In the beginning, there was the stick. Then there were marks in the sand. Database technology then became more advanced when ...
To make a long story short, there was Bill and he had a vision - a vision to make money - lot's of it and he did. He made so much that he went past his fingers and his toes to count his billions. So he got a wife and he then used her fingers and toes and still - more billions ......
Meanwhile, Larry sat alone - no wife - no Operating System and more importantly - he could count his billions on his fingers, he didn't even need his toes! - This made Larry very, very sad - One day Larry thought about his life. "Let's see", he said, "What does Bill have that I don't have?" The items that came to his mind were an operating system, a suite, a wife and especially no 40 billion.
(Oh, by the way, the "suite" he thought of was not a tool used to get the wife. Larry means an office suite like Novell and IBM had - because everybody wants to have a Suite to go with their Operating system! - Hey, don't laugh - look what happened!)
"My, my, what am I going to do?" he said. "The way I see it I could surpass Bill or I could drag Bill down. Let's figure out a way to get everyone to ditch Windows and the suite product. But who will listen? I need everyone to help me. Hmmmm. I could use "the lack of wife" as an excuse. - Yeah, I'll go on Oprah and tell her that I am looking for a wife - she'll help me find one. I might even get lucky - after all, most women stop counting at the first billion, but not me - Gotta beat Bill, Gotta beat Bill."
So off to Oprah we go, and I talk about net terminals. The women respond and I get overwhelmed. The net terminals didn't go off like I wanted. "What to do, What to do."
"OK, the kids at the school that I "gave" the computers ("net terminals") to, want to be more like Mike, maybe I can try to be more like Bill. Let's look for some other things I don't have."
"Hey, Bill has that MS network thing. Well, I have the Orekkel channel, but that's really marketing talk for my courseware and doesn't really count."
"OK, how did Bill do it? He partnered. Who do I know who is heavy into media? Well, I burned the Oprah contact with that "help me find a wife" ruse. I don't really trust Fox - besides he's as rich as me and he's foreign. Need to find an American - hey - what about Captain Outrageous - Mr. Ted from Atlanta? After all, he married Barbarella and owns sports teams." So the events unfolded like this -
"Bill has a network and now I have one to - OK it's not as good as Bill's with Katy and all, but it's a start - and I will take the high ground with all that content. Oh, yeah I'll even use this event to try to slow Bill down and his operating system - I got it - I'll pull the cord out of the back of the PC during the demo and show the "real" solution. Hee - Hee - It's a Net Terminals! Grrrreat! - 40 billion here I come! If I had great developers I could have make a GPF occur when I wanted but that would be too hard."
Well, Spring Comdex 1997 has come and gone and it was great, but I really wish that the Larry and Ted's Excellent adventure (their Keynote address) started out something like this:
And that's the way it might have been for Larry and Ted's Excellent Adventure at Comdex
P.S. This is a fable and some of the names have been changed to protect the guilty and my posterior!
