So didja miss us? ;-) We apologize to all of our faithful viewers for the lapse of the last few days. We have had what amounts to one of the worst weeks in recorded history (on top of the tragedy of losing a beloved family member, we also had moments of just plain irritation-- such as a flight delayed over two hours on the ground while the flight crew tried to scrounge up a spare set of emergency fire goggles, as well as being hit en route to the cremation by the woman that AtAT fact checker/minutiae goddess Katie now refers to as the "stupid crack whore in the Nissan Pathfinder"), but most of that's behind us now; we're back in our Boston home office and ready to tackle the goofy world of Apple again. We'd like to express our sincere thanks to all of you for your patience while we've attended to family business-- and especially to those of you who expressed your condolences and well-wishes in our time of loss.

Unfortunately, things will continue to be rocky for a little while longer, as some server problems coincided with our family emergency for a double whammy. The effects of the family emergency have mostly passed, but the server issues remain in force. (Hint to budding webmasters: resist the temptation to upgrade to the latest version of server software as soon as it comes out...) Response will probably be slow for a little while, and counters and things may act funny, but we'll do our best to restore normal service as soon as possible. (It will also take us a little while to get caught up on updating the Reruns library, etc.)

AtAT remains committed to entertaining our loyal audience seven days a week. We only ask that you all forgive our occasional lapses when external forces require our attention elsewhere. From this day out, we'd like to dedicate the show to Li Ah Mei, an incredible woman without whose teaching, love, humor, and influence AtAT would certainly never have been possible. We'll miss her terribly.

Politics make strange bedfellows-- and some of the strangest politics yet seen exist squarely in the world of high technology. For instance, take the classic example of Apple and Microsoft; bitter enemies (yes, let's face it) on the operating system front, yet strong allies when it comes to applications. Apple can advertise the numerous ways that the Mac OS is easier and more enjoyable to use than Windows, while then using Microsoft Office as a prime example of productivity software available for the Mac. Similarly, Microsoft can advertise Windows 95's so-called "advantages" over the Mac OS while touting that the Mac version of Office 98 is not only available before the Windows version, but that it also includes features that won't be available on the Windows platform. Apple relies on Microsoft's applications to drive Mac sales, while competing against Windows PCs. Crazy stuff.

That's why last August's Apple-Microsoft agreement wasn't necessarily such a big shock. More than anything, Apple needed the credibility boost that only a Microsoft endorsement could give-- and the guarantee of Mac Office updates for five years does a lot to keep the Mac a viable platform. Indeed, things were looking positively rosy on the collaboration tip with the release of Office 98 for the Mac-- an actual Mac application!-- and the fact that Microsoft had the largest group of Mac developers assembled outside of Apple itself. But is Microsoft's support wavering? Mac the Knife implies that Gates & Co. are planning on chopping a sizeable chunk off of the Mac-rosoft development team, in order to transplant those programmers into the Windows camp.

If true, it's not necessarily indicative of any real pullback from Mac development efforts. Office 98 is done on the Mac side-- and the whole world has seen how much work still needs to be done on Windows 98, thanks to that heavily-publicized crash at Comdex recently. If Bill still expects to ship it by June 25th, he needs to come up with some way of making the product less laughable within the next month or so. I suppose we'll see what the outcome is soon enough. The whole world is watching...

Apple's intended push to re-enter the home market with a vengeance this fall is becoming more regularly publicized in the mainstream tech press. For example, there's this Reuters article floating around, which quotes Apple senior VP of worldwide sales Mitch Mandich as saying that Apple is poised to "get reinvigorated in the consumer market... later this year." As to what types of products Apple plans to unleash this fall to compete with the sub-$1000 Wintel PCs, one can only guess; speculation runs rampant about a home G3 All-in-One, a consumer Mac NC, and whatever the heck this "Columbus" thing is. Regardless, there is (supposedly) a plan in place, and according to Mitch, Apple expects revenues and market share to begin growing year after year starting in the fourth calendar quarter of this year. We suppose that's when we'll see if Apple's recent profits had anything at all to do with sales of Macs to people who don't already own them.

It's good to see Apple publicly addressing the issue of its continually shrinking market share. In the past, they've managed to ignore it, leaving it to the Mac pundits to argue that "market share isn't very important anyway," using such unfortunate examples as the market share of various car manufacturers to show that a 4% slice of the computer pie is just plenty. But computers aren't cars, and a Mercedes doesn't need to use Mercedes gas. If Mac market share goes much lower, the "developer drain" we've been seeing (for instance, Intuit's recent attempt to pull out of the Mac side) will continue until that old saw about there being "no software for the Mac" is finally true after all.

Incidentally, Mitch also confirms that the CEO hunt is now officially on the "back burner" and going "very slowly." Nothing's changed since the shareholders' meeting, at which Steve Jobs dismissed the concerns over his "interim" status as being much ado about nothing. We're increasingly convinced that we were correct when we facetiously suggested that the neverending search for a new chief executive officer was simply a face-saving way for Jobs to become the permanent CEO without actually breaking his promise to the Pixar staff. Or maybe we were the ones who gave Steve the idea? Hmmm... Steve, are you out there?