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Waving The White Flag (11/17/99)
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Redmond, we have a problem: Bill Gates might be losing his nerve. See, we've been relying on his Montana-sized ego to protect us from an abrupt, premature, and anticlimactic ending to the ongoing antitrust drama known as "Redmond Justice." Whereas any sane CEO faced with findings of fact as harsh as Judge Jackson's would probably accept the first settlement offer dropped on the table ("Split the company into twenty warring city-states and make all engineers wear Groucho glasses? Where do I sign?"), we were counting on the bullheadedness only an $80 billion net worth can bring to reject any and all settlements in favor of a fight to the finish.
Unfortunately, as faithful viewer Tim Rzeznik notes, it's starting to look like Bill is giving up. First, in a Time interview, when asked about whether he'd consider a settlement that involved a breakup of Microsoft, Gates made dodgy statements like "I can't go down the path of saying what the settlement would be," according to a Reuters article. And then another article says that in an interview on today's Good Morning America, when faced with similar questions, His Royal Billness said he's open to "any sort of resolution" and is "curious" and "willing to discuss" such options. Yikes. You don't suppose that maybe he only just got around to reading Judge Jackson's findings of fact over the weekend or something, do you? It sounds like he might be a bit spooked.
So this has us a little shaken. It's bad enough to see the world's richest man acting slightly subdued and possibly even a bit humbled-- but if it also means we're going to be robbed of an honest-to-goodness courtroom verdict scene to wrap up two years of the finest antitrust drama ever shown, well, that would be an absolute tragedy. Is Bill's new attitude adjustment a subtle ruse, as Tim suggests? Or is this really the picture of a beaten man? Only time-- and the next episode-- will tell...
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 11/17/99 episode: November 17, 1999: The first Drew Carey television-Internet simulcast may have been a historic moment in entertainment history, but QuickTime wasn't invited to the party. Meanwhile, Future Power announces an ePower redesign to sidestep Apple's preliminary injunction against the iMac knockoff, and Bill Gates is making settlement noises-- will he really let the feds bust up his company?...
Other scenes from that episode: 1918: "What The Hell Is .asx?" (11/17/99) Okay, let's see if we've got the connections right, here... The Drew Carey Show is on ABC. ABC is owned by Disney. Disney is buddy-buddy with Pixar. Pixar is run by Steve Jobs. Steve happens to be the iCEO of Apple... 1919: Just A Coincidence (11/17/99) You know, you really just have to love these iMac copycat companies. First they figure they'll score some easy sales without expending an ounce of creative energy or a penny on industrial design research by swiping Apple's design and slapping it on top of a Wintel core...
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