Hm.... EBusiness Intelligence Software?  NOT!

Things like this just make you wonder:

Call it a case of conspicuous consumption. Steal $9 million worth of software from Microsoft through an employee purchase program, use the profits to buy an extravagant collection of cars, jewelry, a motorcycle and a yacht, and proudly display the loot on your personal Web page.

Detailing the elaborate scheme in a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Seattle, federal officials allege former Microsoft manager Daniel Feussner, 32, ordered high-end Microsoft software through an internal purchasing program and sold it on the street for cash. Feussner, director of retrieval technology, was arrested at work Wednesday on Microsoft's Redmond campus and charged with computer, wire and mail fraud.

...

From December 2001 through Nov. 25, investigators say, Feussner received more than 1,600 pieces of software through MS Market, a program that allows employees to order software at no charge for Microsoft business. The orders were transmitted to Client Logic, a Microsoft vendor in Buffalo, which had the software shipped to Feussner by express mail.  [_Go_]

I mean how can you not notice something like this?  Wouldn't you think that an ecommerce administrator might notice that all the purchases were coming from a single IP address?  Or that all the orders were going to one location?  I mean couldn't you notice something ?  Seeing something like this and knowing that Microsoft wants to get into the "ebusiness" software arena doesn't fill me with happy thoughts.

10:55:26 AM      Google It!   comment []    IM Me About This   

They got the guns But we got the numbers

Thinking a bit about the Wired / Mitch / Outlook / Microsoft thing I just posted brings to mind the Doors song "Five to One" and the lines in particular:

They got the guns

But we got the numbers [_Go_]

To me that really symbolizes Open Source.  Microsoft does have the guns: cash, respect, products, shareholders and everything else.  But we've got the numbers -- literally millions of people who have had their lives empowered by Open Source.  That's millions of people who are realizing "Hey!  I don't have to spend money for a Web Server / Relational Database / Word Processor / Web Browser / Operating System / Email System / Whatever ".  And every year our numbers grow. 

Now that's not to say that I think Microsoft is going to go away.  They're not.  I mean look at all the prophets of doom for Apple back in the 90s and they're back.  Once a company gets to a certain size it is very hard for it to disappear.  Microsoft is around for years if not decades to come.  Still ....

We got the numbers

10:42:28 AM      Google It!   comment []    IM Me About This   

Mitch Kapor and Outlook

Thanks to Dave I see that Wired wants to cast Mitch Kapor and his new email product as an anti-Microsoft thing.  [_Wired_].  Interestingly he doesn't want to. [_More_] 

10:28:23 AM      Google It!   comment []    IM Me About This   

It's Gonna Be a Tough Day

You know is going to be a tough day when:

1. At 4:30ish am and you are actually sleeping when you hear a large crash and have to investigate.  The cats managed to jump onto a 4+ ' high radiator and knock over the mail bin.
   
   
2. You follow that with a 9:00 am ish phone call coming in only ... when you are running to find the cordless phone, you instead discover a fresh and squishy hairball.  With your foot.  Needless to say the phone was not answered.

And now one of the two said cats is on my lap with a "Who Me?" look on his face....

9:15:05 AM      Google It!   comment []    IM Me About This