![]() | |
![]() ![]() |
1995 Fools: PRESS RELEASE: Microsoft Announces Revolutionary New Product
From jwebb@axis.org Sun Apr 2 15:29:58 EDT 1995 Article: 101355 of comp.os.os2.advocacy Path: bigblue.oit.unc.edu!concert!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!lll-winken.llnl.gov!enews.sgi.com!decwrl!waikato!auckland.ac.nz!gl_28.cs.auckland.ac.nz!user From: jwebb@axis.org (James Webb) Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,com.os.ms-windows.announce,comp.os.ms-windows.misc,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy Subject: PRESS RELEASE: Microsoft Announces Revolutionary New Product Date: 1 Apr 1995 02:12:03 GMT Organization: Axis Press Lines: 71 Message-ID: <jwebb-0104951412390001@gl_28.cs.auckland.ac.nz> NNTP-Posting-Host: gl_28.cs.auckland.ac.nz Xref: bigblue.oit.unc.edu comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:65280 comp.os.ms-windows.misc:55076 comp.os.os2.advocacy:101355 comp.sys.mac.advocacy:45076 4/1/95 Axis Press Redmond Microsoft Announces Revolutionary New Product It has long been rumored that Microsoft's dominant position in the software industry must be due to some secret in-house 'killer' development environment, but it wasn't until today that proof of the existence of such a system became publicly available. The timing of the release coincides with a recent unfavorable court decision and appears to be an attempt to ameliorate relations with the Department of Justice. Sources inside Microsoft say that the system, codenamed Verbatim, was never intended for release. Moreover, according to their contractual agreements, staff alluding to the existence of Verbatim could expect to be forced to relinquish their positions without notice, precluded from working in any computing-related industry for at least ten years, and sued for the sum of their entire asset value. However, this has all changed with the announcement of Microsoft Word for Word, version 1.0. According to Microsoft spokesperson Roger Yutudeth, WfW provides a "total software conversion service". By application of a brute-force comparison algorithm with all possible programs, any binary file can be reconstituted into a form that is usable as part of a Microsoft product. With WfW, Microsoft has produced such success stories as Windows, Word, Excel, and in fact everything else in their product line. And what about those 'miserable few lines' that are identical to code from Apple's Quicktime? "Nah," snorts Yutudeth, "that was too hard. In the end, we just stole that stuff." Doesn't the exhaustive search nature of WfW constitute a serious performance degradation? "Yes, that's true. Have you noticed how the performance of Windows products is a trifle slow?" asked Yutudeth, conspiratorially. Agonisingly slow, yes. "Well, that's because WfW was incorporated into every application we wrote. It spent 80% of the CPU time searching the hard drive for competing applications, applying the WfW algorithm to them, and then subtly trashing them. What you thought was virtual memory thrashing was actually background re- engineering, and all those undocumented system calls were used whenever our engineers wanted to download the results from your network." Couldn't this release endanger Microsoft's competitive edge? Yutudeth pales noticeably. "Competitive edge? Are you trying to be funny?" Well, monopoly position, then. "Of course not. Now, we'll be able to coerce more people than ever into writing Microsoft-only products, because they know that anything they write for another platform can be pirat...er...reproduced for the Windows suite by anybody". A First Glance at Word for Word We were given just a brief 24 weeks to test WfW (18 of which were spent on system startup), so we only managed to try it out on Apple's System 7.0. The result was a trifle unexpected: a point-and-click version of Solitaire. Applying it to System 7.5 resulted in a version that allowed unlimited cycling through the deck of cards. When questioned about these results, Yutudeth said "I'm sure that it's abundantly clear to everyone that Microsoft is committed to improved user-friendliness". Product Synopsis: Microsoft Word for Word 1.0 Price: base cost: $999,999,999,999.95 licencing costs: $0.50 per ASCII character of WfW-generated code Minimum Requirements: 1 mid-range Unix-based machine or 10^100 networked Microsoft Servers 1.800000640 GB of RAM (extra required for DOS) 220.000000000028 TB of Disk (extra required for COMMAND.COM) $70,000,000 per year in legal fees (projected) -- David Norman "Of course, I see things like this" - from the Young Ones http://cs.auckland.ac.nz/~dnor01/
![]() |