Difficile est satiram non scribere.
(It is difficult not to write satire.)
--Juvenal
September 26, 2003
Fired or Resigned? Microsoft Critic Out of Job
By Roy Mark
From http://boston.internet.com
The primary author of a report critical of Microsoft is out of work.
@Stake, a Boston-based computer security firm that does business with Microsoft, issued a statement Thursday that Daniel Geer, who presented a white paper Wednesday in Washington that said the government's increasing reliance on Microsoft desktop software makes federal systems "susceptible to massive, cascading failures," is "no longer associated" with the firm as its chief technology officer.
The @Stake statement also said Geer's report was not approved by the company and that the "values and opinions of the report are not in line" with the company's views.
Neither @Stake, which has done software evaluation research for Microsoft, nor Geer would comment whether he was fired or resigned from the company. By Friday morning, Geer was no longer listed on the company's website as part of @Stake's management team.
Microsoft also denied it had any hand in the matter.
Asked in what way Geer's views were "not in line" with those of the company, a source inside @Stake said nothing, but did begin humming the tune to the late Jim Croce's song "You Don't Mess Around With Jim," in which the narrator suggest that
You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with Jim
Mr. Croce, who is, as we said, dead, could not be reached for comment. Superman was not available either. The Lone Ranger is - once again - in rehab.
The aforementioned Jim of the song could not comment either because, as listeners to oldies radio will know, he eventually wound up "looking like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone" on account of being "cut in 'bout a hundred places" and "shot in a couple more."
When asked if this might be a salutary lesson for Microsoft when contemplating the challenges posed by LINUX and others, King Bill sent his jester to the window to reply "There will never be a successful challenge to King Bill! He is King of Kings! He brooks no invidious literary comparisons! Look on his works, Ye Mighty, and Despair!"
A random poll of Micorsoft users, including the thousands who have lost time, work, or personal data to one of the myriad security flaws in Windows, suggests that they are already Despairing.
(Remember, Kids, the part in bold is actual 100% news-flavored media product. The rest is the fakey part.)
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