Remember last year's deal between Apple and Microsoft? So far, not much visible has come from it, other than the imminent release of Office 98 for the Mac (which, to be honest, was already in the works as Office 97 at the time). However, it's only been five months, so any big repercussions from the agreement are still gathering steam. If MacOS Rumors is to be believed, several sources are predicting that something big will come out of the agreement in the next few months.

Okay, so what's "big?" The details are sketchy, at best, but it appears that because of the patent-exchange part of the agreement, Apple has access to Microsoft technologies that it plans to use in an attempt to "retake one of its traditionally weak markets." (How's that for vague?) The information should be made public by the WorldWide Developers' Conference in May, or maybe the inaugural MacWorld New York + Creative World (gag) in July.

Which "traditionally weak market," we wonder? Business? Low-end consumer? Whatever it is, we hope it works out well for Apple; to us, they appeared to be the big loser in the deal when it was announced last August. Hopefully we'll see them get more out of this than a small lump of cash and a temporary stock climb. Stay tuned.

Uh-oh, Don Crabb's going off about the Newton again. For a technology that launched the whole PDA category, he says, Apple sure has been kicking it around for the last few years. High prices, marketing strategies that span the range between "lousy" and "non-existent," spin-offs that get spun back in, rumors of cancellation just before each new product's rollout-- you know the drill.

But it's the price structure of the Newton MessagePad that makes us take issue with Don's claim that the Newton "still dominates its product category." At an even grand, a new MessagePad 2100 costs more than many closeout and refurbished Powerbooks. (We paid $1100 for our new-but-discontinued Duo 280c over a year and a half ago.) So when he says that the Newton does more than comparable Windows CE devices, he fails to mention that it does significantly less than a Powerbook, whose price point it matches much more closely than, say, the PalmPilot. Think about it. The MessagePad is really too large to fit in a pocket, and if you're going to carry a bag anyway, why not bring along a small laptop instead? Yes, the Newton does handwriting recognition, so you can take notes without disturbing the others in the meeting, and its battery life is an order of magnitude better than that of any laptop-- but you get our point.

Here's why Newton isn't going anywhere: No other Apple product has been treated as shabbily or held in limbo so long or so frequently. Without Newton, what would Apple abuse? That said, we hope (as Don does) that Apple does right by Newton in 1998-- the technology's too cool to keep shackled to the big bucks. Hey Apple, give us a smaller MessagePad in a high-impact eMate-like shell for $500 and you've got our money. However, given that hardly anyone's left at Newton these days, having been "let go, forced out, or just plain vanished," we're not holding our breath.

In an irony almost too heavy to bear, Bill Gates yesterday praised competition in the computer industry while speaking via satellite to a financial conference in London. According to a Reuters story, he publicly claimed that he and Microsoft are "the biggest believers in what competition can do to drive this market forward."

Now, of course he has a point. For instance, would Netscape's software be as advanced as it is today if Internet Explorer weren't constantly kicking it in the butt? And if the Mac OS had never existed, Windows 98 would probably be more like DOS 9.2. But Microsoft isn't fooling anyone about its plans to "compete" its competitors clean out of the market; Netscape's marketshare, for instance, has been dropping like a stone since Microsoft has been requiring the preinstallation of MSIE on every Windows box shipped, and now Netscape is laying off employees. What frankly floors us about Bill's assertions is how he can make these rosy pro-competition statements while his company is embroiled in various anticompetition investigations on no fewer than three continents. There's the whole Department of Justice thing here in the U.S. (not to mention the lawsuit by Sun, the accusations by Ralph Nader, and several state antitrust investigations brewing), the ISP-bundling issue in Europe (which Microsoft seems willing to back down on), and threats of government action in Japan.

"We have really harnessed competition to help ourselves and help our customers," says Uncle Bill. And with competition like that, who needs competitors?