Microsoft Leaks Own Plans for Coup D'Etat
Microsoft may want to reconsider the
placement of an advertisement Chatterbox spied this morning while riding the
subway into work. The ad was on the platform for the inbound red-line train at
the Judiciary Square station. Dedicated followers of the Microsoft antitrust
trial and savvy Washington insiders know this to be the subway stop for the
federal courthouse where Microsoft's fate is at this very minute being
decided. If the presiding judge in the Microsoft case, Thomas Penfield Jackson,
takes the subway to work, this is probably where he gets off in the
morning.
It was therefore with some surprise that Chatterbox noticed that Microsoft
placed an ad in this spot for Windows 2000. Microsoft is widely suspected to
harbor ambitions of world conquest, but it was Chatterbox's impression that the
company wished to downplay any such ambitions while Judge Jackson considered
whether to break it up into itty-bitty pieces.
What, then, is one to make of this ad? Here is the text (superimposed on a
photograph of the American flag snapping in a stiff breeze):
The biggest .com of them all isn't a .com at all.
It's the U.S. government, and it created the Internet.
Imagine what it can do with Windows 2000.
Windows 2000: the government's business starts here. www.microsoft.com/federal
The ad's intent, obviously, is to
invite government managers to consider the benefits of upgrading their computer
systems to Windows 2000. One could read the text as an innocent pitch for a
nifty product that could help Uncle Sam do his job. But to Chatterbox, the tone
seems further to suggest that the federal government is a big software company
that would be well advised to merge with another big software company called
Microsoft. If it doesn't ... well, who's to say whether those poor saps at the
Agriculture Department will ever be able to keep track of the price of pork
bellies? The "government's business," after all, "starts here ."
