Okay, lots of you (faithful viewer Renaldo Nehemiah having been the first) are writing in about how Palm was next on Microsoft's infamous hit list. If you haven't heard, in the government's filing last Friday calling for Microsoft's breakup, the Justice Department noted that, less than a month after the "Redmond Justice" trial ended, Bill Gates sent email to his staff "directing that Microsoft redesign its software to harm competitors" who make PDAs. A Reuters story has the skinny on this latest brouhaha.

Now, really, is anyone surprised by this? We're actually rather taken aback by some of the outrage we've seen over this issue. After all, we've seen this time and time again; Microsoft employees seem to have a penchant for using email to discuss the "removal" of their competitors. It was through email that we learned of Microsoft's plot to force Netscape out of the browser market by tying Internet Explorer to Windows. It was through email that we saw the real face of former Microsoft Mac guy Ben Waldman, who suggested that the company threaten to cancel Office for the Mac unless Apple adopted Internet Explorer as its operating system's default web browser. So why is everyone in a tizzy about these alleged plans to hurt Palm? Is it just because Microsoft still hasn't learned to keep sensitive plans for world domination out of its email? It's like some kind of bizarre sickness or something.

For what it's worth, we don't even get to read what exactly Bill asked for in this latest scandal. According to Reuters, "'after discussing the Palm computing platform, Mr. Gates concluded in his email,' starts one tantalizing sentence-- and abruptly it ends. At that point, Gates' comments were censored." But according to Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan, Bill's missive was strictly benign, simply discussing how to make Windows CE (now Pocket PC) better than the Palm: "What [the email] talks about is how our PDA will connect with Office, which has Outlook Express and Outlook included in it." Since we can't judge for ourselves, we'll just have to take Jim's word for it. Or we would, if we could parse his infinite strings of negatives: "Does the Palm product not work in terms of not syncing up with any Microsoft product? No." Hey Jim; does Microsoft not have no chance not to avoid never getting split up?