My oh my, the fur may fly, if what Mac the Knife's saying is true. It appears that an unspecified "leading manufacturer of Wintel systems" is planning to have a booth at January's MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. AtAT is unsure whether to classify such a move as: a) incredibly business-savvy, as some Mac users are being forced to consider the Wintel platform; b) stupendously brave, considering the rabid faithfulness of throngs of Mac fans, especially the ones who shell out the cash to go to MacWorld; or c) tremendously stupid-- again, considering the rabid faithfulness of throngs of Mac fans. When you throw a large Wintel manufacturer into a convention center with macophiles who've been pushed to the brink with an incessant stream of anti-Apple press, threats of forced migration to Windows at work, and dancing Intel clean-room engineers on the telly, we think that grievous bodily harm is not an altogether unlikely result.

Now, AtAT are pacifists by nature, and we cannot condone intentional violence to any living creatures. Really, people, if Dell or Gateway sets up shop at the Moscone Center, please keep the automatic weapons holstered, and while it's marginally okay to use your combat knife to carve the phrase "Bill Must Die" into your bullets, it is not socially acceptable to plant said knife squarely between the shoulderblades of a Wintel sales rep. And lastly, if you must act on these psychotic impulses, try to avoid screaming "This one's for AtAT!" when you are pumping the booth full of lead-- we don't need the lawsuit. We recommend "Guy Kawasaki Rules!" as an alternate battle cry, since he's used to dealing with stuff like that.

By the way, AtAT regretfully won't be able to switch coasts and attend the event. Are any of our faithful viewers planning on going, and would they be willing to take photos of the ensuing bloodshed? ;-)

A recent Techweb article on the rumored deal between Apple and Oracle-- said to have fallen through at the last minute, thus explaining the extremely short media circus on the 10th, which left many asking, "Is that all?"-- quotes Apple corporate PR manager Katie Cotton as saying that "[Apple] made the announcements we intended to make. We're not going to comment on the rumors floating out there. It's getting old."

This is not news, but we just wanted to take this opportunity to bestow a new title upon Katie Cotton. In virtually every article in which she's quoted, Katie appears briefly to deny all rumors and then recedes into the night. For instance, when the web was ablaze with rumors that Steve Jobs would drop "interim" from his title, she denied it. And then weeks later, when we all heard that Steve wasn't taking the permanent CEO spot, she denied that, too, saying that "nothing had changed."

And so, we at AtAT are proud to announce that from now on, Katie Cotton will be known as Apple's "official naysayer." When you think about it, that's a very important job-- and she does it very well.

Ralph Nader's anti-Microsoft Cavalcade of Stars wrapped up last Friday, and only time will tell if it made a whit of difference. In the meantime, you can read Microsoft's letter to Ralph in response to his conference. In it, Bob Herbold (Microsoft's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer) suggests that "Your conference this week in Washington, D.C., 'Appraising Microsoft and Its Global Strategy,' might more appropriately be entitled 'Microsoft: A Conclave of Critics.'"

We like it! How about for next year's shindig?

To be fair, Bob makes some very interesting points in his letter. While we don't necessarily agree with his stance that Ralph's just helping Microsoft's competitors enlist the help of the government because they can't compete on their own, he took the time to write a long, detailed, and well-thought-out defense. We suggest you take a look, at the very least to get a sense of Microsoft's strategy in fighting the "anti-competitive" charges.