Microsoft News Tracker

It must be the dog days of summer if the hot news is that the above Steve Ballmer Zune iPod parody has been linked by a joker off a Microsoft website. I don’t expect it to last long, but it’s currently reachable via http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7200131. Of course, the “real” Zune news isn’t that much more profound, since the press is filled with breathless stories that there will be new Zune models for holiday shoppers. I’m shocked, I tell ya!

Today, if you check out the bio Web page for J Allard (of Xbox and Zune fame and currently Corporate Vice President of Design and Development for the Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division), you’ll notice that the usually “very smooth” Allard is sporting dreadlocks and holding a Sony PSP. It’s all a result of losing a bet as he explains. Hat tip to Patrick Klepek at 1up.com who’ll retain the spiffy photo and the explanation long after it disappears from the Microsoft site.

(Via Amit Agarwal). I usually don’t mention Bill Gates’ personal (as opposed to Microsoft) activities, but I can’t resist World’s Two Richest Men Can Eat for Free at Hooters:

While they surely don’t need the help, the world’s two richest men can now eat for free at Hooters restaurants. On Friday October 20, 2006 Bill Gates and Warren Buffet were presented with Hooters VIP Cards at a Hooters Restaurant in Kansas City, Kansas. The Cards entitle the gentlemen, who currently rank numbers 1 and 2 on the list of worlds richest, to free food at any of the chains 435 locations in 46 states and 20 countries exclusive of tip and alcohol.

The pair made a stop at the Hooters Restaurant along with members of the Board of Directors for Berkshire Hathaway. The visit came at the request of Buffet so the group could pose for a Christmas Card photo with the chain’s beautiful Hooters girls.

Indeed. The Christmas Card photo is available at either of the links. I guess it’s another instance of the old aphorism, “If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime. If you give a man a Hooters VIP Card, he will eat for a lifetime served by young women in skimpy outfits.”

If you’re like me, sometimes the recurring advice, prominent in the “blogosphere”, that companies really need to have “conversations” with their customers becomes exceedingly cloying. Don’t fear, Nicholas Carr is here:

Conversation isn’t king. Good products and services at fair prices are king - always were, always will be. Which would you rather do business with - a company that delivers great goods but has no interest in buttonholing you into some pathetic excuse for “a conversation,” or a company that sells you crap but is great at conversing? Well, duh.

The last we thing we need is companies getting in touch publicly with their inner suckiness. Just give me something I want to buy and shut the hell up. I have enough friends.

Here’s a thought experiment: as you pay your monthly bills, consider how many of the vendors you really want to have a prolonged conversation with.

IBM “thought leader” and Executive VP of Innovation and Technology, Nicholas Donofrio says so:

“The fact is that innovation was a little different in the 20th century. It’s not easy (now) to come up with greater and different things,” Donofrio said.

“If you’re looking for the next big thing, stop looking. There’s no such thing as the next big thing,” he added.

Hmm, that sounds like the old one about closing the patent office because there is nothing left to invent or the story told about famous physicist Max Planck:

“..The Munich physics professor Philipp von Jolly advised him against going into physics, saying, “in this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few holes.”

There’s no need to worry though - the article relates that IBM has some alternatives to the “next big thing” which seem to be along the lines of doing the same old stuff, but describing it differently with larger words and in bigger meetings.