Viruses, Micrtosoft, Linux, AOL &Time-Warner

["Jose G. Perez" <jg_perez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    People upset about how Micro$oft leaves their computers wide-open for
viruses and worms will be pleased to note that Corel, which owns word
perfect and makes just about the only alternative to Microsoft Office, and
even offers it for the Linux platform, making that a potential alternative
to Micro$oft-infected personal computers, from now on will be cooperating
with Redmond and not competing with them.

    According to a good source of news the U.S. computer and mainstream
press considers unfit for publication, www.terra.com.ar/canales/tecnologia ,
Micro$oft has bought 25% of Corel (what would under most circumstances be
considered a controlling stake), and Corel is abandoning the Linux market,
and will instead focus on the ".net" market.

    What, you say, is the ".net" market? It is the latest version of
vaporware from dear great respected and beloved leader, Chief Software
Architect Himself, Bill Gates, who, we are reliable informed by Micro$oft
flacks, should be referred to as William H. Gates the Third in print and Mr.
Gates as second reference. Sure, Bill, anything you want.

    Now, it may seem odd to abandon a real and ongoing business like Linux
to focus on the latest version of vaporware from Redmond. But this is
typical Micro$oft, which hasn't yet come across a measure that promotes
monopolization and restraint of trade that it doesn't like, no matter how
transparent and illegal.

    Please don't bother the federal regulatory authorities with this matter.
They're overwhelmed trying to explain to the public how the AOL-Time Warner
merger fosters liberty, motherhood, apple pie and competition. Perhaps they
could get the colored person in the AOL-TW executive suite, Dick Parsons, to
explain it. Parsons recently endeared himself to TW employees by telling
them that failure to abide by AOL Terms of Service on the "free" AOL
accounts Time Warner is trying to shove down the throats of its employees is
grounds for disciplinary action, including termination.

    Parsons is also believed to be the "genius" behind the Recording
Industry Association of America strategy of fighting Napster, which has
transformed Shawn Fanning's hack into the biggest Internet success since the
invention of HTML. Parsons was one of the key people involved in the RIAA
price-fixing-through-advertising-subsidies scheme for which the "Big Five"
music monopolies are being sued for God Knows how many billions of dollars
by 30 state governments. And, yes, he was also the entrepreneurial and legal
genius who though that the acquisition  by Time Warner of EMI, one of its
big five record company rivals, would go through without a hitch, provided
it was disguised as a "joint venture" that created a "new company." (Hint to
TW execs: do not assume that regulators are as stupid as you are, at least
not in Europe). And he played a key role in approving the Time-Warner "full
service network" multi-million-dollar toilet flush in Orlando as well as
Time Warner's "Pathfinder" multi-mega-portal strategy that so thoroughly
protected Time Warner from stock market volatility by making sure no one
considered it in the slightest to be an Internet company.

    And, of course, there's the crowning achievement of this, the sale of
T-W to a company one-fifth its size, which represents a dilution of Time
Warner's shareholders equity stake by about 54%. Only an idiot who believes
the stock market is never wrong and bubbles never burst could have approved
such a thing. Apparently, Time Warner not only has the biggest hoard of
copyrights in the world, it also has the world's biggest hoard of boardroom
idiots.

    Anyways, if Parsosns could sell such things to his Board and Executive
Committee, for sure he must be able to sell the AOL takeover of  TimeWarner
to the public.

    BTW, not only is misusing AOL at home a firing offense at Time Warner.
Just installing AOL on COMPANY computers also remains a firing offense in
(at least some) Time-Warner divisions. I wonder what it is that the TW
wireheads and network gurus know that they're not telling people.

José