Focus On: Microsoft

If you were IBM what would you do? Microsoft programmers built a piece of code to allow Microsoft email software to interoperate with IBM's Domino/Lotus combo. When the code doesn't work, IBM advises users to talk to the folks who wrote the broken code, because, after all, it's Microsoft's code. Microsoft triumphantly proclaims that, unlike IBM, it will minister to people who can't make its code work, and by the way, this proves the value of its product. Huh? Most of us would take advantage of the silliness of Microsoft's position. IBM, however, hit the mattresses.

Microsoft's corporate vice president of Windows Live and MSN marketing, Martin Taylor, occupied the chair for just three months before he was unceremoniously "disappeared." This is bad news for Windows Live competitors, who have been thoroughly enjoying pratfalls similar to those made by Taylor in his previous assignment: Microsoft's silly anti-Linux crusade, "Get the Facts."

Since Robert Scoble, Microsoft's largest living blogger, announced that he's leaving, the web has been ablaze with speculation over who Microsoft's next Scoble might be. IBM's Lotus chief Ed Brill flirted with the idea that, what Scoble did for Microsoft, he was doing for IBM, until a blogger enumerated exactly what Scoble did for Microsoft. For those in a hurry, the nutshell: Scoble did a lot, and Brill threw in the towel.

As Microsoft servers shuddered under the onslaught from anxious users downloading Windows Vista Beta 2, reviewers report that the corpulent code gobbles laptop batteries, hogs memory, and waddles through its chores. A Windows development team manager explains why this outcome for the "largest software project in history" was entirely predictable.

Despite Apple's adoption of BSD through OS-X, support for Intel processors, and dual-boot capability between OS-X and Windows, Apple still gets no respect from many in the Windows community. That may all change, as soon as Apple makes a few final and relatively inexpensive adjustments to its software engineering and marketing programs. Just don't expect any real O/S sales gains to come from jaunty commercials.