ZDNet's getting in on the conspiracy/speculation game. Mark L. Van Name and Bill Catchings opine that an Apple/Oracle merger (now heavily denied by both companies) would make a lot of sense in the grand scheme of things. Oracle's Larry Ellison gets to screw Bill Gates by expanding its database software onto Rhapsody, while gaining Apple's hardware manufacturing outfit to build its network computers. Steve Jobs gets to screw Bill Gates by expanding its software onto a wider range of machines, including those in the business and enterprise arenas it's had a tough time cracking.

Of course, key to their scenario is the assumption that Microsoft will support Rhapsody by releasing Rhapsody versions of Office for the next few years, as per the August Apple/Microsoft deal. But we don't recall Rhapsody support ever being a part of that agreement-- as we sat listening to Steve enumerate the points of the bargain, we said "What about Rhapsody?" He only said that Microsoft would release Office for the Mac OS for three more years. And that worried us.

The ZDNet conspiracy does have even scarier points. It suspects that Apple is abandoning the PowerPC in favor of the Intel architecture. In such a scenario, the only processor left is Intel's, since they bought out the Alpha from Digital. That leaves zero competition in the processor arena, not counting AMD, Cyrix, etc. who are only building x86-compatible chips, as far as we know.

And while we're talking about rampant speculation, let's spend a moment on the Apple Recon article which discusses the possibility of a Mac port of Windows 98. Yes, they warn again and again that it's just an unconfirmed rumor, but it's an interesting idea. According to their source, Microsoft plans on "releasing a BETA in one to two years."

So let's see... if the beta's in one or two years, then the release won't be for, say, two or three (especially given Microsoft's constant release data slippage on OS releases). So that means that, come the millennium, we Mac users will have the option of running what is essentially Windows 95 with Internet Explorer tacked on as a file browser, which will run whatever software the PC developers actually deigned to recompile for the relatively tiny Mac market. Or we could run Rhapsody, which, by that time, should be extremely robust and will run scads of native applications, as well as virtually all Mac OS software, plus almost every x86-native Windows application at reasonable speeds via emulation packages like VirtualPC. Hmmm, tough choice.

We really don't think this rumor's got a lot of truth in it. Microsoft is not stupid; they rarely spend time and money on projects that won't pay off. We're hard-pressed to think of any way a late port of Windows 98 would be successful on the Mac hardware platform.

Hey, there are only thirty more shopping days before Christmas, but there's no need to panic: the Macintosh Entertainment Software Alliance (MESA) has teamed up with Apple to make it a little easier to decide what to get for the Mac-enabled folks on your list. Head over to Computer Retail Week to read about MESA's "Buy Two, Get One Free" deal.

Basically, it works like this: Just buy two Mac games from a list of the greatest titles available this season, and you can get a third for free by mail. So you can buy Quake for little Johnny, Duke Nukem 3D for your godson-- and get Shadow Warrior for yourself, for free. Sounds like a good deal to us.

By the way, odds are that you've got a PC-user or three on your list. Check out this little strategy we just used: One of the games on the MESA list is Bungie's groundbreaking 3D real-time strategy game Myth: The Fallen Lords, which is guaranteed to be one of the hottest games this holiday season. Though there are separate Windows and Mac boxes, the contents of those boxes are identical (with the exception of a coupon for some platform-specific hardware). That means that the Mac version of Myth will work just fine on a Windows machine. So why not buy Mac Myth for your PC-using friends? It counts as a Mac software sale, which helps the Mac software industry. Do your part. ;-)