If you own a PowerBase, PowerTower, PowerCenter, etc. and have been wondering what you're going to do for hardware technical support after the new year, your answer came today. In a press release, Power Computing announced that as of December 8th, the service provider DecisionOne will be the official long-term customer support company for Power's Mac OS customers (which includes the AtAT staff). While initial service calls will go through Power (or Apple), if call screeners assess that the problem is hardware-based, DecisionOne is called off the bench. Either a DecisionOne field engineer will be sent to fix the ailing machine on-site, or arrangements will be made to ship it back for repair.

Relieved as we are that we will be able to get our PowerTower Pro repaired for at least the next seven years, we are actually slightly disappointed at not having an excuse to trade up to a Powermac G3 this Christmas. Ah, well... Maybe next year?

Could it be true? MacOS Rumors cautiously reveals that Apple may be planning to ship new servers next fall. Not a big deal, you say. But the Elite Apple Hush-Hush Squad has electric fences, razor wire, and big nasty dogs guarding the new server project from all angles, to the degree where the only things anyone knows about these machines is that they're code-named "Kestrel & Hawks" and that they'll cost about six grand. When was the last time you heard that little about any Apple project? So that very lack of info has led some to suspect that the K&H packs a surprise inside-- put there by a dancing lamé-clad clean-room engineer.

That's right: K&H may just be Apple's Intel-based Rhapsody server. Apple's strategy may be to forge inroads into the business world by selling RhapsIntel servers with a slew of PPC-based Mac NC clients. But if so, how will the Mac community react? Remember the backlash that hit Power Computing after they announced a similar strategy, though with NT instead of Rhapsody. Of course, many felt that their claims of trying to bolster the Mac client business by selling NT servers was just a front, and that they were planning on switching their products from Mac OS to Windows all along.

I suppose we'll know more about the K&H by next fall. In the meantime, AtAT is pleased to help spread wild and potentially damaging rumors.

Just this past Monday, Internet Week reported that Netscape had removed the "Java Compatible" logo from its website, admitting that Communicator 4.04 is not actually fully compliant with Sun's spec. That sort of puts the kibosh on Microsoft's past strategy of saying that Sun was playing favorites by allowing Netscape to slack off on full Java compatibility, while suing Microsoft for the same thing.

Well, on the same day, Sun filed a motion to force Microsoft to remove the very same logo from the latest version of Internet Explorer. Microsoft, however, apparently has no plans to comply, saying that they "have rights to use the logo" because they "meet all [Sun's] compatibility requirements." Not so, claims the affidavit of one Peter Deutsch, a former Sun employee who recently tested IE 4.0. According to Deutsch, IE 4.0 fails the Java Conformity Kit 1.1a Signature Tests, because Microsoft added Java classes that don't comply with Sun's published spec, and deleted others required for conformance.

So the battle rages on: Sun continues to file claims that Microsoft is noncompliant, and Microsoft keeping shrugging off the charges. Only time will tell who's right. One thing we're sure of, though, is that if Deutsch really "purchased" his copy of IE at a "local retail store," he needs to learn how to download free software...