Friday, April 28, 2000
Top Stories
Where To Find Those Missing Software Manuals
There is some built-in aid available that's decent by the standards of online help. If you already know how to use AppleScript, it might help you remember a trick you've forgotten. But I defy anyone to learn how to write a script using it.
Apple Offers iMovie Free To G4 And PowerBook Users
Apple announced this morning that iMovie — the video editing software included with its line of iMac DV computers, and the focus of Apple's current television advertising campaign — is available as a free download for users of FireWire-equipped PowerBook and Power Mac G4 users.
News
New Component For MS Office
Microsoft didn't exactly introduce a new version of Office, but on Thursday the company announced that it will add a new component to Office 2001 Macintosh Edition when the upgrade ships later this year: a full-featured e-mail client integrated with a personal information manager (PIM).
Apple Posts QuickTime 4.1.2
Apple Computer issued an update to QuickTime on Wednesday, bringing its rich-media technology to version 4.1.2. The update fixes several bugs in QuickTime 4.1.1, which Apple released early this month.
The Sims For The Mac
While it took Will Wright over 7 years to mold and create The Sims, it will likely take less than six months to bring the title to the Mac platform.
Opinion
Post PC Tech Investing: What's Next For Apple And Microsoft?
Apple's Internet moves are encouraging, but it sure isn't a value stock at these levels.
One Year Later: Where Are The "Easy PCs"?
According to Intel's Ease of Use Initiative manager, "consumers are turned off by towering beige PC boxes that remind them of the nasty old problem PCs of yesteryear." In other words, if they make PCs that are differently shaped and colored, consumers may think they are easier to use.
Review
Sherlock: Apple's Top-flight Hard-drive Detective
Just like the special-features package in a Mercedes. It's truly cruising in style.
Sidetrack
William J Lemke, an AppleSurf reader, responded on the question on whether Apple should buy part of the broken-up Microsoft:
If I were Apple I'd acquire a few apps and leave the rest. What in particular I would acquire: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint. What I would do with the Office apps: Position them as a high-end office suite (much like Apple does with Final Cut Pro and iMovie) and overhaul the suite.
Nick Sweeney: People have said that there's a difference between open source, which is theoretically easy to modify but often impractical to do so, and open architectures... which may hide its source but bear its technical soul. It's about time that Windows became an open architecture.
Wintel
Fishpc: "We're Not Trying To Copy The iMac"
Although Apple has won a number of injuctions against companies it claimed had directly copied the iMac concept, including Daewoo, eMachines and Sotec, it would be unlikely to have a case against Fishpc.
Microsoft Employees Found Using eBay Site To Auction Copies Of Windows 2000 Software At Deep Discounts
Microsoft Corp. staffers have been auctioning off copies of Windows 2000 software on eBay, a practice the company frowns on but has had only mixed success reining in.
A Pound Of Microsoft's Flesh
What's fascinating is that it took a spate of bad news for the biggest and most profitable name of the "old" PC economy to prick the bubble of market value lavished upon the unprofitable vanguard of the new Net economy.
Intel Scoffs At 'Post-PC' Computing, But Prepares For It
Intel Corp. executives may dismiss the notion of a "post-PC era," but in their six-hour briefing yesterday with New York financial analysts, their focus was sharply trained on e-business growth areas far beyond the PC market.
Is It Time To Buy Microsoft?
Wall Street has pummeled Bill Gates' stock price — and the reasons are more psychological than financial.
Microsoft Doesn't Trust Windows
If you've ever wondered how Microsoft ensures that the software it ships is virus-free, you'll enjoy this item we've uncovered.
Windows CE Market Penetration Evaporated Before Pocket PC Release
Retail sales of Windows CE-based handhelds all but disappeared prior to this month's release of Microsoft's next-generation Pocket PC devices.
Microosft: The Next Generation
While all eyes are focused on the effects that a possible breakup of Microsoft Corp. might have on the company's future, few are contemplating the more immediate impact of the launch of the software giant's forthcoming services architecture, dubbed Next Generation Windows Services, or NGWS.
Economists Recommend Four-way Split For Microsoft
Microsoft should be split into four companies to end its anti-competitive practices, a group of leading economists told the judge who declared the world's largest software company an illegal monopoly.
Microsoft Accepts 'Mission Embeddable'
A Windows-powered gas pump or networked refrigerator may sound more like science fiction than fact. But if Microsoft Corp. has its way, they could arrive a lot sooner than expected.
Would Microsoft's Parts Be More Or Less Valuable Than The Whole?
Analysts say that if Microsoft is broken up by the judge into two or more different pieces, shareholders may not fare very well. That's contrary to conventional wisdom about breakups of big companies — that the sum of the parts are worth more than the whole.
Microsoft Breakup Could Boost Valley Firms
After two years of legal wrangling, today the government will finally tell the world exactly what should be done about Microsoft Corp. and its illegal monopoly over PC operating systems. And some leading players in Silicon Valley's technology industry — which helped goad the Justice Department into filing the antitrust suit — could end up as big winners from Microsoft's woes.
Microsoft's Ballmer Won't Consider Possibility Of Breakup
No way, no how, because Ballmer and his colleagues, starting with the company's famous co-founder and chairman, Bill Gates, are the truest of believers in their fundamental rightness. They aren't even making contingency plans for a breakup, Ballmer insisted.
Intel To Phase Out Serial Number Feature
Intel will phase out its practice of stamping serial numbers on its processors with the next generation of chips, the final chapter in a public relations fiasco.
Judges Consolidate 27 Microsoft Antitrust Suits
A panel of federal judges has consolidated 27 of the private antitrust suits pending against Microsoft to a single court in Baltimore. The move benefits both Microsoft and lawyers suing the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant. For Microsoft, the move reduces the number of jurisdictions it must battle. Lawyers gain a larger, united case that consolidates resources and diminishes divisions among them.
Microsoft Dangles The Carrot
What's a company to do when a market slide has left many employees holding stock options that are worthless in the near term? Microsoft, which has produced a large share of the Seattle area's millionaires because of its generous stock-option plans, responded to its current precipitous stock drop with a swift, counterintuitive answer: offer more options.