The Onion’s 9 best bits about Microsoft

Poking fun at the software giant and founder Bill Gates since 1996

Going on two decades of ridicule
The Onion, self-branded "America's Finest News Source," has been making fun of Microsoft -- and, in particular, Bill Gates -- since at least 1996, according to its online archive. Here are nine of what we've judged to be the best efforts.

Bill Gates To Get Half
Publication date: July 23, 1996

Sample: "Don't touch anything until you're sure it's not part of my half," Gates instructed the world's citizenry yesterday via the several million 40-foot-high projection screens he has scattered throughout the globe. "I don’t want anyone messing up stuff in my half."

Bill Gates Spends $56 Million On Amazon In One Night
Published: Sept. 22, 2011

Sample: "The kids were in bed, and I was thinking about how it had been a long time since I'd heard any Yes, so I bought the MP3 for 'Leave It,'" Gates said as he opened one of the 13,846 boxes that had arrived at his house.

Microsoft patents ones and zeros
Published: March 25, 1998

Sample: "Microsoft has been using the binary system of ones and zeroes ever since its inception in 1975," Gates told reporters. "For years, in the interest of the overall health of the computer industry, we permitted the free and unfettered use of our proprietary numeric systems. However, changing marketplace conditions and the increasingly predatory practices of certain competitors now leave us with no choice but to seek compensation for the use of our numerals."

Thousands Wait Overnight At Microsoft Stores For Second Generation Zune
Published: Dec. 17, 2007

Sample: The sleek new Zune, whose record-breaking sales have made the Zune name synonymous with "mp3 player," was so sought-after that thousands formed long lines outside hip, minimalist Microsoft Stores across the country days before the device went on sale. In Midtown Manhattan, the hysteria reached such a fever pitch that some were willing to pay as much as $200 for a spot in line.

Microsoft Signs Justice Dept. Attorney To $350 Million Endorsement Deal
Published: Jan. 21, 1998

Sample: Klein, who will appear in Microsoft TV and print ads, joins a growing list of high-profile government personalities who have signed endorsement deals with the software giant, including solicitor general Seth Waxman, FTC chair Robert Pitofsky, and federal judge Thomas Penfield Jackson.

Microsoft Ad Campaign Crashing Nation's Televisions
Published: Oct. 27, 2008

Sample: The Microsoft ads, which began airing earlier this week, are being blamed for generating critical system errors in more than 70 million televisions. In addition, thousands of frustrated Americans said that the ads have caused their TVs to become unresponsive, their screens to turn blue, and a small box with the message "terminal application error" to suddenly appear.

Bill Gates Finally Getting Into Radiohead's Kid A
Published: Sept. 12, 2001

Sample: "I listened to it a few times when I first got it, but it just wasn't grabbing me," Gates told The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Xbox capable of controlling users
Sample from video: "TechBuzz is raving. 'This is the future of gaming. With the Xbox One we are closer than ever to being completely piloted by a console. It's the immersive obedience experience we've been waiting for.' "

Modern-Day John Henry Dies Trying To Out-Spreadsheet Excel 11.0
Published: Feb. 27, 2006

Sample: Peters challenged the computer after an interoffice memo announced that Excel's powerful upgraded accounting software would render jobs in the accounts receivable division obsolete and result in sweeping layoffs. Although warned repeatedly by his colleagues in billing, Peters insisted that he could beat the software "to the bottom of a large balance sheet of bedrock-hard figures."

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Internet Explorer only? IE doubt it

Fewer businesses standardizing browser use on Internet Explorer, but the practice isn't gone yet.

Just as Internet users in general have defected in huge numbers from Microsoft Internet Explorer over the past several years, the business world, as well, is becoming less dependent on the venerable browser.

Companies that used to mandate the use of IE for access to web resources are beginning to embrace a far more heterodox attitude toward web browsers. While it hasn't gone away, the experience of having to use IE 6 to access some legacy in-house web app is becoming less common.

"Things have changed a lot in the last three years, and I think a lot of it has to do with the emergence of the modern web and the popularity of mobile. They have made it very different for companies to truly standardize on a browser," says Gartner Research analyst David Mitchell Smith.

One example of the changing face of business browser use is SquareTwo Financial, a Denver-based financial services company that works primarily in distressed asset management. The firm's 280 employees handle both consumer and commercial business, buying and selling debt, and a franchise program means that there are upwards of 1,500 more people working at SquareTwo affiliates. According to CTO Chris Reigrut, the company takes in roughly $280 million in annual revenue.

"In addition to buying and selling debt, we also provide a software-as-a-service platform that our franchises (and we) use to actually negotiate and litigate the debt," he tells Network World.

Square Two hasn't needed to standardize, he says, because keeping their offerings diverse is part of the idea - the company's various online resources all have differing requirements.

"We do distribute Firefox on Windows systems - however, Safari and IE are both frequently used. Our internal wiki is only officially supported on Firefox and Safari. Our SaaS 'client' is a pre-packaged Firefox install so that it looks more like a traditional thick-client application. Most of our employees use their browser for a couple of internal systems, as well as several external services (i.e. HR, training, etc)," says Reigrut (who, like the other IT pros quoted in this story is a member of the CIO Executive Council Pathways program for leadership development).

The Microsoft faithful, however, are still out there. Many businesses have chosen to remain standardized on IE, for several reasons. SickKids, a children's research hospital in Toronto, sticks with Microsoft's browser mostly for the ease of applying updates.

"We have more than 7,000 end-point devices. Most of those devices are Windows workstations and Internet Explorer is included as part of the Microsoft Windows operating system. As such, this makes it easier and integrates well with our solution to manage and deploy upgrades, patches and hotfixes to the OS including IE," says implementations director Peter Parsan.

"Internet Explorer is more than a browser, it is the foundation for Internet functionality in Windows," he adds.

The complexity of managing an ecosystem with more than 100 types of software - running the gamut from productivity applications to clinical programs - requires a heavily controlled approach, according to Parsan.

Smith agrees that IE still has its advantages for business users that want just such a strictly regimented technology infrastructure.

"If you want a managed, traditional IT environment ... really, your only option is Internet Explorer," he says, adding that both Firefox and Chrome lag behind IE in terms of effective centralized management tools.

Some companies, however, have gone a different way - standardizing not on IE, but on a competing browser.

Elliot Tally, senior director of enterprise apps for electronics manufacturer Sanmina, says his company's employees are highly dependent on browsers for business-critical activities. Everything from ERP to document control (which he notes is "big for a manufacturing company") to the supply chain is run from a web app.

Tally says Sanmina made the move to standardize on Chrome in 2009, in part because of a simultaneous switch to Gmail and Google Apps from IE and Microsoft products.

"It made sense to go with the browser created and supported by the company that created the apps we rely on. Also, Chrome installs in user space so it doesn't require admin privileges to auto-update," he says. "It also silently auto-updates, as opposed to Firefox, which requires a fresh install to update versions, or IE, which is similar. Chrome, over the last year or so, has supported web standards better than any other browser, and (until recently) has offered significantly better performance."

Plainly, broad diversity exists both in the actual browsers used by workers and the approaches businesses have taken in managing their use.

That diversity, says Smith, is the reason Gartner has been advising clients against standardization from the outset.

"Standardize on standards, not browsers," he urges. "That was a controversial position for 10 years. People really didn't agree with it, they didn't listen to it, and they paid the price."

Microsoft, as well, has had to pay a price.

"[Standardization] hurts Microsoft's reputation as an innovator; as a forward-thinker," he says. "When people's impression of using Microsoft technology - whether it's a browser, whether it's an operating system - is something that is two or three versions old, because they're dealing with it through what enterprises want."

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