My Mac is privileged to present the best from As the Apple Turns, a Macintosh news and insight website presented in the style of a continuing saga. But culling the best of Jack Miller is no easy task, and we wish we could reprint them all. While we can't do that, we are at least able to choose a small sampling of his work and present them here as they appeared on his website. Enjoy the ongoing Mac soap opera, and when you get a chance, be sure to check out his website for your daily dose of drama! http://www.infoxczar.com/atat

That Syncing Feeling (1/23/00)

And so we must bid adieu to one of the most entertaining little men ever to grace the AtAT cast: Dr. Hanoch Shalit, the man, the myth, the legend. This is the guy who filed a ridiculously overinflated $1.1 billion lawsuit against Apple Computer, Inc. for allegedly infringing his color management patents in the product known as ColorSync, and then issued a press release every week or so to try to sponge as much investor attention as possible out of the suit. Well, here's a press release for Hanoch: according to an Apple press release, that lawsuit is now over, relegated to the Great Frivolous Lawsuit Dustbin of History; "the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has dismissed the Imatec, Ltd. and Hanoch Shalit patent litigation suit against Apple." Thanks to faithful viewers Adam Farstrup and Jim Joyner for being the first to share he joy.

And it sounds like Hanoch really took a pounding in the decision: "the Judge determined that Imatec and Shalit do not own the patents on which the suit was based and, furthermore... ColorSync does not infringe on these patents in any case." Ooooh, that's gotta hurt; given that Imatec doesn't make a single product but apparently only licenses out its now-worthless patents, it sounds like Hanoch's left with nothing. So much for the path to easy money. But hey, you mess with the bull and you get the horns. Schadenfreude, anyone? And it could have been lots worse: Judge Wapner would also have had Rusty the bailiff smack Hanoch upside the head and told him to get a real job, so we figure he kinda got off easy.

Just for fun, we thought we'd mosey on over to the Imatec web site; it still focuses on the lawsuit, with nary a mention that the suit's been thrown out of court. We figure Hanoch's still reeling from seeing his get-rich-quick scheme pull a Titanic. Any bets on what his next press release will say? "Today, Dr. Hanoch Shalit found out that karma does exist, uch to his professional and financial chagrin..."

The iCEO's Makin' Bank (1/23/00)

You know, it's amazing what a difference a couple of weeks can make. A fortnight ago, Steve Jobs was probably the lowest-paid CEO of a billion-dollar company in history. For two and a half years, the man accepted $1 a year as his only salary as he turned a sinking ship into the darling of the computer industry. No bonuses, no stock options, no nothing-- just a single measly buck so he was officially on the company payroll. And now he's arguably pulling down more crazy ducats than anyone else of his ilk. Oh, sure, his salary is still the same old buck a year, but it's the bonuses that have the media paying attention: the stock options for ten million shares of AAPL and the Gulfstream V jet.

Of the two components, the jet is the flashier; a $45 million private plane that lets Steve keep up with the Ellisons. Bad Boy Larry's been a Gulfstream V owner for a while, now, notes faithful viewer Robert Jung-- and according to Marc Messer, he regularly ticks off the locals by using it to violate local noise ordinances. Like John Haytol, we can't wait to see what happens when these two drag-race.

But while the jet's extravagant, it's the stock options that really have people blinking in disbelief. Ten million shares of AAPL is worth an amount of money known in financial circles as "a royal buttload." According to the Los Angeles Times, Steve made over $200 million on paper just in the past week. That's led "compensation expert" Graef Crystal to call Apple's Board's decision "irresponsible"; "it suggests a board that is just consumed with hero worship," he says. And he says that like it's a bad thing...

Okay, sure, if Steve uses his already-considerable wealth to exercise his options to the tune of the full ten million shares, he'll become the company's largest shareholder. But is that such a bad thing? Personally, we'd be thrilled to see Steve become a bigger shareholder than Microsoft. We've been edgy ever since the 1997 Stevenote when Gates announced that freaky $150 million investment, so we say, hey, more power to Steve.

"They Killed Hanoch!" (1/24/00)

Silly us! Yesterday we bade adieu to Dr. Hanoch Shalit, an occasional AtAT cast member for the better part of two years by virtue of his dramatically overinflated $1.1 billion patent infringement lawsuit against Apple. If you've been tuning in, you're aware that the judge just tossed the case out on its proverbial ear, claiming that Hanoch didn't even own the patents that Apple was alleged to have infringed, and even if he did, Apple never infringed on them anyway. Like dorks, we assumed that such a one-sided decision from the judge would put this case to rest once and for all-- but we failed to reckon with two factors: Hanoch's shameless and desperate need for attention, and a legal system that, for better or for worse, gives litigants more lives than Kenny from South Park.

That's right; Hanoch has long been King of the Press Release, and the one he issued in response to his case's dismissal is a doozy. Faithful viewer Guy McLimore was the first to point out Hanoch's latest masterpiece, in which he makes the brilliant move of calling the judge "misguided" and announces his plan to appeal. Says Hanoch, "with due respect to the court, the dismissal of our Complaint leads me to question how well the presiding judge understood the highly technical issues involved." Way to insult the judge, buddy. See, Hanoch's beef is that the judge "did not allow a trial by jury to proceed." Because as we all know, a jury is much more likely to understand those "highly technical issues" than a judge is. Or could it be that a jury would be easier to dupe, thereby representing better odds in Hanoch's grab for cash? In any case, it sounds like we'll have him on the show for a while longer.

We suppose we should take this opportunity to issue a public apology to Dr. Shalit; in the past we've surmised that Imatec is a one-man shakedown operation-- Hanoch and his patents. (Sounds like a Woody Allen movie, doesn't it?) But AAPL Investors corrects our false assumption: Imatec is, in fact, a two-man shakedown operation-- CEO Hanoch, and his CFO named James Smith. Which doesn't sound at all like an alias, so stop casting aspersions. Incidentally, AAPL Investors has lots of interesting little tidbits about Imatec; for instance, did you know that the company's total revenue over its twelve-year history amounts to $134,000? Or that for the past two years it's had zero income and a net loss of $6.3 million? Or that four months ago, Hanoch himself sold off 835,000 shares of his own company, representing "over 95%" of his holding and "22.4% of total outstanding shares"? When Hanoch finally fades into oblivion, we at AtAT will be sorry to see him leave the show; after all, what's a soap opera without financial strife and desperate measures?

Old Dog, Old Tricks (1/25/00)

Tsk, tsk-- you'd think Microsoft would have learned something from all those "creatively enhanced" test results they wheeled in for the "Redmond Justice" trial. Remember the faked videotapes showing how Windows 98 supposedly runs slower when Internet Explorer is removed, and the hilarity that ensued when government mouthpiece David Boies spotted the proof that the before and after results involved two different computers? Remember later in the same trial when Microsoft delivered test results showing Internet access speed comparisons between two operating systems and neglected to mention that one computer had a much faster modem? Check it out-- some folks just never learn.

The latest bit of skullduggery to issue forth from Redmond comes to us courtesy of faithful viewer Jerry O'Neil, in the form of an article in The Register. It seems that Microsoft got a bit overzealous in its marketing efforts for the forthcoming Windows 2000. Evidently the company feels that the much-delayed successor to Windows NT 4.0 needs a bit of a hard sell to pump up the sales numbers, especially after such a long wait. That's why they're claiming that, according to a ZD Labs speed comparison, Win2K "outperforms" NT 4.0 by "up to 24 percent" and is therefore "significantly faster." There's just one problem: the ZD Labs report apparently doesn't say that at all.

In fact, what ZD Labs found was that on systems with 64 MB of RAM (the vast majority of workstations would have at least that much, we imagine), Windows NT 4.0 was actually faster than Win2K. And the speed gap actually widened when the same tests were conducted on systems with 128 MB of RAM: "Windows 2000 was three per cent slower than Windows NT 4.0." Sadly, ZD Labs didn't test higher-RAM systems, which are very likely to be used in real-world scenarios, but if you'd care to extrapolate from those two data points, it sounds like NT 4.0's performance advantage grows as more RAM is added. And why bother with a 32 MB test at all, when Microsoft recommends a minimum of 64 MB for Win2K, unless it's just to provide at least one scenario in which Win2K is actually faster, albeit marginally so? Then there's the little issue of NT 4.0 being deliberately crippled in the tests by using a slower file transfer mode. The part that kills us, though, is that even with every advantage stacked towards Win2K, the test results were so lackluster that Microsoft still had to spin them for the marketing hype.

Rolls Off The Tongue (1/27/00)

Are there certain words in your vocabulary that you just don't get to use very much anymore? Well, if you're a tech journalist, you're probably accumulating a nice thick layer of dust on "beleaguered" these days. Even the most fervent Apple critic would have to be strung out on PCP to call the company "beleaguered" after nine consecutive profitable quarters, a hit product line-up, a soaring stock price, and a hefty pile of cash in the bank. Oh, sure, occasionally you can take the word off the shelf, dust it off, and stick it in front of "Compaq," but it's just not the same. "Beleaguered" sort of belongs to Apple, even though it no longer fits. It's kind of like retiring an athlete's number.

But here's our proposal: let's use it for Dell instead. It's no secret to anybody that Mike Dell has a dangerously unhealthy fixation on becoming Steve Jobs; just look at the way he runs his company. There's the available-in-five-colors, "easy Internet" WebPC, trying to be the iMac. There's the available-in-two-colors, consumer-targeted Inspiron 3700 laptop trying to be the iBook. Heck, now Dell's even pushing an 11 Mb/sec wireless home networking system-- AirPort, anyone?

So given that Dell's trying so hard to be Apple, the "beleaguered" tag should fit just right. Especially given Dell's second earnings warning in a row; faithful viewer Russell Maggio steered us towards a Reuters article describing Dell's latest woes. Apparently "parts shortages" and "Year 2000 computer bug fears" led to a sales shortfall. But after Dell went public with the news, its stock dropped only slightly in extremely heavy trading-- and some analysts even upgraded the stock. Hmmm... okay, so maybe it'll be a little while before Dell is actually "beleaguered." But it's good to know that there's hope for that word yet...

Jack Miller
jackm@infoXczar.com