From Microsoft's point of view, last Wednesday's $150-million injection into Apple means the ailing computer company won't fall into "hostile" hands, and secures its Mac market (it sells $300-500 million of software a year to Mac users). Microsoft even makes a paper profit: within 24 hours of the deal - its stake rose in value to $270 million after Apple's stock jumped.
Above all, though, the deal keeps anti-monopoly authorities at bay and stymies several of Microsoft's rivals - both Netscape (all new Macs will now come with Microsoft's Internet Explorer pre-installed) and the "100 per cent pure Java" coalition. Bill Gates's next big target could be Sun, whose chairman Scott McNealy regularly taunts him in public speeches.
Oracle Speaks: Apple's new board includes Larry Ellison of Oracle, the second largest software company in the world. Ellison, champion of the low-budget "Network PC", hasn't seen eye to eye with Gates either. The same Ellison observed in an interview with CNET a year ago: "Bill Gates has been quoted in the press as saying he's going to make Netscape meat, drive them out of business, give the stuff away for free. Apple is no threat to Microsoft. Microsoft is moving aggressively against Netscape. I think they are neither helping nor hurting Apple right now. They probably hope Apple stays around with an insignificant 4 or 5 per cent market share so they can point to Apple and say `oh no, we don't have a monopoly'."
Rosy Apples: Slightly overlooked at last week's MacWorld trade show: a new Power Mac 9600 with a 350 megahertz processor, making it one of the fastest desktop computers ever. Also overlooked: Apple has already sold over 1.2 million copies of its new operating system, MacOS 8, since its release a fortnight ago. Meanwhile, Apple has dumped its former ad agency BBDO and gone back to TBWA Chiat/Day, whose predecessor (plain Chiat/Day) created the legendary "1984" commercial which launched the Mac.
Lingua Eudora: Good news for European users of best-selling email software Eudora. From this autumn they'll be able to send messages to each other in different language using Globalink's email translator (for both Eudora Pro and Eudora Light). It will handle English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
News "Rating": News providers are increasingly divided over Microsoft's plan to make its Web browser bypass content rating standards if a Web site is "news-oriented". News sites would receive an "N" rating that would disable a blocking mechanism in its Internet Explorer browser that otherwise filters violent, sexual, and crude content. "No one puts a filter over the mailbox to determine whether Time magazine is appropriate for our audience," says Dan Okrent, editor-in-chief at Time's New Media division. "The same standards should apply to the Internet." Others argue that any site might declare itself to be a news site.
Mags Fallout: Imagine Publishing is to drop The Net magazine. "The idea of a mass-market Web magazine that tells people where to go is pretty much obsolete," it says. Other recent casualties in the US include NetGuide, Internet Underground and Websight. And Ziff-Davis and IDG, owners of MacUser and MacWorld, are to merge the former into the latter.
IFTN Expands: Ireland Film and Television Net, the Web information service for the film industry, is expanding again. It is looking for a film journalist/editor and an advertising sales rep. - info: Helen McDermot, email info@iftn.ie
In Brief. . .EUnet Ireland's ISDN-networked customers rose 160 per cent and Web-hosted customers were up 120 per cent in the past 12 months. . . Twinhead International, one of Taiwan's top computer notebook makers, makes its stock exchange entry this morning and predicts it will triple sales by 2001. . . Cisco Systems reported $383 million in profit from operations of for its fourth quarter, with sales up 37 per cent. . . The Revenue Commissioners have ordered a DPS9000/700 system from Bull Ireland. . . Massachusetts' acting Governor has stopped a 5 per cent sales tax from Internet service providers, declaring the State an Internet tax-free zone. . . Corel has released its new Corel Catalyst localisation tool. . . BT is expected to sue France Telecom for up to £65 million after it was found guilty of unfairly preventing BT from winning over one of its major customers. . . India is to open up its State-run Internet service VSNL to private companies. . . Informix could lay off 1015 per cent of its 4,200-strong workforce in the third quarter after a substantial second-quarter loss. . . Telewest, Britain's second biggest cable TV and telephone company, is also to cut around 1,400 jobs - a quarter of its workforce. . .
Year 2000
Y2K Losers: A study by Killen & Associates predicts the "retrofit" on the world's computers to make them Year 2000 (also known as "Y2K") compliant will cost around $280 billion. We don't know if that covers a $10,000 lawsuit (plus damages) just filed by a Michigan produce supplier, Produce Palace International. Its cash registers can't recognise the year 2000 as a valid credit card expiration date, so it is suing cash register maker Tec-America and its local service vendor. The problem crashed its registers 105 times in 13 months.
Y2K Winners: Peter de Jager's useful Y2K Web site (www.year2000.com) has just run a limerick competition about the problem. J. M. Turley from Illinois won with this:
"In composing a limerick to portray The problems presented by the year 2K While searching for a rhyme I ran out of time . . . "
Microfile
An independently funded survey of 30,226 media professionals and 10,000 media companies found that:QC] Macintosh users produce on average $26,000 more annual revenue (and $14,000 more net profit per worker) than similarly skilled Windows users doing similar work.
A survey of Yahoo! users in Europe has found that: 23% of users in France, 39% in Germany and 38% in the UK have made purchases on the Internet in the past six months.
Sources: 1 Gistics/Information Week; 2 Yahoo!
Modem World
http://www.internetlawyer.com/tillive.htm Free copies of the Internet Lawyer.
http://www.asja.org/ The American Society of Journalists and Authors has regular updates on online copyright.
http://www.nybooks.com The New York Review of Books goes online.
http://www.robotwars.com The official site for Robot Wars, the mechanical sporting event featuring radio-controlled robots.
Textbites
"We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft needs to lose." - Steve Jobs. "It's like an all-star team coming down to save a struggling studio. Mel Gibson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Harrison Ford are coming to the board." - David Wu, an analyst with ABN Amro Chicago. "It's kind of like Berlin. You have the rubble and the devastation of a ravaged city and you have the occupation forces coming in and maybe dividing it up. The question is: Is a wall going to go up?" - Industry analyst Greg Blatnik about the new board. "How much would it cost to get a positive, front page story on every newspaper in the country? How can you argue against a deal that assures users the applications they want, is great for the balance sheet and turns out to be a PR extravaganza?" - Novell's chief executive, Eric Schmidt. "This is not a stake in the heart for Sun and Netscape at the moment. (But by taking Microsoft's money) Apple has finally fallen out of the ABM world - `Anybody But Microsoft'." - Ron Rappapport of Zona Research. "When you have beaten your bitter rival into a pulp and he is gasping for air, why extend a helping hand? . . . The real advantage in resuscitating Apple is that Microsoft can argue its operating system does not have a monopoly; that may keep the anti-trust authorities off its case." - the Lex column in the Financial Times. "We will treat them in the same way we would anyone else and make the analysis of law that seems appropriate, and the Justice Department - I have to wait to hear from them about whether there are any antitrust implications to this. " - President Clinton (official transcript of White House press conference).
Computimes is edited by Michael Cunningham. Email to computimes@irish- times.ie (private correspondence should be marked Not For Publication).