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50 Bucks Breaks The Bank (10/28/02)
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Oh my oh my oh dinosaurs, it seems like Microsoft just can't stay out of trouble for even a minute, can it? As first noted by faithful viewer Steve Bickerton, last week the company ran afoul of New York City authorities when it apparently chose to advertise the release of MSN 8 by slapping giant rainbow lepidoptera all over town. Say what now? According to the New York Times, these "large adhesive butterflies" had wingspans of "12 to 20 inches" and wound up stuck to everything from subway signs to handicapped access ramps.
When informed that sticking big plastic butterflies all over public property was illegal (go figure!), Microsoft's PR firm first claimed that it had "permits for everything," but refused to provide any details about what agency had granted those alleged permits. According to The Register, Microsoft eventually apologized for the butterfly invasion, and was fined-- get this-- $50 for its infraction.
Fifty bucks?! Ooooo, yeah, that's a fine that's got Bill Gates worriedly checking his bank balance to see if he needs to transfer any funds. Will Microsoft bounce back from this monumental financial setback? Geez, for fifty bucks we should ship a crate of AtAT stickers out to our Big Apple viewers and tell them to plaster the town with 'em. Seriously, even we can afford that, which means to Microsoft, a fifty-dollar fine isn't so much a "slap on the wrist" as it is a sort of "gentle caress on the hiney." The least the city could have done was fine Microsoft $50 per decal, as apparently it had every right to do.
On the other hand, NYC's fine is fifty bucks more than the Department of Justice has been able to squeeze out of Microsoft for considerably more heinous transgressions-- and extracting an apology from the Redmond Beast was nothing short of miraculous, so maybe we should be happy with what we got. Clearly this is the beginning of the end for Microsoft. What's next in its saga of crime and punishment, do you suppose? We're guessing twenty hours of community service for blowing up a bus full of nuns...
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 10/28/02 episode: October 28, 2002: Apple announces its intention to open three, count 'em, three new retail stores this Saturday. Meanwhile, rumors fly about new displays and PowerBooks slated to surface in a week, and Microsoft litters New York City for the sake of advertising MSN 8 and is fined the unreasonable sum of fifty big ones...
Other scenes from that episode: 3801: It'll End In Tears, For Sure (10/28/02) Say, remember when we noted about a week ago that if Apple still wants to meet its retail expansion goals this year, it'll have to open no fewer than ten stores in just five weeks? Well, by virtue of the inexorable march of time (i.e. thanks to your trusty Gerund-A-Day desk calendar, your vocabulary is now seven words richer), now that deadline's dropped to ten stores in four weeks... 3802: Treason & Gunpowder Plot (10/28/02) Boy howdy, buckaroos, if you've been sitting around waiting for Apple to revamp its line of displays, you've been waiting a very long time indeed. Oh, sure, we got the 23-inch Apple Cinema HD Display waaaay back in March, but unless you're the type of person who had a hankering for a 1920x1200 screen and $3499 sitting around in convenient cartoony bundles of cash, the odds are pretty good that that particular announcement didn't mean a whole lot to you personally...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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