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Endorse thy rival
Shadow loves PR agencies. In an industry which throws mundane bits of information on a daily basis for our news pages, these harbingers of hype ensure that we get entertained at their cost, at least once in a way. Remember when we brought you that bit on Sun Microsystems’s press release announcing the launch of a new version of an operating system called Solaris? It wasn’t really Sun’s invention, but its PR agency’s. This fortnight’s entertainment is courtesy the PR agency of Moser Baer. Last week, these folks sent us a demo of this disc maker’s new DVD recorder on—guess what? A Sony CD! We wonder what they were trying to convey. Sony is Moser Baer’s media of choice? Or were they trying to say that Moser Baer discs are so hot that they get sold out and even Moser Baer has to buy Sony? Whatever it is, the press relations pros have managed to amuse us once again. Here’s hoping they continue to entertain us more often..
Gates gets ready for retirement
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates didn't offer much in the way of new product announcements in his keynote speech at the recently concluded Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. What he did offer was a self-effacing and hilarious glimpse into his thoughts about leaving Microsoft, where he has been a full-time employee since the age of 17.
Gates invited the audience to watch a short video documentary of his final day as a Microsoft employee, which depicted the founder of the world's largest software company as a somewhat befuddled, forgetful genius who hadn't really given much thought to his future employment.
In what amounted to a moving, albeit hilarious, tribute to his far-reaching impact on American society, Gates is shown calling up— and being summarily dismissed by—a litany of political and entertainment figures in his search for a new job, including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore, U2 frontman Bono, talk show host John Stewart, and rap mogul Jay-Z.
Gates also brought the former Guns ‘N’ Roses guitarist, Slash, onstage for an impromptu jam session.
Microsoft paid Novell $355 million
Novell finally posted the numbers on how much it got paid by Microsoft during 2007, following the two companies' landmark interoperability agreement. It may be recalled that in December 2006, two old foes, Microsoft and Novell, joined forces to work on harmonizing Microsoft's Windows-based products with Novell's Suse Linux.
According to Novell's most recent 10-K report with the SEC, Microsoft forked over $355.6 million. To put it into perspective: Novell's total revenue for the year amounted to a little shy of $1 billion. Novell says it isn't recognizing all the Redmond cash upfront and, given the continuing hue and cry by open-source community critics, it may have good reason for not wanting to be too flashy right now. Windows Server 2008 is due out later this year with all sorts of virtualization goodness (in the form of Hyper-V), and Microsoft continues slaving away on it with Novell developers. An early look indicates Hyper-V will sit very, very close to the processor's metal, once fully configured with Server 2008; developers tell us that could have implications for other virtualization clients wanting to operate on the Windows platform going forward. |