UMAX is the only remaining survivor of the Great Clone Wars, but they may not linger much longer. According to Computer Reseller News, their Mac OS licensing deal expires in July, and rumor has it that talks to renew the agreement aren't going as well as they could be. If UMAX and Apple fail to come to a new agreement by July, UMAX will have until the end of the year to sell off all of their remaining clones, after which they, too, will be officially out of the Mac clone business.

So far, UMAX seems eager to try to reach a new agreement. Phil Pompa, their director of marketing, said that they'd be amenable to terms that restrict UMAX clones to certain geographical areas and certain price points, so that their sales would expand the Mac OS user base instead of just cannibalizing sales from Apple. Given that Apple still can't seem to ship a cheap box for the home market, it seems like a great idea to let UMAX do it; putting more Mac-compatible systems into consumers' homes is a great way to stem the flow of developers (especially games developers) that are jumping ship. Sounds like everyone wins to us.

In the end, it's really all up to Apple. And, until a full-time CEO is announced, that means it's really all up to Steve. We all know how Steve feels about the cloning issue; the trail of twisted and smoking corpses he's left in his wake since last August make that all pretty clear. So the question is, can UMAX find a way to convince Steve that keeping a cloner around is beneficial to Apple? Indeed, will UMAX even decide that it's worth the effort any longer?

Uh-oh, sounds like everyone's patience is wearing thin in today's episode of "Redmond Justice." Just check out this Reuters story which paints an ugly picture of tensions running high. Reading that Judge Jackson "sharply disagreed" with Microsoft's lawyer Richard Urowsky sounds, at best, euphemistic. The judge is evidently getting tired of Microsoft's claims that they were "just following orders" when they crippled Windows 95 by tearing out Internet Explorer, DLL's and all. Microsoft says they simply did what the government had requested, but the judge countered that "what the government requested is not the same as what I ordered." Urowsky's reply was a simple "I beg to differ with you." The judge finally asked if it ever occurred to Microsoft to ask for clarification of the order, to which Urowsky replied, "We gave very careful consideration of that--" but instead they just filed an appeal.

Philip Malone, the lawyer for the Department of Justice, wisely stayed out of the heated debate as much as possible, and maintained his view that Microsoft took an "extreme and illogical course" in ripping IE out of Windows 95 in a manner that would cripple the OS. He makes the excellent point that removing almost any application in that manner (including applications made by companies other than Microsoft, which argues heavily against the "integrated feature" excuse) would render the OS unusable.

The hearing is probably only going to last another day or two, so we're wondering just how much higher tensions can escalate before somebody whips out the knuckle-dusters.

And while we're speaking of Internet Explorer, one big feature in the current Windows version that doesn't exist on the Mac is the "Active Desktop," which reportedly turns one's entire desktop into a big ol' "internet-ready container," according to Webintosh-- but they say that Mac users may not have to wait much longer for that feature. They cite a Techweb interview with Chris Carper, Microsoft's product manager for internet applications, in which he reveals that Microsoft is working with Apple to bring the Active Desktop to the Macintosh.

Now, since we haven't used IE4 on Windows, we can't really speak about this feature based on any real-world experience, but only on what we've seen and read. With that said, the Active Desktop really just seems to turn your whole OS GUI into one big web browser. Web pages no longer stay confined to the browser's window; they can be anywhere and everywhere, similar to how Cyberdog and OpenDoc allowed the embedding of live web pages in word processing documents, spreadsheets, etc. Sound kind of neat, but we wonder how useful such a feature really is. That, and the sheer number of Windows users who've written us to lambast the Active Desktop feature, gives us pause.

Regardless, it's nice to read another interview that reaffirms Microsoft's voiced commitment to the Mac platform. Carper stresses that IE for the Mac is not a port, but a true Mac application from the ground up. In addition, he says that they "believe that targeting the platform is the best way to address animosity... Optimize for the platform." Sounds good to us. Let's see if they continue to follow through...