Borland ate
Ashton-Tate,
Learned that it was poison, but by then it was too late.
***
All praise to earnest Albert Gore,
The Veep.
He's working through the night while you're
Asleep.
Gonna build that highway,
Gonna build it my way,
Says straight, unbending Albert Gore,
The Veep.
But Al, is your way open, free, or
Cheap?
***
Kaleida had a kalision with Spindler's bottom line.
When Michael makes decisions, executives resign.
Heads of two divisions fell under Spindler's frown.
As well as lesser mortals: The shake-up trickles down.
***
Last year Utah-based Novell
Planned, when it bought USL,
To shake the Windows, rattle Gates.
Float UnixWare on the Great Salt Lake.
But new exec Bob Frankenberg
Thinks desktop Unix is absurd,
So former CEO Ray Noorda's
Plan floats dead upon the waters.
***
A bug in a chip that's already been shipped
Is rarely a thing to applaud.
But with Bill saying, "Trust us," 'twas poetic justice
When the Clipper was shown to be flawed.
***
Richard Nixon, scum of the earth,
Was buried with honors in the land of his birth.
Kurt Cobain, the voice of our youth,
Considered a bullet the pathway to truth.
Isn't it time that somebody said,
It's not always wrong to speak ill of the dead?
***
Their RS systems sales were brisk,
So IBM thought, "Run the RISC!"
Apple beat them to the punch.
Will Compaq have them both for lunch?
***
Microsoft lost! Though it's hard to believe,
They're making the payments; there'll be no reprieve.
The judge gave his verdict, to anonymous cheers.
A million a month for almost four years.
And Stac Electronics has reason to grin:
They're now growing fat from making files thin.
But somewhere in Redmond there's code now in test
For sending out royalty payments compressed.
Michael Swaine
poet-at-large
Copyright © 1994, Dr. Dobb's Journal