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First Out The Gate (12/15/99)
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C'mon, folks, let's have a hearty round of applause for Microsoft! They've finally finished Windows 2000 (The Operating System Formerly Known As NT 5) and sent it off for duplication-- "right on time." Well, okay, maybe it's not right on time; in fact, by some counts, it's three years late. But that's the joy of operating system development: if it's going to be late, just rename it, and voilà! Suddenly it's ahead of schedule! Faithful viewer Jerry O'Neil pointed out a Wall Street Journal article with more details.
Now, before you get all indignant about Windows 2000's name change, don't forget-- Apple's an old pro at that game. Mac OS X's been through so many name changes and reconfigurations it's hard to believe that Apple bought NeXT a whopping three years ago. There was Rhapsody Premiere (originally due in January of 1998!) and Rhapsody Unified, which then got morphed into Customer Release 1 and 2, with different feature sets and release dates. But CR1 was due in "early summer 1998," and when that date started to slip, it was recast as Mac OS X Server and slated for the end of summer. It finally shipped in March of the following year. And we're still waiting for "the real thing," now known as Mac OS X, which was originally due ages ago and now probably won't see the light of day until perhaps May of 2000. (That's just a guess, by the way.)
Sadly, this means that Apple missed a golden opportunity with Mac OS X. If it had shipped before Windows 2000, it would have had a much better chance of making inroads into enterprise settings. Now, though, Windows gets another head start-- and the beta testers seem to be very happy with Microsoft's latest "heavy duty" OS. The real test will be what happens once it becomes commercially available in February, but if we were Steve Jobs, we'd be sweating right about now-- apparently Barnes & Noble's entire online store consists of systems running a beta of Windows 2000, so that bodes well for the product's stability. And you know that by now, Windows users have had their expectations lowered so far, if Win2000 doesn't burst into flames when the CD is removed from the box, people will call it the best OS ever created.
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SceneLink (1977)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 12/15/99 episode: December 15, 1999: Not much is shaking in Cupertino-- why not blast some aliens instead? Meanwhile, Metacreations pulls a weird maneuver by possibly ditching their graphics programs in favor of working on e-commerce 3D, and Microsoft finishes Windows 2000, while Mac OS X is still months away...
Other scenes from that episode: 1975: Do I Amuse You? (12/15/99) Here we are again in the calm before the storm. Very little seems to be happening in the usually turbulent world of Apple Computer, as all the players are presumably scrambling around doing the holiday thing... 1976: You're Doing WHAT Now? (12/15/99) Of course, while Apple generally produces the best drama, every once in a while another company manages to pull off something exciting. How about MetaCreations? Here's a company with a huge stable of creative graphics products, including several that the AtAT staff uses to produce this show: Bryce, Kai's Power Tools, Painter, Expression, and lots more...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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