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...selection of Albert Einstein as the Person of the Century; two enterprising series by Don Barlett and Jim Steele that investigated corporate welfare and campaign finance; and Walter's own writing, including his profile of Bill Gates, which remains the best piece I have ever read on the Microsoft billionaire. But even more important than these highlights was TIME's editorial consistency, its cruising speed, which also rose to new levels...
...folks at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash. announced the latest result of their ceaseless efforts at "innovation." When the version of Microsoft Office now code-named "Office 10" arrives in late 2001, not only will consumers be able to buy the software, they'll be also able to buy an annual subscription. In other words, they pay Microsoft now, and if they don't pay again in a year to renew the subscription, their copy of Office stops working. A glowing Microsoft press release described the deal as an "exciting new opportunity" to receive the same version of Office...
...course, the overall cost (which includes upgrades) might be reasonable. Yet what's worrisome is that there's no reason why Microsoft needs to continue offering the product for sale. As long as the price of renewing Office is less than the cost of buying a different product and converting all the old files and documents to the new format, customers will continue to renew their subscriptions, year after year--not a bad deal for the folks in Redmond...
Unfortunately, Microsoft isn't alone in the pursuit of regular license fees instead of one-shot sales. As the technologies and legal systems governing electronic commerce begin to solidify, we are witnessing the emergence of a class of digital rent-seekers--a group of businesses and industry associations that use the tools of encryption and a favorable legal environment to change the source of their income from occasional sales to regular monthly or annual fees. A consumer who buys a product is far less vulnerable than one who merely rents or licenses a product--and what business wouldn't want...
...diversity of approaches to causing this damage is quite frightening: Viruses come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and affect files in any number of different ways. There are viruses that are called when the computer boots up each time and viruses that specifically attack certain programs like Microsoft Word. There are viruses for Macintoshes, Windows and Unix machines, as well as viruses for Palm Pilots and other hand-held computers. In a way oddly analogous to nuclear weapons, a virus' potential for damage is measured by its payload--exactly what it does--and its distribution. The ILOVEYOU virus...