Channel Talk (16 July)

• How much would you pay a CEO if, during one year, he had negotiated the purchase of a major software developer (Cheyenne Software), offered significant upgrades to its Unicenter product line, and made disappointing European sales causing its share price to plunge? Well, if you are Charles Wang, CEO of Computer Associates, you get a salary of $1 million and a bonus of $5 million ? making him the highest paid CEO in the computer business. But it does have to be pointed out that he did not receive a rise for 1996, as he was paid exactly the same for 1995. Not a bad wage for the CEO of a company that has a reputation for buying a company then stripping out all of the technologies.
• If you go down to the woods today you could be sure of a very big surprise, especially at Microsoft?s Redmond HQ. Sex therapist Dr Ruth Westheimer recently paid a visit to Microsoft CEO Bill Gates? multimillion dollar nerve (or should that be ?nerd?? ? Ed) centre to examine the social interaction of MS employees. She was none too impressed, reflecting on the long hours everyone puts in and the predilection for communicating via email. ?It is difficult to have good sex if you work 80 hours a week,? Dr Ruth observed. She came up with an interesting solution though. According to Microsoft?s in-house newsletter, she noted there were a number of spots suitable for a ?romantic interlude? in the attractive wooded surroundings of the Redmond site. So, if you find an increasing number of bugs in MS software in the coming months, you?ll know why.
• Now for the second instalment about what would happen if Microsoft made cars:
• You would be under constant corporate pressure to upgrade, because the car you bought 8,000 miles ago is now out of date.
• People would get excited about new features included on new models, totally forgetting that these have been available from other car manufacturers for years.
• You would find that you can only carry yourself in the car, although you have the potential to carry others, but not without buying new seats, upgrading the engine, or buying the Car NT model.
• The engine manufacturer would supply the most amazingly powerful unit of all time, before the structured object-oriented, device-independent Microsoft engineers restricted all its potential, installed an old gearbox and fitted skinny wheels.
• Sun Motorcars would make supercars that were 10 times quicker, environmentally efficient, half the price and fault-tolerant, but could only run on certain roads during certain phases of the moon.
• Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, recently bought American football team the Seahawks for $200 million. He already owns a basketball team, Portland Trail Blazers, leaving only baseball as the sport he has not invested in. Wonder if he fancies becoming West Ham?s sponsor, as it hasn?t yet found anyone? Or, for that matter, anyone in the computer business?