September 29, 1997

from the Friends-of-the-Revolution dept

Give me Java or Give Me Death -- And Microsoft may be out to do just that.... Derek Kerton had not been working at Javasoft for more than a week, when they snubbed their nose at Microsoft's request to hand Java over to a standards body. They proclaimed that they are doing quite a fine job of managing the Java Platform, and most developers seem to agree. Sun also threatened to revoke Microsoft's Java Virtual Machine license for their "popular?" Internet Explorer product. Microsoft ended the week with a whimper, taking down their ActiveX site (http://www.microsoft.com/activex) and repackaging several old technologies into a new product called DNA. yawn.....

A WebTV in every pot -- On the heels of Microsoft's purchase of WebTV, and their re-negotiating all of web-tv's contracts (sorry about that UUNet...), they announced that the price of the new WebTV units would drop to $99! The new units will allow you to connect to any ISP, will include a TV tuner so you can watch TV and surf at the same time (ESPN is in the money!), and comes just in time for Christmas! This is a huge deal. Microsoft sees this as their opportunity to capture the other 50% of the world's population that does not own a PC. And once they install their WindowsCE and NTClient (see www.citrix.com) into the unit you should be able to use (or should I say rent) all of their other software on the unit. Hopefully this new market will keep them occupied so the Netscape's and Unix maker's can catch their breath.

Intel is Surprised at Concord - I keep telling all my Wall Street buddies that Intel is not going to get knocked off by AMD or another big chip maker, but rather it will be eaten by the piranhas. Where there are profits, others will follow. There have been a growing string of events that seem to signify a change from the computer convergence to computer divergence (chips moving into everything). I believe that the age of the smart or networked product has arrived. Here are some of the signs of the apocalypse.

• WebTV
• PalmPilot
• Franklin's REX (http://www.franklin.com/rex/)
• AT&T's Web-Phone/Organizer
• Windows CE
• JavaChips
• NT-Terminals (in NT5.0)
• Apple's net-computer
• SmartCards
• El Nino (just kidding)
• Networkable Barney
• Sun's purchase of Diba
• Larry Ellison

Going Postal - What would a patriotic letter be without at least one psycho postal worker? I was pleased to have downloaded the latest craze in gaming... Postal. You are a crazed Postal working cleaning up the shop Doom style. And I thought Red-Neck Rampage was crazy!

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Friends of the Revolution
by Brian Day

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