In response to Joe Rosenblatt's posting, Rich Trapp writes:

> Ditto!
>
>  Be Awirt! The world needs more Wirts!

In my considered opinion, no good would come of it. The world would then be
going from bad to wirts.

More on topic, what I wrote yesterday wasn't all that original. By
coincidence, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's new president, said virtually the
same thing yesterday, too, at a conference in San Francisco. I've included
part of his comments from a today's NY Times article below. The complete
article is at:


http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/09/biztech/articles/14microsoft.html

While I said that "we're at the cusp of a new day," Ballmer said that "we're
at an inflection point," which are precisely the same words that Ann
Livermore of HP has been using lately. The only real difference between the
point of view that I'm advocating and those of Steve and Ann is that they're
intent on using the web browser as the interface back into the host
computer/server, using such structures as XML and DCOM, while I find that
path significantly unnecessarily complex and cumbersome. Otherwise, we're
saying much the same thing.

Even more importantly, perhaps, is that everybody is scrambling, trying to
figure out how anybody makes any money in this new world :-). Microsoft hates
the idea of cheap PCs being used as terminals. I think that it's rather
inevitable.

Wirt Atmar


========================================

Microsoft Starts Recruiting for Its Next War
By STEVE LOHR

SAN FRANCISCO -- The browser war may be a memory, but executives of the
Microsoft Corp. conceded Monday that the company now faces an even greater
challenge in the next phase of the Internet's evolution, as the role of
traditional desktop software recedes and the power center of computing shifts
from the operating system to the World Wide Web.

Software is increasingly becoming a Web-based service whose main goal is to
hasten the spread of electronic commerce over the Internet. At an event here
to sketch out in broad strokes Microsoft's technical blueprint for Web
software, the company's president, Steven Ballmer, gave his most candid
appraisal to date of the hurdle his company faces.

"We are at an inflection point," Ballmer said, adding that the Web strategy
announced Monday was "as important if not more important" than plans the
company detailed for the browser market in 1995.

"We'll either come through this period with a strong following or we'll be in
trouble," he said.

Ballmer spoke at a conference here that marks the start of a stepped-up drive
by Microsoft to persuade software developers to use its technology for
building Web-based applications and Internet-based commerce services. The
company is positioning this shift as a way for personal computer software to
embrace the Internet and is promoting its Windows DNA 2000 family of
products.

========================================