[Am-info] Deadbeat Domain Name

[Mitch Stone]

>From "As the Apple Turns"

http://www.infoXczar.com/atat/reruns.shtml

Deadbeat Domain Name (12/29/99)  

This isn't exactly Apple-related, but it gave us a chuckle, so bear with. 
We assume you know what Hotmail is-- the largest free web-based email 
service, with over fifty million users. You may also know that a couple 
of years ago, Microsoft bought it, putting it under the MSN name. And you 
may have heard about Microsoft's embarrassing attempts to migrate the 
Unix-based Hotmail architecture over to a Windows NT infrastructure; 
because of NT's scalability problems, all efforts to make Hotmail a 
Windows-driven technology crashed and burned. To this day, Hotmail's 
running on Unix, much to Microsoft's dismay. (To be fair, Microsoft's not 
the only company not using its own operating system to host its web site; 
Apple's main site was once hosted exclusively on Macs, but is now served 
by Unix systems.) 

And now Hotmail's the source of another embarrassment up there in 
Redmond. Faithful viewer John Haytol forwarded us a CNNfn article about 
how Hotmail services went down last weekend-- because Microsoft forgot to 
pay their $35 domain name registration bill. Apparently Hotmail relies on 
Microsoft Passport to allow users to log in and check their mail-- and 
Microsoft had neglected to pay the annual renewal fee for PASSPORT.COM. 
So when Passport stopped working, Hotmail did, too. Millions of people 
were inconvenienced because of a $35 late payment. Think of it this way: 
if Bill Gates' entire fortune were represented by a 3 GB hard disk, that 
$35 comprises the letter "q" stored somewhere on the drive. 

But here's the real irony: as pointed out by faithful viewer Jeff Adkins, 
CNET reports that a lone Linux programmer named Michael Chaney actually 
got the Hotmail site working again by paying the registration fee 
himself, with a personal credit card on Christmas morning. Microsoft 
claims to be "profusely grateful" to Chaney, which is why they generously 
offered to-- get this-- "repay the $35." Ooooooo. What a lucky guy that 
Chaney is! He did a good deed for one of the richest corporations on 
earth, and in return, they're even offering to pony up the $35 he spent 
for them. Evidently Microsoft has been overcome with Christmas spirit, 
because they didn't even charge a 15% weekend transaction surcharge. Wow, 
it's just like A Christmas Carol, isn't it? For what it's worth, Chaney 
describes the whole event on his Linux-driven web page, and hints that 
maybe Microsoft should consider kicking him a little something extra for 
his trouble. It'll be interesting to hear whether his hints amount to 
anything or not.