The Weekly Round-Up: 09.09.05

Oh dear, oh dear, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been at it again with reports suggesting Bill Gates' right hand man made a series of expletive-littered threats relating to what he'd like to do to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy," Ballmer is reported to have said of Schmidt - the Round-Up presumes at some volume.

A court filing of a sworn statement from a former Microsoft exec added that Ballmer said he thinks "f***ing Eric Schmidt is a f***ing pussy".

(The Round-Up is aware it's using more 'Asterisks' than you'd find at a French school fancy dress party but we're sure you're aware which words the potty-mouthed exec is reported to have used and why we omitted them rather than set off too many email filters).

The reason for Ballmer's considerable ire was Microsoft exec Mark Lucovsky, who announced in November 2004 his plans to leave the Seattle-area software firm.

According to Lucovsky, during a meeting between the two, "Mr Ballmer said: 'Just tell me it's not Google'."

When Lucovsky replied along the lines of 'Well it's funny you should say that, I wish I could...' Ballmer launched into his abusive tirade.

Now, this has all come to light during a legal dispute involving another Microsoft exec, Kai-Fu Lee, who also departed for the Googleplex in July, in breach, claims Microsoft, of a one-year limit it imposes on staff who might be thinking of joining a rival.

Unsurprisingly Ballmer has responded to the claims, branding them "a gross exaggeration".

"Mark Lucovsky's account of our conversation last November is a gross exaggeration of what actually took place," Ballmer said. "Mark's decision to leave was disappointing and I urged him strongly to change his mind. But his characterisation of that meeting is not accurate."

But of course he would say that, wouldn't he.

This isn't the first time Ballmer's been forced to react to one of his many alleged outbursts.

Last year, while in the company of a silicon.com reporter, Ballmer made some derogatory comments about iPod users.

By the next day, when pressed to repeat the comments by other journalists, he claimed not to remember suggesting that users of the popular MP3 players tend to steal more music than they buy.

Though, to give Ballmer his due, on that occasion he didn't claim he hadn't made the remarks, just that he didn't remember making them. So it's interesting that he now claims to remember the details (and possibly the 'f***-count') of an outburst which happened almost one year ago.

Clearly it's just his short-term memory that Ballmer struggles with - so presumably he will certainly remember being the arch-rival of Marvel comics' 'Spiderwoman' - captured for posterity by this front cover from 1980.

(Thanks to our colleagues in the US for somehow unearthing that uncanny look-a-like.)

And if it's been a bad week of news for Microsoft, and as a result a better week for Google, then it's been a really lousy, 'Is-it-Friday-yet?' kind of a week for the folk at Yahoo! whose celebratory name has rarely seemed as far from appropriate.

First of all, the company was named and shamed for handing over information to the Chinese authorities which enabled them to convict a journalist over the leaking of state secrets (known in other less controversial regimes as 'freedom of speech').

Companies are increasingly doing what they can to get a foot in the door in that rather large, emerging market but critics of Yahoo! claim it has overstepped the mark in aiding the arrest of a journalist and doing favours for a government renowned and reviled for its heavy-handed censorship of the media.

The Chinese government claimed 37-year-old Shi Tao, who wrote for newspaper Dangdai Shang Bao, had leaked a "state secret" overseas but Reporters Without Borders, a French media watchdog, claimed this secret was nothing more than an email sent to journalists warning of dissidents returning to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Shi admitted passing on the email but questioned whether such a general advisory could be classed as a secret document. The Chinese government listened to what he had to say, ignored it and jailed Shi for 10 years, sparking something of a witch-hunt for the secret informer who connected Shi to the leak.

Step forward the Hong Kong Yahoo! office, which Reporters Without Borders claim provided all the data necessary to link Shi to the leak.

Reporters Without Borders said in its statement: "We already knew that Yahoo! collaborates enthusiastically with the Chinese regime in questions of censorship, and now we know it is a Chinese police informant as well."

Ouch.

The Round-Up thinks it is interesting it was a France-based media watchdog which outed Yahoo!, given that the company has run into several problems in France previously - not least over a freedom of speech defence it presented when French authorities demanded the removal of Nazi memorabilia from its online auction sites.

What a difference a couple of years can make. Is the Round-Up right to think there is little consensus of freedom of speech in France these days? One to debate.

And as if being accused of perpetuating human rights breaches wasn't bad enough the company has also been hit with the slightly lesser - though in any given week, still unwanted - accusation of aiding and abetting cyber criminals.

The anti-spam group Spamhaus has accused Yahoo! of hosting thousands of phishing sites which appear as fake payment sites intended to dupe users into handing over credit card details.

Such sites are often where money is harvested at the business end of phishing cons, according to Richard Cox from Spamhaus.

Cox said Yahoo! has failed to respond to numerous emails from Spamhaus warning of the problem, leading him to believe the company is simply favouring a 'turn a blind eye' approach to the problem.

The Round-Up, just to stir the pot a little more, suggests Cox tries emailing them from a server based in China.

Perhaps, just perhaps, they'd read it then.

It's been a much better week for Apple though as the company released a number of new gadgets to satisfy the legions of frothy-mouthed Mac fans eager to have the next iteration of the iPod. (You can see a pic of it here)

But perhaps most amazing was Steve Jobs' unveiling of a device which allows humans to shrink themselves to the size of a cigarette lighter or about half the size of a modern mobile phone. He even tested it himself, live on stage.

Don't believe us? Then click here.

And Jobs also announced that audio book versions of all six Harry Potter books will be made available via iTunes, read by the actor Jim Dale - or "that bloke from Carry on Cowboy", as Jobs probably doesn't refer to him.

The Round-Up seems to remember the earlier audio books were narrated by Steven Fry - arguably a much better-known performer than Dale. So there's inflation for you (as anybody who observed Fry's changing physique during the 90s may also feel inclined to comment).

Madonna meanwhile found the whole event so riveting she appeared to fall asleep.

We're assured she was just blinking when the photo was taken because she later managed to talk to Jobs over Apple's iChat application, before plugging her new record and doubtless collecting a wheelbarrow full of cash for her efforts.

And speaking of money for old rope, a number of London's taxi drivers - or the latter day highwaymen who daily redefine the word 'knowledge' - have agreed to accept Adobe's corporate largesse and have their Hackney carriages painted up in the software firm's livery.

(Those with a long enough memory - or 'our one-time investors' as they are also known - may remember this was also a stunt silicon.com pulled some years back, so we'll be careful what we say having already ruined any chance of getting a black cab to pick up outside our offices with the previous sentence.)

And Adobe is keen to get journalists involved in what might loosely be called 'the fun', with a novel competition.

The first 25 journalists to spot one of these taxis will each win a bottle of champagne.

Now the Round-Up has never asked you for (too) much but would appreciate your assistance with this one. If you spot any of these taxis around London or the surrounding area then send us a picture with the time, location and registration plate and we'll offer great and public thanks in a future Round-Up.

We feel as though we must also share some of Adobe's press release with you as it is a wonderful piece of 'creative writing'.

"As people return back to work from their summer holidays and the city of London is beginning to get busier again, Adobe is on hand making it even easier to move through the streets of London with some stylish, sponsored cabs."

OK, we know Adobe is keen on issues of intellectual property so we don't think they are really claiming to have invented taxis, which surely with or without their branding would have been 'making life easier' (... or more expensive to put it another way) on the streets of London. Only with somebody else's advertising. We're also not sure what there is about the design of these taxis which make it "easier" than any others "to move through the streets of London".

Perhaps they have Steve Jobs' shrinking machine and can drive under the other cars.

It continues: "Just as Adobe's platform-driven approach is focused on providing complete and innovative solutions for consumers... these Adobe cabs are ensuring that you have the platform for an easier, more enjoyable journey to work."

Now, putting aside the fact that that paragraph really stinks, and that there is nothing enjoyable about paying £20 to sit in traffic on the Embankment, is this simile really a path Adobe wants to go down, likening their products to a London cab?

Do they really want us to assume that using their "platform-driven approach" makes about as much economic sense as chucking your wallet down a well, or that their products don't work so well "south of the river"?

Probably not.

And finally, speaking of south of the river, most eyes will be trained on The Oval over the weekend as the Ashes series reaches its conclusion.

It seems the nation's hunger for cricket has reached fever pitch - sparking a welter of press releases quantifying the network costs, lost bandwidth and lost productivity resulting from the sport's phenomenal return to nationwide prominence.

Apparently the Ashes are costing UK businesses £300,000 per hour, according to a company called Network General which does something predictably linked to network management or the like.

Stuart Beattie, bandwagon jumping marketing type at Network General, said: "While every company is aware of the risks posed by computer viruses, few will have ever considered Ricky Ponting and Michael Vaughan's men a potential threat to their computer networks."

Of course he almost certainly didn't say that. More likely his team sat around a table for an hour before conceding that it was probably the best sound-bite they could muster.

"This potential problem doesn't just stop with The Ashes," he added. "Firms need to recognise that people will always want to keep up to date with big sporting events and as such need to think ahead to minimise the potential risk of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah... "

The company added that "London's financial district has been singled out as the biggest potential hotspot, largely due to its traditional cricketing ties"...

The Round-Up really doesn't know whether they mean actual club ties around their necks or a strong affiliation to the game but, either way, it's nice to see the stereotypes alive and well.