Since the media ruckus surrounding Apple advertising had mostly shifted away from their controversial use of famous historical figures and towards their controversial public toasting of the Intel Pentium II processor, evidently Apple decided it was time to divert attention towards the famous figures again. Apple's managed to get the Dalai Lama to agree to let his image be used in Apple "Think Different" ads by the skillful application of a "charitable donation." The details appear in a Nando.net article.

As to whether that "charitable donation" was simply cash, or primo computer equipment destined for the Tibetan refugees currently in India, Apple would not say. Sure, it's easy to reduce the whole transaction to the capitalist bribing of a spiritual leader, and heck, it's even fun to do so, but we dig the Dalai and we trust his judgment. We're a little bummed to see that he's "no computer whiz himself," though, and we think it'd be cool if Apple sent him a Powerbook just for kicks. That's the thing about Macs-- you never know who's going to get hooked.

Is the use of the Dalai Lama's image in an ad for computers a tasteless move? Perhaps-- it depends on your perspective. But Apple's rediscovered the importance of controversy, that's for sure. By running ad campaigns that kick up a little dust, they're getting more for their advertising buck: the ad itself, and the news coverage of that ad, which increases public awareness and makes the ad even more effective in the long run. There's no such thing as bad publicity, right? Er, unless you happen to be the president of the U.S.A., we suppose...

A few days ago we mentioned the nasty bug that had cropped up in one of the applications shipping with Microsoft Office 98, which would actually delete your whole System Folder in certain situations. Well, not long afterwards, Microsoft posted a update for that particular "Remove Office 98" problem, which you've no doubt heard about from several sources by now if you're an Office user who needed the fix.

The thing that struck a chord with us, though, was reading in a Computer Reseller News article that Microsoft discovered the bug by instructing customers to run the utility in order to remove Office 98 to remedy other, considerably less serious, bugs with the software. As occasional tech support representatives ourselves, we shudder at the thought; when trying to talk a frantic customer through a problem nothing is worse than telling them to do something which makes everything worse instead of better. Seriously, imagine getting a call from someone who reports that running the Memo Wizard makes his system crash, and then telling him to run Remove Office 98, only to hear that now his whole system is unbootable. We're going to be having nightmares about that scenario for weeks, and our hearts go out to the poor Microsoft tech support folks who stumbled into such a painful situation.

Incidentally, Microsoft still insists that the deletion of the System Folder could only happen if the user "manually moved" the Office 98 library to the Extensions folder from the Microsoft Office 98 folder and then ran the utility, but several hapless users who watched their system software get flushed before their very eyes swear up and down that they never touched the file. Conspiracy theorists can do the math. And despite the esteem in which we generally hold Microsoft's programmers (interpret that as you will), by their own admission they did in fact write an application that removes the folder containing that particular library, blithely assuming that said library could only be in the Microsoft Office 98 folder. Color us disappointed in their abilities. They must've been up against a deadline or something.

Psssst, hey buddy, c'mere. Wanna know why Microsoft is unstoppable, and the feds have no chance to stop the juggernaut? Then check out this ABCNEWS article and witness the future. The author makes some good points about how Microsoft stands to gain a bundle by subdividing itself into several business units that each have their own room to grow.

While few concepts scare us quite as much as the continued spread of Microsoft into every nook and cranny of everyday life, that fact looks to be inevitable, as Microsoft could stop the government's current proceedings in a heartbeat by splitting into Microsoft Operating Systems, Microsoft Applications, Microsoft Media, and who knows what else. As the author points out, AT&T pulled this off not once, but twice-- first in 1984 when it split off its local phone businesses, and then again just a couple of years ago when it spun off Lucent Technologies. Lucent has continued to grow and remains very profitable for its stockholders. There's no particular reason that Microsoft couldn't do the same.

Now, we're not saying that the article is necessarily right, but you've got to admit, it makes a lot of sense. There's no way that Microsoft is going to let itself be forcibly decimated into teeny chunks that wither and die. It's much more likely that Microsoft will voluntarily divide into self-sufficient units that will continue to grow and dominate. In this "Sorceror's Apprentice" scenario, the feds are Mickey and Microsoft's the broom. Now sleep tight. ;-)