Compiled by Times technology staff
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The Arab News reported that an Israeli peace activist organization, Gush Shalom, has accused Microsoft of "crude nationalistic and militaristic propaganda" and mounted a letter-writing campaign to Chairman Bill Gates. Microsoft Israel was running billboard ads featuring Microsoft's logo and an Israeli flag. The text said, "From the depth of our heart — thanks to the Israeli Defense Forces."
Microsoft Israel removed the Tel Aviv billboards and a banner ad on the MSN Israel Web site. According to the report, Jonathan Murray, a vice president of global accounts, who was attending Saudi E-Commerce 2002 in Riyadh, said, "The billboards did not require and did not receive the approval of Microsoft Corporation. It was a Microsoft Israel decision alone."
Market timing: Expedia Chief Executive Richard Barton's first child was born the day the Bellevue company went public in 1999. Last week, after announcing record profits in the first quarter on Tuesday, he left work a little early. This time it was a result of two more new offerings: twins born about a week earlier.
Microsoft spun off Expedia in 1999 and sold its majority stake in the travel company to USA Networks in February, but apparently its ghosts still linger in the hallways of Expedia's building in Bellevue. In its first earnings announcement since it severed ties with Redmond, Expedia used RealNetworks' RealPlayer rather than Microsoft's Windows Media Player to Webcast the announcement.
But a gremlin cut off the call. It managed to restart a simultaneous teleconference, but not the Webcast.
Osama Bin Lay: At this month's Discovery Institute conference on "Re-Igniting the Tech Economy," senior fellow George Gilder proposed that politicians of late are attributing bankruptcies to a "crime-wave theory."
"In telecom, the telecasm occurred," he said. "Thirty-five companies went bankrupt, with more than $1 billion assets in each case. ... Politicians have a theory — and it can be summed up as a crime wave: Bubbleheads, executives, whatever you call it, Mohammed Atta Gates, Osama Bin Lay, Kenneth Mohammed Atta Gates, the names all run together."
He went on to say that "the end of the '90s was scintillating, not a failure. It was an incredible achievement. It made possible a 300,000-fold increase in Internet traffic. What it would have cost to sustain that growth — if we had been using telecom gear that was developed in 1995, the cost would have been $39 trillion in 2001. The Internet would have been impossible without the optical revolution that generated the advances."
What year is it? A Web site that uses a profanity in its name and which traffics in unconfirmed reports about layoffs said last week that eTunnels, a Seattle company that develops virtual private network technology, was possibly laying off employees. The company did not return phone calls on the matter.
But much ado was made on the nameless site about eTunnels' site, which features a quote from an employee: "I've learned more about network security at eTunnels than anywhere else in my whole career. The people are fun to work with and foosball during Friday Forums is a blast!"
On the aforementioned site, one reader wrote that when the career section of a company's site mentions foosball, you can be sure "they don't know what year it is."
On the record
Partnerships: Cognigen Networks, a Seattle telecommunications-services provider, joined the channel partner program at Speakeasy, an Internet-service provider in Seattle.... Seattle-based WatchGuard Technologies is partnering with Check Point Software Technologies, Redwood City, Calif., to deliver virtual-private-network security appliances. Download, a column of news bits, observations and miscellany, is gathered by The Seattle Times technology staff. We can be reached at 206-464-2265 or by e-mail at biztech at seattletimes.com.
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===== Kevin Dean Buffalo, NY ICQ: 8616001 AIM: KDean75206 Buffalo Activist Network http://www.buffaloactivist.net http://www.yaysoft.com
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