[Newspoetry] Revision of Gorilla Bloat

[Nick Montfort]

I've added links referring to specific gorilla weight estimates (we
sometimes cite our sources) and - since I added in links - provided the
text marked up in How This Might Look. If the Engineering Times Web page 
comes back up you can chop out the "www.google.com/search?q=cache:" from 
that link. If there any are comments, send 'em along...

<H1><FONT FACE="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-Serif">Gorilla
Bloat</FONT></H1>

<p>Exactly how massive of a gorilla is Microsoft? Commentators seem
confused on the matter, although the weight is often pegged at 800 pounds.
There are those who claim that gorilla size doesn't matter, but the issue
is indeed important. Understanding the company's current gorilla-mass is
crucial to predicting the future of Microsoft. What will the company be
like, after all, when it is broken up into numerous baby and teen
gorillas?

<p>In contrast to the 800-pound figure, <cite>PC World</cite> suggested a
more modest weight <a
href="http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9811/11/smallos.idg/">back in
November 1998:</a> 500 pounds. Of course, Microsoft <i>has</i> grown
a bit since then. In December of 1998 <a
href="http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1998/49/ns-6400.html">a claim from Steve
Wadsworth</a> of Disney came out during the antitrust trial. He asserted
that Microsoft was a 1,000-pound gorilla. The <cite>Engineering
Times</cite> further confused the matter in their <a
href="http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.nspe.org/etweb/15vpt-99.asp">May
1999 issue,</a>
referring to Microsoft as a 1,200-pound gorilla. But that sort of figure
had a even more hyperbolic precedent - <cite>Computer Design</cite>
weighed Microsoft
in at 2,000 gorilla-pounds <a
href="http://www.computer-design.com/Editorial/1996/05/Analog/multimedia.html">back
in 1996.</a>

<p>Obesity is a particular American affliction, one which seems to be
reflected in Microsoft's growing gorilla-portliness. The average adult
male gorilla weighs less than 400 pounds. At most of the suggested
weights, Microsoft would be a sedentary, disgust-inspiring gorilla
spectacle, not a fearsome, competition-crushing alpha male. No one on the
Web - as yet - has made the more physically reasonable yet quite sinister
claim that Microsoft is a 666-pound gorilla. <a
href="http://www.oraclehumor.com/Humor/MicroDevil.html">Numerological
manipulations</a> of the ASCII values in Bill Gates's name hint that this
may be the case.

<p>Those who side with the justice department, hoping to righteously take
down an enormous gorilla, may actually be picking a heavier gorilla to bet
on. The government's regulatory apparatus was characterized as even more
massive than that of Microsoft, gorilla-wise, in a Nevada Policy Research
Institute article entitled <a
href="http://www.npri.org/issues/issues98/i_b061798.htm">"Reforming the
4,000 Pound Gorilla."</a> Even if we take this estimate seriously,
Microsoft may tip the scales of justice. In <a
href="http://www.hal-pc.org/journal/aug97/08caught.html">an August 1997
article</a> that appeared in the HAL-PC User Group's magazine, Microsoft
was dubbed a "five-thousand pound gorilla."

-Nick Montfort   nickm at media.mit.edu    http://www.media.mit.edu/~nickm