(NOTE: The following scene was produced but not broadcast before Apple's official announcement of the Cube's death-- er, suspension; we are broadcasting it unedited in memory of one damn fine computer.)

Fashion-forward cubic Macs with no sales pull never die, they just fade away-- or, at least, that's what we originally thought. We figured that once Macworld Expo rolled around in a couple of weeks and Steve took the wraps off a slew of shiny new toys, the Cube would simply vanish when Apple updated its web site and price lists to include the latest additions to the line-up (and to drop any and all references to Apple's biggest sales embarrassment in years). Dazzled by LCD-sporting iMacs and gigahertz G4s, the average Mac fan may never even have noticed that Apple's eight-inch "brain in a box" had quietly dropped off the radar. The only acknowledgment we expected to see of the Cube's passing during the keynote was Steve subtly wearing black from the waist up.

Now, though, we're hearing that the Cube won't even make it to its first birthday before getting flatlined. A nebulous faithful viewer known only as Garibaldi has donned his swami hat to make the bold prediction that the Cube is being deep-sixed tonight. How he claims to know, we cannot say. Whether he's correct or not is anyone's guess. But we pass along his premonition in good faith, knowing that Cube fans the world over may want to hold candlelight vigils or pray silently while facing Cupertino, just in case the Cube does indeed get stamped with the dreaded "End of Life" designation sometime after the sun sets.

As for us, we've always been big fans of the Cube here at AtAT-- but, like so much of the rest of the world, not big enough fans to shell out the cash and actually buy one. Partially that was because of purely rational arguments: it was pretty expensive (at least at the start), some people were having problems with spontaneous shutdowns, and we really need a primary production system that can host two Ethernet interfaces. Deep down, though, we suspect that the biggest reason we never bought one is because it would be hideously out of place in the AtAT studios. The Cube is a gleaming piece of modern sculpture that lifts the spirits of all who cast eyes on it; the AtAT compound, on the other hand, looks rather like a junkyard that's been vandalized and then set fire to. Simply put, we couldn't provide the Cube with a setting that would do its design justice. Indeed, we wonder if that was the biggest factor in its failure as a product: potential customers who ultimately decided subconsciously that the Cube was just too good for them.

Still, both despite and because of the fact that the Cube looks like it'd be more at home in a museum than on a desk, we'll be sorry to see it go. Personally, we think it lends a touch of extra class to Apple's product line; ideally the company should just keep ten of them in a warehouse somewhere and jack up the price to, say, a million dollars each. No one will ever buy one, but then the Cube could live forever, always giving the world something to ooh and ahh over when taking a peek at Apple's product list. If Garibaldi's right and the Cube departs tonight for that Great Scrap Heap in the Sky, here's hoping it rates a classy pedestal in the Mac afterlife.

Granted, Apple under the Second Jobs Dynasty has always viewed the enterprise market rather the way most individuals regard getting smacked upside the head with a wet piece of cheese, but we've still always been a little baffled by the foot-dragging on Oracle's part when it comes to adding Mac compatibility to its database products. After all, Oracle is run by Larry Ellison, who also just happens to be Uncle Steve's best friend; what's taking so long? Maybe the fact that Larry's a member of Apple's board of directors is a factor-- Apple seems to have trouble persuading its directors to get their own companies to support the Mac. Witness Bill Campbell, whose company Intuit stopped making QuickBooks for the Mac, and Mickey Drexler, whose Gap still inexplicably lacks Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian casual wear from its summer line-up. Go figure.

But things on the Oracle front may finally be changing. As faithful viewer Victor Agreda, Jr. was quick to point out, an eWEEK article indicates that Larry's minions are hard at work on "developing client software to connect workstations running Apple Computer Inc.'s new OS to Oracle's database applications." Yes, folks, whether Steve likes it or not, Mac OS X may wind up forcibly dragging our beloved platform into the enterprise market by its throbbing blue buttons. Come the third quarter of this year, Oracle will release a Mac OS X client-- albeit in an "unsupported, early adopter" form.

But if you're one of those people that can't wait to start smuggling Mac OS X into your big-business day jobs, keep in mind that Larry hasn't exactly got Aqua on the brain or anything. While Oracle will have a production version of its software ready for Mac OS X "before the end of the year," it's not quite going to be on par with the version for that other platform. As the main Oracle 9i marketing shill puts it, "the Mac client will provide programmatic connectivity to Oracle databases but will not provide any client tools (executables) such as SQL*Plus. As such, it is not a full client like that on Windows." Yeah, yeah, yeah... still, baby steps, right?

Geez, between the Oracle announcement and Microsoft's recent release of a Mac version of Outlook (not Outlook Express) that reportedly sucks less than its predecessor, it's almost like the Mac might actually stand a chance in big business. Or, at least, it might stand a chance if the Redmond gang had actually bothered to Carbonize Outlook instead of deciding to release it strictly as a Classic application. (Classic-only at this stage of the game? No, there's no hidden agenda there...)

It's official: the G4 is stale news, old hat, yesterday's banana. Sure, we're probably going to be seeing the fastest G4s yet in two weeks' time, but everybody who's anybody in the fast-paced world of rumormongering has now moved on: the hot topic these days is the G5, baby. Don't let the cool kids catch you discussing the G4 at the water cooler, or you'll be ostracized for life-- and as Mac users, you already know just how unpleasant that can be.

Faithful viewer The M@d H@tter still has his eyed glued to Mac OS Rumors, so he tipped us off to the fact that the granddaddy of all rumors sites now has another letter, allegedly from another Apple employee privy to developments in the shadowy realm of the PowerPC. While the G4's ascension to 733 MHz earlier this year was arguably enough of a jump to get the chip architecture off the "beleaguered" list, it's the G5 that'll really put the PowerPC back in the race. Assuming the letter is legit, the G5 is already sampling at 1.5 and 1.6 GHz-- and when the chip debuts "late this year," it's supposedly going to lead off at "1.9 or 2.0 GHz with the high end at 2.5 GHz," eventually reaching speeds of "4.5-5 GHz." ("I'm sorry, could you repeat that? My brain just exploded.")

To us, those clock speeds sound way too high to be believable-- but personally, we feel that plausibility is vastly overrated these days. If you find the prospect of a 5 GHz G5 wholly beyond the realm of the possible, try not to let that distract you from the really good news in this latest missive: "Apple has taken over much of the processor design of the G4 and G5 processors, except for embedded versions, which was a cordial settlement for the G4 fiasco." To us, that'd be an even bigger dream come true than a 1.9 GHz Power Mac G5 arriving this January. Well, okay, maybe not... but it'd make the prospect of a Power Mac G5 shipping in six months a whole lot likelier, in our book.