Off topic - Congressional hearings on computer industry competition:
Anyone see any of these proceedings on C-SPAN? I watched a bit this evening, the part I saw was pretty funny. The Senators (Hatch, Thurmond and others) were asking some pointed questions in regard to the browser war.
Senator Hatch - Mr. Dell, why do you not offer Netscape Navigator to your customers?
Dell - Well, we do offer it.
Senator Hatch - Mr. Dell, we called five different Dell tech reps, they said we cannot offer it to you. One of the reps said he preferred Netscape though. (Hatch said that rep would remain nameless).
Dell- (Beads of sweat now forming on his brow) - Well, we DO offer it to our large customers who demand it....... Dell then goes into damage control mode, stumbling on about how Dell determines what to offer based on negotiations, value to Dell, etc. etc....
John <gggg>
PS - Jim Barksdale was there, he mentioned how CPQ tried to put the Netscape icon up and how Mr. Softie threatened to pull their Windows license. He was pretty entertaining also, pulled no punches with Gates. When Gates said Windows was not a monopoly, Barksdale turned to the audience behind the panel and asked everyone who had a PC that ran Windows to raise their hands. Needless to say, you can imagine the result. He then asked for a show of hands of Netscape users. His comment to the smaller subset that raised was 'thats who Bill wants next'... |
