that its engaged in unfair competition against Germanys Linux companies. The tattler claims SuSE officials were reluctant, though, to be seen as behaving like SCO by actually filing a lawsuit, but the company may have been instrumental in the legal actions being aimed at SCO by LinuxTag, a German Linux lobbying association. LinuxTag has threatened to get a German court order against SCO and has asked it to provide proof of its claims on Unix by the end of the month.

As cars sped by, His hitchhiking Hirsuteness wondered if hed ever make his flight home. Timing is everything, pondered the Puss, as he recalled IBM and Lotus recently announced Workplace Messaging offering for deskless workers had sounded a lot like the Workforce Mail offering that Sendmail previously announced with HP and Intel. According to a Katt crony, Sendmail and Lotus formed a partnership about a year ago to develop a similar offering. Unfortunately, the partnership unraveled over IBMs insistence on building the solution around WebSphere. Sendmail may have gotten the last laugh, though, by beating IBM-Lotus to the punch by a week with its product announcement.

Finally, a car stopped for Der Trampenkatzer. Spencer was doubly pleased since the driver, who offered gossip as well as a ride, claimed to have heard some major PC makers havent been thrilled with the idea of channel distributors developing their own notebook lines. According to Der Strassendirners chauffeur, reports that the Best Buy chain has recently dropped plans for its own line of portable PCs may have been due to such industry pressure.

Safely at the airport, Spencer sensed that his loquacious lift was hoping for a pawful of geld. “Ask not what your Katt can do for you but what you can do for your Katt,” cackled His Camelotness as he skatted toward his gate.