Hey, folks, we're back. Didja miss us? We wound up cutting our whirlwind Global Expansionism Tour 2004 short because after we took over the CARS offices it became apparent that there are a few things about empire-building we had to learn the hard way. For one thing, did you know that Irkutsk is actually a city in Russia, and not, as is commonly supposed, a small community off Route 20 in Sudbury? Like we were going to make that drive. Oh, and we also found out that when you deploy forces for an invasion, you're supposed to leave at least one person holding the fort back home. Or at least remember to lock the doors when you leave. Important life lesson, there.

So we've abandoned the whole expansionism thing for now, because it's a lot more trouble than it's worth and it was cutting into our TiVo time anyway. Besides, which do you think we'd rather be doing: sacking and pillaging unsuspecting countries for the sake of expanding our empire, or writing snarky commentary about how Gateway couldn't hack the retail thing? Surprisingly enough, it's the second one. We know, we were sort of caught off guard by the realization, too, but while pillaging isn't without its quaint charms (good hours, plenty of fresh air and aerobic exercise, etc.), we've been waiting for those Gateway stores to fold for years, now-- pretty much ever since Gateway itself shut down all overseas operations, which we figured was probably the beginning of the end.

So, yeah, as faithful viewer hypoxic informed us, the inevitable has come to pass: according to a Gateway press release, it's shutting down all 188 retail stores in a week. Apparently the company blew all its cash on buying eMachines (a move we've always thought of as "Hey, You Got Your Mediocre in My Crappy / You Got Your Crappy in My Mediocre") and now can't afford to keep its stores afloat. And this is a particularly sketchy time to be pulling out of the whole retail thing, since Gateway recently resorted to selling TVs and other consumer electronics devices in order to stay in business despite massively dwindling computer sales. While the company "will continue direct sales of Gateway products to consumers and businesses" via the Web, we're guessing that most consumers are far less likely to blow six grand on a television set without seeing one up close and personal first.

Meanwhile, the Apple retail stores are reportedly doing just fine (provided there's a reasonable explanation for those alleged accounting issues, of course), and Apple is still opening new stores instead of shuttering existing ones; MacMinute reports that Apple is already hiring for a new store to open in Pittsburgh. And don't forget that, far from shutting down all operations in other countries, Apple is even expanding its retail strategy overseas.

Gateway's stores won't actually close until April 9th, so if there's one near you, you might consider stopping in to see if you can get a nice closeout deal on a plasma TV or something. If you do, please fight the urge to point at the staff and giggle; true, no one forced them to work for Gateway in the first place, but c'mon, these are people (about 2,500 of them, reportedly) who are soon to be unemployed, and that's never fun. We're all for schadenfreude, but save it for the big, faceless corporation, not the folks who will soon have no health insurance.

Meanwhile, speaking of laughing at the big, faceless corporation, we'd just like to compare a few recent numbers for you. In the early days of AtAT, there was one particular Apple-bashing troll who used to tune in every day (yes, every day-- how deeply in denial can a Wintel user be?) just to write in afterwards to tell us that Apple would soon be going out of business and Gateway, as the world's bestest computer company, would eventually take over the planet. Now, while it's true that Apple still isn't exactly ruling the world, in its most recently reported fiscal quarter it had revenues of $2.006 billion (up 34% year-over-year), made $63 million in profit (as opposed to an $8 million loss a year earlier), and shipped 829,000 Macs (up 12%). During the same quarter, Gateway had revenues of $875 million (down 16%), lost $114 million (compared to losing $72 million during the same quarter a year ago), and sold 526,000 PCs (down 27%).

Gee, why do you suppose we haven't heard from that guy for a while?

Remember how, when Apple announced that it had sold 50 million songs via the iTunes Music Store, the press jumped all over it saying that it had totally missed its one-year target of selling 100 million tracks? Of course, the folks reporting such things kindasorta neglected to note that 1) the 100 million-in-a-year figure was ratcheted way up from Apple's original target, which was to sell a million songs in six months; 2) the target date for the 100 million is April 30th, so there's still some time yet; and 3) Apple's 50 million song figure didn't include Pepsi-promo downloads (which the 100 million target does-- kudos to the BBC for subsequently correcting its article, by the way). Now, granted, Apple has since noted that Pepsi redemptions are wicked low, so it probably won't meet its lofty goal, but hey, things could be worse.

In fact, they could be much worse. For example, faithful viewer bo tipped us off to a Macworld UK article which reports that OD2, the "European digital music operator" owned by Peter Gabriel, has hit its own milestone: it sold "one million downloaded tracks in the first quarter 2004." Yes, one million. In the whole quarter. Keep in mind, people, the iTMS is currently selling about 2.5 million songs every week. Granted, Apple sells to the U.S. while OD2 sells to Europe, but still, we're talking about something like a 30:1 ratio, here. What's more, OD2 is thrilled with its numbers, because they "represent a doubling of its download business" compared to the previous quarter "and a massive ten-fold increase in sales" compared to the same quarter last year. So before you go boo-hooing about how the iTMS might sell "only" 70 million songs in its first year, just remember what the other guys' numbers look like.

Of course, it'll be a lot fairer to compare OD2-vs.-iTMS sales once the iTMS finally opens for business in Europe-- which we really hope happens soon, because Apple needs to gain all the ground it can before Microsoft starts trying to take over. Faithful viewer fabian sent us a CNET article about Redmond's "iPod killer," which is a technology that'll allow rented WMA music-- you know, from the all-you-can-listen monthly-fee subscription services-- to be played on portable music players. In other words, people who rent their music from Napster or MusicMatch or whatever will no longer be stuck listening to their music at home; they can pop anything they want on, say, a MuVo and take it along with them.

This is actually the first supposed threat to the iPod/iTMS powerhouse that makes us a little nervous. Whereas Steve's right that people like to own their music instead of renting it, consider what it'd be like if you could pay ten bucks a month to download as many songs from the iTMS as you liked and load them up on your iPod. For the cost of one album a month, you could have a pool of half a million songs to take with you. Now, since Apple doesn't offer that option, once Microsoft ships this technology ("as soon as July"), people might seriously start considering subscription services and non-iPod players to be a viable option-- maybe even the better option. Why would Joe Average go broke blowing all his cash on an iPod if he then still has to shell out another ten bucks per album for stuff to put on it?

So we're hoping that Apple is at least considering offering an unlimited monthly plan, just in case the market decides that portability makes the renting scenario far more attractive than it is now. If it isn't, and people swarm to the subscription services, it may not be long before Apple is happy about selling a whole million songs in a quarter.

Yes, it's Friday once again, folks, and tradition dictates that it's Wildly Off-Topic Microsoft-Bashing Day-- but this week we're going to go just a little bit off-off-topic and do the bashing in a slightly more oblique fashion than usual. Don't worry, it won't hurt a bit, we promise.

What we're about to tell you is actually old news, but since roughly half our viewing audience gets 95% of its knowledge of current events solely from Mac web sites, there's a decent chance you haven't heard about it yet. According to The Inquirer (as pointed out by faithful viewer mrmgraphics), the Deputy Chief Information Officer of our illustrious Department of Homeland Security, one Laura Callahan, finally resigned last week, after months of controversy about her qualifications. Specifically, her degrees and "doctorate in computer information systems" came from Hamilton University, a learning institution that "emphasizes the individual needs and goals of the degree candidate." As in, "I need a few degrees to pad my résumé and my goal is to get them by writing you a check."

In other words, Hamilton U. is allegedly a "diploma mill," an unlicensed and unaccredited "school" selling doctoral degrees to anyone with $3,600 to pay for one (credit cards not accepted). Government Computer News reports that it's run by "two or three people" out of an old motel. And so "Dr." Laura Callahan is no more a Doctor of Information Systems than we are Doctors of Love, except that our Certificates of Mastery of the Arts of Gettin' Freaky only cost us ten bucks each the last time the carnival rolled through town. (Well, plus framing costs; you don't buy certification like that without displaying it proudly on the wall, ya know.)

"But AtAT," you ask, "where's that oblique Microsoft-bashing you promised us?" Patience, Grasshopper; remember when the Department of Homeland Security made that bonehead move of signing a $90 million contract to name Microsoft as its "primary technology provider"? Sure you do-- that's the one that put Redmond software on the department's 140,000 computers, despite the fact that any organization with the word "security" in its freakin' title should darn well know better. If you still don't remember it, here's a little chronological landmark to jog your memory: this is the contract that was signed about a day and a half before Microsoft admitted the existence of that "critical flaw" in Windows that eventually led to the rampage of the Blaster worm a month later. Ah, there's a glimmer of recognition.

So what we're getting at is, given "Dr." Callahan's high-ranking position in the DHS information systems department, it's finally starting to make sense to us how the organization could have been so completely clueless as to pay $90 million to stick such Swiss-cheese software on its 140,000 computers. Now, okay, true, Laura had been "on administrative leave with pay" since last June (wow, she was raking in paychecks and government benefits for doing nine months' worth of nothing? Sign us up for a fake degree or three!), and the Microsoft deal wasn't signed until mid-July, but based on the typical speed of bureaucracy, we think it's safe to assume that the contract was in the works long before Laura got busted.

Windows: The Technology Choice of Uneducated Frauds and Their Non-Credential-Checking Government Employers!™