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Them Webs We Weave (10/5/98)
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Once again, we find ourselves indebted to faithful viewer Matthew Guerrieri, who manages to sniff out irony like a bloodhound tracking a fugitive covered in tangy barbeque sauce. (In case you were wondering, sleep deprivation does wonders for injecting a little pizzazz into one's similes. But anyway.) Matthew has done us all an entertaining good turn by watching the Microsoft legal machine do its thing. It's a valuable lesson in relativity-- or, at least, legal convenience.
Matthew caught an article in the Wall Street Journal about the ongoing "Redmond Justice" case, whose trial is still slated to start in just a couple of weeks. Apparently the Microsoft tactic-du-jour is to introduce some email messages from Netscape that were sent just after the two companies met to discuss their competing web browsers. This email, Microsoft claims, contains "no hint that Netscape had been threatened, as the government alleges." Email as solid evidence. Right?
Okay, now take a look at this Detroit News article, which is about another Microsoft legal tussle-- the Sun lawsuit alleging that Microsoft violated its contract by contaminating Java. In that case, Sun is apparently planning to introduce some Microsoft email as evidence that the software giant was feeling very threatened by Java's potential to usurp Windows' stranglehold on the market. And Microsoft's response to that strategy? The email is "interesting," but amounts to no more than "background noise" since email messages are so informal and conversational in nature. Anyone sense a double standard? Question: should email be considered evidence in a lawsuit? Answer: depends who wrote it...
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SceneLink (1057)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 10/5/98 episode: October 5, 1998: Inflation makes us all feel the pinch, as pricing for the Mac OS reaches a new high. Meanwhile, Apple may have prematurely closed the door on all the poor orphaned Power Computing customers in this world, and Microsoft's legal department is a master of situational justification...
Other scenes from that episode: 1055: Prices on the Rise (10/5/98) All's not perfect in paradise. We've been hearing a bit of grumbling about Mac OS 8.5, due to hit store shelves in a week and a half. Apparently no small number of Mac users are just a little bummed about Apple's price for the software update-- $99, with no special upgrade pricing... 1056: The Pain of Orphanhood (10/5/98) So the apparent pricing of Mac OS 8.5 doesn't bother us all that much, but something else about it does. MacInTouch raises a very interesting point about the compatibility level of Apple's new system software release...
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