Keep your friends close and your enemies closer-- nowhere is that maxim more important than in the high-tech industry. For a glowing example, look at Apple and Microsoft. Publicly, we were expected to swallow 1997's "strategic alliance" as the end of the platform wars. Since then we've had a fair amount of tender loving care from Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit; while it's still far from perfect, Office 98 is to Office 4.3 what a Sony high-definition big-screen TV is to a cardboard box with a hole cut in it. Meanwhile, we've got Internet Explorer as the default web browser on the Mac, while Steve Jobs takes every public opportunity to say that it's his "browser of choice." Sounds like these two companies are the best of friends, right?

That is, assuming that you ignore Apple's testimony in the antitrust lawsuit, which revealed that there were some serious cut-throat tactics beneath all the smiles; threats to cancel Office unless Apple embraced IE over Netscape, attempts to get Apple to "knife the baby" by killing QuickTime, etc. And how about those reports that Steve Jobs himself sicced the Justice Department on Redmond and even offered to pony up millions of dollars of his own personal cash to help finance the case? Bill and Steve aren't shaking hands because they're friends-- they're each making sure the other guy isn't holding a switchblade.

Which brings us to Larry Ellison. Unlike Steve, Larry is very anti-Microsoft in public. That in itself is a little surprising; one would think Steve would try to rein him in a little, what with Larry being on Apple's board of directors and all, but nooooooo. So Larry's attacks on the Redmond Menace are far more overt. For the past four years, he's been trying to topple the Wintel duopoly with his own pet project, the Network Computer. Remember this? Despite what you may have thought, the NC hasn't disappeared yet-- Larry's still pushing the "thin client" as the future of computing. According to The Register, his new company, New Internet Computer Co., is cranking out a $199 system "that is capable of doing little other than send email, surf the Web and get up Bill Gates' nose." Larry's giving 1100 of these things away to schools in the San Francisco area, in hopes of reviving support for the NC idea that's flopped time and time again.

But suddenly there's a new twist on the Bill-Steve-Larry triangle. While Larry's new $199 machine is currently targeted only for educational use, there are plans to adapt it for home users very soon. Says NIC's chief executive Gina Smith, "when we come out with a consumer computer later this year it will be the easiest to use machine on the planet." Hmmm... Now whose bread-and-butter market does it look like Larry's trying to swipe? Suddenly we have a much better idea of why Steve put Larry on the Apple board. It wasn't because they're best friends; it was to keep an eye on him as he plans to go after the iMac's target market with an "easiest to use" system that's a fifth of the price. Mistrust, betrayal, business pitting friend against friend... wait, didn't we see this plot twist once on Dynasty? And here you thought the soap opera metaphor was a stretch.