To: Eric L who wrote (2605 ) 10/23/2002 8:40:39 PM From: Eric L Read Replies (1) | Respond to re: Andrew Orlowski on the Stinker Canary "We're being spanked by Nokia - Gates" Microsoft hates the "Stinker" moniker so much, that it's rebranded Stinker as "Canary" - perhaps unaware of the bird's history as a sacrificial and disposable early warning system for miners. When the Canary dies - you clear out fast. theregister.co.uk "Gates dismisses mobile phone rumours" which says:Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman, has dismissed speculation that his company plans to scale back its ambitions in the mobile phone software market. ..."We have spent millions of dollars to be in that category and our breakthrough product is just now shipping to carriers," said Mr Gates. "Our investment in that area continues to go up and our success is really exciting right now. Of course, we are way, way, way behind Nokia but we have a long-term view of this and we are making our investments consistent with that." search.ft.com Three "ways" is significant - because Bill's "way"-scale is logarithmic (not a lot of people know that). The phone group has been reorganized so many times that the org chart must surely be assembled out of fridge magnets. ....... ZDNet columnist David Coursey, in a piece entitled New Microsoft cell phone: Why I just love it! , doesn't seem to have used it to make a call, or send a message - but he gives it a rave nonetheless. zdnet.com Gates also tried to dissuade Motorola from joining Symbian, before deciding on a strategy:- work with the Symbian partners on PBXs, work "hardcore" with the smaller manufacturers Gates describes as "the seven dwarves", and ominously "work with CDMA". theregister.co.uk
