[Am-info] PREDICTIONS AND READING LISTS

[Fred A. Miller]

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ROBERT X. CRINGELY(R): "Notes from the Field" InfoWorld.com
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Monday, January 14, 2002


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PREDICTIONS AND READING LISTS

Posted January 11, 2002 01:01 PM  Pacific Time


"I THINK THE United States will try to annex Canada,"
Amber chimed in after reading my 2002 predictions last
week. She's got relatives up there and is a little bit
sensitive about that issue with our northern neighbors.

Your thoughts

Many of you also weighed in with your predictions, so
here's my selection (see if you can spot the common theme).

Microsoft will admit that the company has abused its
monopolistic powers and actually does something that
is not self-serving.

Microsoft's moral cleansing will see it support later
versions of Java.

This year will mark the greatest profit yet for
Microsoft, but also the beginning of the end. Lindows
won't be the killer OS, but it will start the ball rolling.

XP will cause people to open their eyes and wish they
were not so tied to one company.

The next wave of dot-com expansion is based on real
value, not speculation.

Wireless will fail to become The Next Big Thing, as it
has for the last five years.

You are what you read

One of the hottest stories last week was Apple's new
iDesklamp, er, sorry, iMac. Love it or hate it, Apple
is one of the few vendors still capable of enough hype
to get on the cover of Time.

My tip here is not about the iMac as much as an insight
into the people behind the scenes. A reader discovered
an interesting coincidence at Amazon.com's Purchase
Circles listings that collects data on books purchased
by company domain names. Click on "Apple" for the
books company employees are buying, and the top three
are Making iMovies, Second Coming of Steve Jobs, and
Mac OS X: The Complete Reference. Perhaps more amusing
is Dell's top three: Direct from Dell: Strategies that
Revolutionized an Industry, Cheap Psychological Tricks
for Lovers, and Cheap Psychological Tricks: What to Do
When Hard Work, Honesty, and Perseverance Fail. I
think there's something in that for all of us.

More Microsoft

Thank you to everyone who has contacted me to voice
concerns about Microsoft's settlement with the
Department of Justice. A quick update on the e-mail
addresses I published recently: The correct one to
send your concerns to is microsoft.atr@usdoj.gov.

Also, an update in defense of D-Link and LinkSys as per
my warning last week about wireless adapters that
don't work with Windows XP. A few of you wrote in to
say you've found success, so we now have conflicting reports.

"AND DON'T GET me started on Bush forgetting to thank
Canada for supporting the anti-terrorism campaign!"
Amber exclaimed. Ouch. I've got a live one here.

Send your rumors and stories to cringe@infoworld.com.



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- -- 
Fred A. Miller
Systems Administrator
Cornell Univ. Press Services
fm@cupserv.org

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