I’m in Seattle today on business. So as you would imagine the local paper here pays special attention to, among other topics, all things Microsoft.
But I was struck by the near-Kremlinological level of focus in a front-page item in the Seattle Times business section that reported on the failure of Microsoft to send Windows Vista off to manufacturing according to schedule — or, wait a minute, it’s not really a schedule, it’s just that a Times reporter saw a sign in a building window a week ago that said the new operating system would be off to manufacturing in a week. But now it seems that was wrong.
This kind of Vatican-smoke-signals reading felt more like trade-journal stuff or material from an obsessive blogger. In fact it’s both; the real story — in more detail and with a far more appropriately light tone — comes from veteran Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley’s blog.
Meanwile, Microsoft has released IE7. Walt Mossberg points out that mostly it’s about catching IE users up with features that Firefox has always had. IE users get tabs! This is a good thing, don’t get me wrong — it’s just so long in coming that it feels like it barely matters. Opera gave me tabs so long ago I can’t even remember life without them.
Finally: Front page of the Journal today features reporter Pui-Wing Tam’s personal account of her year-long surveillance by the leak-crazed Hewlett-Packard investigators. At the bottom of the front page: an H-P ad. (This is either the first or one of the first times the Journal has placed advertising on its front page.) Is this a plain old “whoops”? A sign of how airtight the Journal keeps the seal between church and state? Or an act of corporate contrition (“We spied on you, we’re sorry, here’s some business”)? Who knows? It’s certainly eyebrow-raising.
[tags]microsoft, vista, ie7, hewlett-packard[/tags]
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