Today, Microsoft founder Bill Gates is entering retirement, signaling the end of an era for the corporation that brought us the Windows operating system. Through the years, Gates has been a veritable icon for the technology industry as his company helped usher the personal computer into a new, graphical-interfaced world.
It was in 1975 that Gates launched the company that would become the biggest name in computer software. His exit today has many wondering what the 52-year-old billionaire will do with his time.
The computer impresario, who revolutionized how the world uses PCs, says he’s looking forward to put his time into his real love, board games. He has wasted no time in his transition from Microsoft CEO to board game hawker with the introduction of Microsoft Monopoly. Watch the following infomercial as Mr. Gates introduced his new, innovative game:
Mountain View, CA — Sun Microsystems today filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against the island of Java* over the use of Sun’s Java* trademark.
Responding to criticism that the island has been called Java* for centuries, Sun lawyer Frank Cheatham said “Yeah, and in all that time they never filed for a trademark. They deserve to lose the name.”
Rather than pay the licensing fee, the island decided to change its name. They originally voted to change it to Visu Albasic, but an angry telegram from Redmond, Washington convinced them otherwise. The country finally settled on a symbol for a name — a neatly-colored coffee cup which still evokes the idea of java. Since most newspapers and magazines will not be able to print the name of the island, it will hereafter be referred to in print as “The Island Formerly Known As Java*”.
The Island Formerly Known As Java* bills itself as a cross-landmass island, but so far has only been implemented in production on the Malay Archipelago. Africa is been rumored to have implemented it on Madagascar, but it is still in alpha testing.
Lawyers from Sun would also like to locate the owners of the huge fiery ball at the center of the solar system. They have some legal papers for them…
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*Java is a Trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Anyone caught using the trademark without permission will be beaten, flogged, sued, and forced to use Microsoft products.
Washington DC - Not long ago we all went through the Year 2000 crisis. If you were in the computer and software industry you recall the many headaches in converting and changing databases and software so the Year 2000 would be a smooth rollover. No one thought 20 years earlier that their software would still be around, but it was and the two digit year fields caused big problems.
Well, how do we know our software isn’t going to be around for the year 10,000? All our 4 digit year fields will have to be converted to 5 digit fields. It’s never too early to start planning for this major event.
What happens when the year 10,000 hits? Can your systems handle a year of 0000? Most systems will crash and burn if left unchanged. The task of converting every date and changing every program that uses date logic is huge. This is one project that has a deadline set in stone! It can’t be moved or missed! You need to start now in planning for the Year 10,000 Crisis.
Today marks the 20th anniversary of the announcement of the AS/400. Happy Birthday to an amazing computer system that continues to power thousands of businesses around the globe. The date was June 21st, 1988, when IBM introduced the Application System/400 (AS/400). The AS/400 quickly became one of the world’s most popular business computing systems. By 1997, IBM had shipped nearly a half-million AS/400s. Despite its several name changes, the current IBM i carries on the same legacy that began with the original AS/400. Long live the AS/400!
Glendale, CA – Cocoa is a hot new programming language developed by Nestle Microsystems. The language was originally designed for programming hot chocolate machines but Nestle soon realized that the language had the potential to do much more. Because it is “architecture neutral” it can run on any device with a microchip including PCs, the System i, Cray computers, Coke machines, Timex watches, car stereos, TVs, DVD players, mobile phones and microwave ovens. You can literally surf the net and bake a potato at the same time! With the Cocoa Virtual Machine (CVM) on the System i it can run all Cocoa applets. Applets can be created using Visual Cocoa from Microsoft or VisualAge for Cocoa from IBM.
Nashville, TN – The 2008 Annual Meeting and Exposition of the COMMON user group took place in Nashville, Tennessee. The opening session began at 3:30 pm on Sunday and what a session that was! First the audience was welcomed by COMMON president Randy Dufault where he outlined the highlights of the coming week. Then he dropped the bombshell when he announced the keynote speaker would be none other than Bill Gates of Microsoft Corporation. This was a shock and surprise to most attendees.
Dufault explained that Mr. Gates was invited to speak to help bring the IBM Midrange world closer to the mainstream software industry by following the Microsoft software development model. His speech was entitled: Software Quality through Perception, Not Reality. His company of course produces a number of software products and is very experienced in the above topic. Some of the concepts covered were:
Marketing your software before it’s completed (or ever started for that matter).
Convincing users a software bug is a feature.
Crushing the competition and still being able to sleep at night.
Putting a pretty face on old, out-dated code and reselling it as a new product. (see Windows Vista)
How to sell a software fix as an upgrade.
The speech was very enlightening. Of course the concepts presented will require a very different mindset among IBM i developers but at least they will all be perceived as better information systems developers because of it.
Rochester, MN - IBM yesterday said it would expand its efforts to address the growing global waste data disposal crisis by teaming up with Data Waste Management, Inc. Together the companies will jointly introduce new services, technologies and financing to help enterprises facing the skyrocketing costs of waste data disposal.
Throughout the world companies produce billions and billions of bytes of data every year. As the data has grown the challenge to dispose of waste data has increased. At first enterprises tried Database Management Systems, then DataMarts and now huge Data Warehouses to store the enormous amount of waste data. As new government mandates require “greener” waste data disposal, this new partnership will help organizations with this undertaking by offering information and technologies in the following areas:
· Basic data disposal
· Hazardous waste data disposal techniques
· Data recycling and reclamation
· Awareness of illegal data dumping
· Government and EPA rules on waste data storage and disposal
Dr. Zwilinsky R. Romonowski, CEO and head of this partnership, stated the first step for any organization is to sign up for their basic introductory service which will provide a data dumpster at your location with monthly pickup and disposal service. Dr. Zwilinsky projected the average company would be able to save at lease 40% in waste data disposal costs in the first year.
We don’t know which is more fun – to poke fun of Microsoft or IBM. What’s best is when they both are talked about in the same article. This was on the front page of the November 2000 issue of Midrange Technology Showcase. Enjoy.
Are you a latecomer to the Internet? Have you only recently upgraded from a green-screen 5250 terminal? Is the Internet a little intimidating to you? Don’t worry, you can become a Master of the Internet!
Cupertino, Cal. (AP) — Symantec issued an apology to Microsoft yesterday after the security software maker’s AntiVirus Research Center issued an alert for a “widespread and lethal virus known to cause system crashes and data loss” that turned out to be the Windows Vista operating system. Symantec CEO John Thompson called it a “regrettable but understandable” mistake.
Rumors have abounded for years that the false religion of Microsoft, who touts that large parishes can be run using Windows servers, actually runs their organization using more than a few iSeries systems. The heathens have always officially denied it, but the rumors don’t go away. The story also goes that some time in the 1990’s they tried to replace their iSeries systems with 1,200 Windows servers in a year-long project that was eventually scrapped because A) they couldn’t process the data as fast as the iSeries and B) they had problems keeping so many servers operational.
To compete in today’s competitive developer’s arena the modern System i developer needs to acquire the work habits of software developers from other platforms such as Linux, Unix and Windows. This training video will help you learn these subtle work habits:
A new aid to rapid, almost magical, learning has made its appearance. Indications are such that, if it catches on, all the electronic gadgets will be so much junk. The new device is known as Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge. The developers usually call it by its initials, BOOK(tm).
Many advantages are claimed over the old-style learning and teaching aids which most people are using today. It has no wires or electric circuits to break down. No connection is needed to an electrical power point. It is made entirely without mechanical parts that could go bad or need replacement.
Anyone can use BOOK(tm), even children, and it fits comfortably into the hands. It can be conveniently used in any standing or sitting positing. For example, it can be used while sitting in an armchair by the fire. Read the rest of this entry »
In a press conference early this morning, the former CEO of Novell, Robert Frankenberg revealed that Novell and Microsoft had been working together for years to increase Microsoft’s dominance of the computer industry. In a secret partnership with Microsoft, Novell has been strategically acquiring Microsoft’s major competitors in the software industry and ruining them.
The relationship goes back a number of years, according to Frankenberg. “[Digital Research's] DR-DOS 5.0 was ten times the operating system that MS-DOS 4.01 was. Microsoft couldn’t even steal technology fast enough to compete. That was when they first contacted Novell.” Under direction from Microsoft, Novell then purchased Digital Research, a small California company best known for its CP/M operating system. Read the rest of this entry »
Apparently IBM has embraced Second Life in a big way for its worldwide network of employees. (See IBM eyes move into Second Life ‘v-business’) This video gives an interesting look at what IBM’s strategy is with Second Life:
Apple Computer purchased a Cray supercomputer in the mid-1980s. In fact, Steve Jobs was Cray’s first and only walk-in customer. He arrived unannounced (so the story goes) at Cray headquarters in Mendota Heights, Minnesota and asked to speak to someone about buying a Cray. They nearly threw him out. It’s only slightly less eccentric than someone walking into NASA’s Johnson Space Center and inquiring how to purchase a shuttle orbiter.
Later, Cray’s president John Rollwagen phoned Cray’s CEO Seymour Cray and told him that Apple had just purchased a Cray that would be used in designing the next Macintosh. Seymour thought for a bit, and replied that that seemed reasonable, since he was using a Macintosh to design the next Cray!
Here you will find a humorous and irreverent look at the IBM Midrange world. If you have worked with the IBM AS/400, iSeries, i5, System i or i on Power, you will want to check out these pages. Welcome, explore and have fun.
