The webloggers who work at Microsoft are out in force. Beth Goza is back.

A couple people asked me "so, what do you think about Apple buying Universal?" and "what do you think it'll mean for Microsoft?"

Well, I don't know. I see that the Slashdot crowd generally thinks it's a good thing. I generally do too. The music industry has had its head in the sand for too long. It's good that a company that makes personal computers is getting in there and shaking things up.

My note about dealing with criticism got me mentioned on the Boston Globe's "job blog." I looked for something to criticise there, but couldn't find anything. I hope more newspapers start up sites that help its readers find jobs. Let's see, my wife is out of work. My brother. My brother-in-law. Many of the people who read here. Many of my friends. It really really sucks out there in the technology industry. This industry needs a reboot in the worst way.

Ahh, life has given me a major choice to make. Come read this weekend about how I deal with it. (maybe Monday cause this is a Patrick/Daddy weekend)

DonXML makes it clear that he's not Don Box. Thanks! I think this industry is large enough for "two Dons who love XML."

It's my perception that John Dvorak, columnist at PC Magazine, loves taking outrageous views on things. Why? Because then people talk about him, and link to him. John seems to think that if everyone talks about his outrageous ideas and links to him, that that makes him successful. OK, I cry uncle cause I'm talking about him, and linking to him.

So, why am I writing about him, if I'm so cynical about his motives? Cause it's fun and if I didn't write about him, I'd probably write about war, or about how Scott McNealy is messing up Silicon Valley, or something equally inane to what Dvorak writes about.

This week Dvorak wrote a column that said "Apple must go with Intel or risk its future."

Now, what's wrong with that? Well, for one, Apple has already decided not to go with Intel, so Dvorak's column is a little like me writing a column about "why Bill Gates should give me a billion dollars." Yeah, that'd be a fun thing to consider, and it has the sheen of "well, it +could+ happen" but let me tell you that it honestly won't happen. Neither will Apple go with Intel.

My sources inside Apple tell me that Apple has decided to go with IBM for all of its future Macintosh chips and has decided not to go with Intel. They will announce this decision in June, at their developer conference. This decision was made months ago.

So, the fact that Dvorak keeps writing about Apple going with Intel could mean a couple of things.

1) He knows that Apple will never go with Intel, but isn't going to publicly announce its decision for a couple more months, which will give him open season for telling Apple what to do, knowing full well they've already decided against his ideas. This will let him write a future column saying "Apple is run by dummies who didn't listen to me, therefor they will be relegated to the "won't be relevant" pile of technologies."

2) Apple is paying him to run an obfuscation series of columns so that their announcement in June won't be leaked and even if it does, the industry is kept in a state of confusion. After all, I'm one of the few people who's said that Apple is going with IBM -- permanently. Who are most people in the industry going to believe? Dvorak or Scoble?

Anyway, I'll bet Dvorak $1000 that Apple is going with IBM for all of its future desktop processors. I also bet that he won't take that bet, cause he already knows which way Apple has decided to go, but he's using them for his own little PR stunts.

Hey, I guess this all means I won't get invites to sit at his table when I go to Gnomedex in July (note to self: he's a speaker there and I'm not)? Heh.