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To: GVTucker who wrote (73143)	5/17/2001 1:48:57 PM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 93625

Hey. That "Chinese Wall" thing takes me back to something that is supposed to be attributable to Ballmer. Microsoft executives often spoke of a "Chinese wall" between the systems group, responsible for DOS and Windows, and the applications group, responsible for the programs that ran in those operating environments. Ballmer himself once said there was "a very clean separation" -- "It's like the separation of church and state." around.com Of course, that was at one particular time and place. Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, and who could accuse Ballmer of being small minded? Earlier in that article: Microsoft's applications group and its system group were able to "fly in formation," as Ballmer puts it (zooming his hands cheerfully through the air). Microsoft critics have said that flying in formation included sharing technical information that gave Microsoft's own programmers an advantage over outsiders trying to write fast and well-integrated Windows software, and there is some truth to that. But there is also no question that WordPerfect, Lotus and Borland were late by choice—in part because, caught up in the Catch-22 of the operating-system wars, they knew that their Windows versions would help Microsoft by cementing the establishment of Windows. It's all entertainment, though. People say and write the darnedest things, as anybody who's read this thread for a while can attest to.