By now you've probably read what Michael Dell (of Dell Computer) said when asked what he'd do if he were in charge of Apple: "What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." Ooooooooo, harsh, especially since he said it in front of thousands of IT people. Well, we didn't tell you about it yesterday, because we were hoping for some kind of Apple response, but disappointingly, Steve Jobs et al don't seem to want to engage in a nasty verbal catfight; Apple claims they "really don't have anything to say."

Just what made Michael so catty? Was it Steve's Seybold keynote address, in which he mentioned very prominently that Dell's entire online ordering system was built and run with Apple's WebObjects (formerly of NeXT)? Perhaps Mikey-boy was a tad peeved at the world being told that his online PC business relied heavily on a Steve-Jobs-spawned Apple-owned technology. Or maybe he's just in a bad mood because Microsoft broke his web site.

See, we've heard unsubstantiated rumors that Bill Gates was more than a trifle embarrassed that one of the biggest Wintel manufacturers was using an Apple technology to run its web site. So embarrassed, in fact, that he offered to have Microsoft engineers rewrite the whole ordering system using Microsoft technologies instead-- for free, and with free technical support. Dell agreed, but the only problem is, Microsoft had floundered miserably at its end: The first working build of the WebObjects version took three weeks to create (Dell paid NeXT $75,000 for it), but Microsoft was unable to produce a reasonable replacement after three months of work. (The only thing that makes us doubt this scenario is the "free support" part. When has Microsoft ever done that?)

We've heard that the Microsoft version is done now, and up and running. We've also heard that the MS version is buggy, and only seems to work with Internet Explorer. Imagine that. So we tried configuring a PII system using Netscape 3.0. We selected a U.S. Robotics 33.6 modem for an NT 4.0 system. We got an error that said "This option is compatible only with an NT operating system. Please double-check your operating system selection." And yes, NT 4.0 was still selected as our operating system. It took us all of thirty seconds to break something... Sounds like a Microsoft solution to us...

Those sneaky guys at MacOS Rumors managed to get a hold of some very intriguing information about the new "Gossamer" series Macs. The "Outrigger" model sports a 233 MHz PPC 750 chip, 32 MB of SDRAM, 3 PCI slots, a 4GB IDE hard drive, and 3 RAM slots for the low, low price of $1650. If Apple actually releases this system in time for the Christmas buying season, and the specs and price remain similar to what the Rumors staff is reporting, it could be a very merry Christmas indeed.

But wait, that's not all! There's an all-in-one version, code-named "Rainmaker," and the "Outrigger" models, that have chips ranging between 233 and 300 MHz and will be available in a standard 7300-style desktop enclosure, a minitower design code-named "K1," and the 9600-style "K2" tower. Now howmuch would you pay? $10,000? $20,000? No! You pay only $1650-$2400, depending on configuration! Call now!

What we found most interesting, though, was their statement that the PPC 750 chip itself is the size of a pinky fingernail. Yow!! Compare that to the monster 604e in our PowerTower, which is roughly the size of a Buick sedan. Man, we love technology. ;-)

Man, Microsoft can't seem to stay out of trouble. Webintosh reports that Billy and company are being sued by Sun Microsystems for spiking their Java.

Sun envisioned Java as a true cross-platform development language; programmers who write software using Java are supposed to be able to deploy that software on any platform. However, for a while now it has looked as though Microsoft sees fit to taint Java with its own proprietary extensions and features, and render it incompatible by leaving things out. What this means is that when developers write Java programs using Microsoft development tools, that software may only run on Windows machines, or in the Internet Explorer web browser. And people who try to run "pure" Java programs in Windows, or within MSIE, may not be able to get things to work. The latest version of MSIE and M$'s Java Development Kit just shipped with a version of Java that is simply not compatible with the rest of the Java-drinking world.

Sun's lawsuit charges that Microsoft failed in its contractual obligations to provide a compatible implementation of Java, and is intended to prevent Microsoft from labeling their Java products as "Java compatible." The Java Lobby has posted an open letter to Bill Gates, which explains things pretty well. They ask for a "public, official response" to their requests "within ten days." It'll be interesting to see if they get one.

For those of you who are worried about the part of Apple's deal with the devil Microsoft in which it states that the two companies will "collaborate on Java," fear not-- Apple's Java implementations will support "true" Java, as well as Microsoft's bastardized version. In fact, Apple wants Macintosh to be the best Java platform out there, bar none.