Mike Judge was right. Fast forward 30 years when all but a few will be too dumb to use a computer that requires a setting change or troubleshooting.

The two founders of WordPerfect, Bruce Bastian and Dr. Alan Ashton were looking to retire and sell off the company. WordPerfect produced GroupWise and WordPerfect. The soon-to-be released versions of WordPerfect 6.1 (Windows) and 6.0 (UNIX) were getting rave reviews. As soon as they were released, they were sure to take MS Word by storm, put the last nail in WordStar's coffin and secure WordPerfect as the de facto word processor on the planet.

At the same time, Novell was having a hard time showing the value of NetWare-connected machines. Companies were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to install NetWare, but weren't seeing the value of 'networked' machines without an application to showcase NetWare-connected PCs.

Novell approached Alan and Bruce with an offer to purchase GroupWise. But Alan and Bruce were unwilling to split the company into two. Novell insisted and pushed. Novell finally agreed to buy the company (WordPerfect + GroupWise) - as a whole - for the negotiated price.

This all happened right before mass production of the new and highly reviewed WordPerfect products was to begin. All that was needed was for the 'Golden Bits' to be delivered to the factories for mass production, duplication, packaging and shipping. The channel was primed and the companies were waiting with bated breath to purchase the new WordPerfect.

But that never happened.

As soon as the company was purchased, Novell ignored WordPerfect (the product) like an ugly stepchild. They wrapped all of their energies and marketing muscle around GroupWise and bundled it with every sale of Novell NetWare. As a result, people were finally able to see the value of 'networked' machines that you allowed employees to collaborate calendars and share intra-office email.

But it was Novell that killed WordPerfect. There is no one else to blame. Novell killed a cash cow that was handed to them for nearly nothing. In the resulting vacuum, Microsoft Word slowly made inroads that eventually established Word as the word processing standard for the majority of companies around the world.

If the facts come out, it'll be clear Novell has no one to blame but themselves. And not just for WordPerfect's demise - but for NetWare as well. They've failed to capitalize on so many opportunities it's a wonder they even lasted as long as they did.

...to the next generation. I've got 12" vinyl and photographs I'll be able to pass down to my children. If all their music and photos are in the cloud, some of which they may not even 'own' in the view of comtent owners, what will they pass down to their children? A big chunk of our lives is turning so digital that there won't be much to represent who we were after we pass on.

Trend Micro gets it wrong on a few points. Windows Update is the updating service for Windows only. MSE is released through Microsoft Update - the service for applications and additional Microsoft software that didn't come on the CD/DVD with Windows - things like MS Office, SQL Server, Windows Live Essentials, etc. Not only do customers have to turn on Windows/Automatic Updates, but customers have to explicitly opt-into Microsoft Update for anything that's not part of Windows.

Trend Micro can't have it both ways. When MSE was originally released, nearly all AV vendors said MSE was inferior. Now that it will be automatically offered as an Optional update, suddenly it's not so bad after all. Anyway, it's not automatically offered to anyone, only to the customers who actually open their Windows/Microsoft Update console, find it and select it (i.e., they choose it).

Finally, MSFT was prohibited from offering additional features in Windows for anticompetitive reasons (email, newsgroup reader, IM, Movie Maker, Photo Gallery). Like MSE, these are now an optional update called Windows Live Essentials that customers have to explicitly select from the Windows/Microsoft Update console to receive. Is it wrong for MSFT to use their distribution channel to offer an optional upgrade in the same way? Replace MSFT in the pervious sentence with the name of your favorite auto manufacturer and see how much sense it makes.

With multiple online news and interest sources (23 page 'home' page), personal financial software, investments, innumerable interests and hobbies. With my new Droid, I found myself inundated with even more sources competing for my interests and time. Realizing the current demands on my curiosity and OCD-like tendencies was bad now and was trending worse, I took hard inventory of my life and greatly simplified.

It was hard – probably not much unlike an addict to some degree. But the harsh ‘life cutting’ I did to remove extraneous demands and perceived demands was the fix, not a unified data source or Wiki.

Remember the days of renting your dial telephone from the Ma Bell?

Allowing other manufacturers to create phones initially resulted in a slew of sub-standard, crappy telephones. After a short period of growing pains, touch-tone phones appeared and grew in popularity. This innovation was further enjoined by cordless phones.

I wonder what kind of antiquated phones we'd be stuck with today if we were still renting phones from a single provider.

How amazing, powerful and inexpensive can cable boxes become now that they're open to competition.

Down with Bush Hitler! Wait...

Show me a company that isn't doing something to drive more revenue and I'll show you a company on its last legs.

Aside from the obvious fact that everyone knew drawn graphics were far beyond what any video game could create in that era, compare the same to album covers from the 70's and 80's.

When I bought my 12-inch vinyl, I didn't get a prism splitting-light in a dark room, a scantily-clad barbarian woman or busty babe draped over a sketch of a car.

From the guy who proposed the fix in the triage meeting, "It's only a one-line change."

Agreed

No matter how glorious you think someone else's turd is, no one wants it in their punch bowl.

"...Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you."

"And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect."

If it weren't for the competition from Bing, would this have even happened?

Didn't we do this already? I thought this is how we ended up with all the different languages.