MacEdition ProNews January 24, 2001
by MacEdition Staff (feedback)
MTBF you
We lead off today with an article that you may have missed unless you read The Register UK regularly. Seems that after spending years selling schlock to folks (What? Us surprised?), Microsoft is using that schlock to sell upgrades. Far be it from us to bash Microsoft Windows when MS does it so well themselves. “Win9x, exhibited a predictable, consumer-schlock MTTF of only 216 hours,” The Register says, quoting the advertisement in question.
For the mathematically challenged, that’s nine days between failures. Don’t think that NT fares much better – that one’ll get you a failure every five weeks or so. And this is the company that’s currently selling itself as reliable? Trust ’em, they’ve made it better.
Nothin’ says lovin’ like this, huh?
Put a room full of geeks into a room, throw in some networking gear and a few legal notifications, simmer for a few weeks and what do you get? Apparently some upset geeks and an irate baked goods company, according to an article on Salon.com.
Pillsbury is sending cease-and-desist letters to many in the technology world over the use of the trademarked term “bake-off”. According to the article, quoting the letters, the geeks are “causing confusion, sullying the term, trashing the down-home originality that inspired Pillsbury to trademark the phrase back in 1949.”
Seems the Doughboy has had his head in the oven one time too many.
Corel pares name to Cor in order to save printing costs on two letters
“We’re not going to go into a head-to-head battle with Microsoft Office,” [CEO and president Derek] Burney said. “We are changing the rules of the game.”
With a quote like that, you’d think Corel’s turnaround plan would be exciting and invigorating. As it is reported by ZDNet in this article, it is not. Imagine, the above quote followed up by this support statement: “To Corel, this means focusing on convincing its existing WordPerfect Office customers to upgrade, Burney said, rather than to convert from Microsoft Office.”
Add to that such exciting plans as “eliminating international language versions of the product [WordPerfect Office – WPO] and focusing exclusively on English (except for one French Canadian offering developed for the government of Canada).” Oh, did we mention that a key selling point for the coming upgrade to WPO is integration of Microsoft’s .NET strategy? Yep, that may stem the bleeding. A little tighter on the jugular tourniquet, please.
Interestingly, Burney was also quoted as saying, “We have expanded our commitment to the Mac.” Good. We’re certain there are plenty of people who have the Mac version of WordPerfect Office who are dying to upgrade – what’s that? There was no WordPerfect Office for the Mac? Oh. Well, maybe all those Windows WPO upgraders will fund the creative side for a while.
Just a few more twists, and the problem will be solved...
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