REDMOND -- Microsoft Corporation has announced plans to acquire the
Website and Internet development corporation Higher Source for an
undisclosed fee. "Higher Source has proven its commitment to strange
mind-control cults and UFO religions," said Microsoft spokeswoman,
Anita Klue,"Their willingness to kill themselves for the sake of their
technology is the kind of dynamic action that Microsoft wants to promote."<p>
In conjunction with the acquisition, Microsoft announced a new program
called "Active Cult 97", which is expected to be in place by late
1998. Active Cult aims to make the use of Microsoft technology more
of a religion-driven decision as opposed to a technology-driven
decision. "This isn't expected to be a big change for Microsoft's
customer base," explained Ms. Klue. Details of Active Cult were not
disclosed, but it was suggested that instead of crashing with the
infamous "blue screen of death" or "General Protection Fault",
Microsoft's operating systems would merely display the message
"Windows died for your sins."<p>
Mike S. Brown, who writes about the industry in his PC Weak column
"M.S. Brown Knows" responded enthusiastically to the announcement.
"This really raises the stakes for Internet development. IBM may be
content to kill its own products, like OS/2, but Microsoft is willing
to kill its own developers and maybe even some customers. That's the
kind of bold difference that will make UNIX, OS/2 and the Mac
completely irrelevant by the end of 1996!" When is was pointed out
that 1996 was already over, Mr. Brown retorted,"No it's not! If it
was, then Microsoft would be behind schedule on Windows 97 -- which it
isn't."<p>
An IBM employee, who asked to remain anonymous due to the fact that
the whole issue was "extremely silly," said that "IBM is committed to
the future of network computing and OS/2 is an important part of that
future." He added that,"IBM is not interested in promoting suicide.
If you want to talk about promoting suicide, talk to Microsoft's
ISVs. Can you say `Citrix'?"<p>
Reaction amongst Windows users was generally positive. Ben de Miover,
CIO for a large company which recently switched its operations from
the Apple MacIntosh to Windows 95, explained,"Windows is really cool
because you can play Quake in, like, a window and stuff." He also
cited a complete lack of Windows 95 applications for the MacIntosh.
"How can modern business function without Windows 95 applications.
Y'know, like Quake?" In addition, he was pretty sure that OS/2 and
UNIX were "new wave bands from L.A."<p>
Linus Torvalds was unavailable for comment.<p>
As was the representative from Higher Source.<p>
(Donor: Charles Forsythe)<p>
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<font size="3"><B>Got any stuff for us? <a href="mailto:julian_patterson@vnu.co.uk">Send it</a> to us and if it's remotely funny or about computers or both we'll put it up.</B></font></FONT>
