What really happens when Microsoft diversifies.

©Giblets®™

What really happens when Microsoft diversifies.

• By Em C. Pea
• 11/01/2000

My Fabio got this letter in the mail a few days ago, along with a few CDs in a cardboard shipping box. Thought I’d share it with you because as MCSEs, you have what I consider to be a touchingly gargantuan stake in what the big M is up to...

FirstName MiddleName LastName
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Dear FirstName:

Congratulations! Because of your status as a Phenomenally Preferred Customer, Microsoft™ has chosen you to participate as a prerelease tester for our new MicrosoftIsAmericanEnterpriseAtItsBest line of CultureWare™ products. Included in this first shipment is Release Candidate 1 of Microsoft™ Thanksgiving®, version 1.0. The specific system, family, and economic installation requirements for Microsoft™ Thanksgiving® are detailed in 2-point type on that small scrap of paper you thought was packing material. Microsoft™ Thanksgiving® is a complete holiday experience. Its functionality includes:

• Giblets. In gravy, in stuffing, in aspic, on whole wheat toast, giblets au poivre, mint giblet ripple sorbet—and that’s just the beginning. The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice was more than happy to provide their necks, gizzards, hearts, and livers in order to give you the most technologically advanced Thanksgiving® possible.

• Bob™. No, he’s not dead. From the beginning, Thanksgiving® was a community celebration in which those fortunate enough to have fortunes shared their bounty with those, uh, down on their luck. Hence Bob™. He’s been through lean times, but he’s studying for his MCSE now! Imagine Bob™ at your Microsoft™ Thanksgiving®.

• The Freedom to Innovate™. If you want to run your Microsoft™ Thanksgiving® on Thanksgiving Day, go right ahead. Or run it on Thanksgiving Day! It’s up to you. Microsoft™ Thanksgiving® is customizable, except you can’t save your changes, because that’s like having more than one Microsoft™ Thanksgiving®, and the End User License Agreement prohibits that, unless you send us $50 per configuration saved, or buy a 10-pack Thanksgiving Access License at $824.75, or 50-pack TAL at $11,830.62. Now that’s innovation you’d never see if Microsoft™ were torn apart by those barbarian bureaucrats who never once provided superior technology to a grateful public.

• Thanksgiving®.NET. Connect online through MSN with other families sharing Microsoft™ Thanksgiving®. Pass ’em a drumstick! Complain about Cousin Joey’s girlfriend with the nose ring! Pretend you’re someone else! It’s just like being on the real Internet, except you pay us more money. Thanksgiving®.NET is a Next Generation Windows Service written in our new programming language, B-flat.

• The Microsoft™ Meal Framework®. Envision, plan, develop, modify, baste, and deglaze your holiday repast with MMF, a New Millennium methodology for culinary technologists. Form focus groups to hammer out that difficult stuffing decision. Build a matrix organization in which the responsibility for peeling veggies is passed to those least capable of doing the job. Hate your appetizer manager. Publish a white paper on turnip mashing. And don’t forget the environmental impact statement for the cranberries. Aren’t those deliverables tasty?

• Stock options. Well, no. Not on your life.

• Features. More features than you can shake a Knowledge Base article at. So many features that we already have more than 200 hotfixes posted at the FTP site. So many features that Service Pack 1 is due to be released just after Christmas.

Future CultureWare© shipments will include Microsoft™ Christmas®, Hanukkah®, Labor Day®, Independence Day®, Easter®, Passover®, Ramadan®, Arbor Day®, and Halloween®.

We will contact you by phone several weeks after each shipment so that we can pretend to be interested in your comments and suggestions, while attempting to sell you more things you don’t need. Have your credit card ready. Welcome to CultureWare©.

Now go do something useful until we need you again.