"Gee, AtAT, how come you haven't worked Microsoft's latest QuickTime-crippling IE upgrade into the script yet?" That's what we're hearing from dozens of fans. (Well, maybe minus the "gee" part; perhaps we need to cut back on our "Leave It To Beaver" intake.) True, the issue first surfaced two whole weeks ago, and we haven't touched it yet, but that's because Microsoft's latest "mistake" is so obviously an overt anticompetitive sleazoid move, we figured everybody already knew the score. But then we overheard somebody state, without the tiniest hint of irony in his voice, that he felt Microsoft's latest QuickTime "oops" was an honest mistake and not part of some massive conspiracy to undermine Apple's media technology. And geez, we certainly couldn't let that pass without comment.

For those of you who have no idea what the heck we're talking about, faithful viewer Scott Naness has kindly pointed out a handy CNET article which describes the phenomenon. Here's the gist: Microsoft's most recent Service Pack for Internet Explorer (the Windows version) breaks the QuickTime plug-in completely. Why, you ask? Because after the Service Pack is applied, IE 5.5 (and the upcoming IE 6) no longer supports plug-ins at all. Instead, Microsoft is-- try not to die of shock, here-- pushing its own ActiveX technology as "the" way to link web content to desktop applications. Heck, we're actually stunned the company didn't pull a move like this sooner; it managed to antitrustify Netscape into irrelevance ages ago, so it was inevitable that any sort of Netscape technologies (like the browser plug-in) would soon be shown the door.

The problem appears to be that Microsoft kinda sorta neglected to mention this little architectural change to anyone-- particularly Apple, whose QuickTime media software is probably now regarded by millions of IE for Windows users as a steaming pile of nonfunctioning garbage. Meanwhile, Apple is now scrambling to "fix" QuickTime so that it works with Microsoft's new "No Plug-Ins Allowed" browser. And yet there are apparently still people out there who feel this was an honest mistake on Microsoft's part.

Evidently said people have forgotten that nearly three years ago, Apple software veep Avie Tevanian testified in the "Redmond Justice" trial that Microsoft threatened to cease development of Office for the Mac unless Apple "knifed the baby" by dropping QuickTime for Windows completely. They also seem to have forgotten Avie's claim that when Apple refused, Microsoft had deliberately introduced error messages into Windows so that QuickTime for Windows users would be prompted to switch back to Microsoft's own "ActiveMovie" software instead. (Shades of the Caldera rogue error messages; same sleazeball tactic, different competitor to squelch.) It is also quite possible that said people are on some serious drugs; who can say? Meanwhile, Microsoft promises a fix "soon," by which time thousands of Windows users will have already purged QuickTime from their systems. Hey, somebody sue these guys for antitru-- oh, yeah. Never mind.